On 4/16/2020 6:21 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Terry Coombs"Â* wrote in message ...

Â* This desktop is my last XP box - and it's dual boot with 7 as an
alternate since it got a new mobo . If the old motherboard had not
started to fail it would still be a straight XP machine . I may try to
resurrect that motherboard , I found 3 slightly bulged electrolytic caps
after the swap , all easily accessible for replacement .
Â*Snag
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I've been buying trade-ins from Vermont and Maine state governments at
a flea market. The latest is a pristine 2015 Thinkpad T530 laptop with
a clean, valid reinstall of Win 10 for $100. It's old and thick enough
to have user-accessible RAM and a removable DVD drive so I doubled the
RAM, cloned the HDD to an SSD and archived it, and bought a plug-in
caddy for a second internal (bootable) hard drive.

These don't have great gaming graphics or many desktop expansion slots
but they are solid business-quality machines from Dell, HP, Lenovo etc.



Â* My laptop is a T510 lease return , the wife's is a T420 . Both are
running W7 SP1 . Both were factory refurbs in like-new condition when we
got them . Hers still has the DVD tray installed , mine has a 500 Gb hdd
in that slot - I use it to back up all my music and photos plus a bunch
of other stuff I'd rather not have to replace .

--
Snag
Yes , I'm old
and crochety - and armed .
Get outta my woods !