It’s hard to sell a computer that’s treated you so well over the years but really, after a while technology and computer power change so dramatically I really can’t wait any longer to give up my most current backup/burning rig. I love that sucker and it’s treated me well but it’s time for it to go. No worries though, I’m going to make sure the new owners will treat it well.

I wonder if my backup rig understood it’s time was up when I actually kept the last laptop I refurbished; a sweet little Intel dual-core beauty? This one was too good to let go, as it didn’t cost me anything and almost every part, including the screen I have drop-in replacements for. That’s a stroke of luck that just normally doesn’t come your way often let alone ever. I even have 2 good extended capacity batteries for it as well! SCORE!!

I’ve been using the laptop as my backup rig and over the last 2 years or so using a laptop as a desktop replacement has been not only possible but affordable.

When I was still in Las Vegas I accidentally stumbled upon refurbishing, repairing and re-selling laptops because they were so plentiful and cheap. I never paid more than $50 for a non-working/broken laptop and 90% of the time I was able to repair and resell them for a couple hundred dollars more than they cost me. If I didn’t manage to repair one, I cannibalized it for parts and resold them for twice what I paid for them so I always made some money.

Every once in a while, I’d come across a laptop I liked once I fixed it and contemplated keeping it. But I really didn’t have a need for a laptop and quickly sold it for $$$$ before I could get too attached to it.

But this one was the most powerful of the lot, with a non-crippled fast Intel dual core chip and the donor computer I was going to use to fix it was exactly the same except for the CPU in it; so I had plenty of duplicate parts if I could get it to work. And with a little help from a local genius here we were able to get it up and running again without having to take any parts from the donor unit.

Heck, we even swapped the cleaner keyboard, bottom less scratched shell and the trackpad with no paint worn off on the left button from the donor unit just so it looked nicer for fun while we had everything open.

So I now have a nice Acer 5570z laptop that works great and has spare parts for everything in it (save for the processor and mobo) and my poor previous backup rig is going to be sent to the highest bidder. Oh well that’s the circle of life when it comes to computing.

Did I mention the beauty of using a laptop instead of a desktop as a secondary machine is it’s a lot smaller and whisper quiet?

Ahhhh. Silence = golden. Well except for the whining from the backup rig headed out the door…