Featured Articles
Announcing Pi
Technical Specifications
Raspberry Pi FAQs
Win a Pi
Raspberry Pi Wishlist
Actions
Forum Thread Details
  • Replies 13 replies
  • Subscribers 676 subscribers
  • Views 5006 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related

Using the Rasberry Pi on older PC systems

Former Member

I currently have several laptops a Dell lapstop Inspiron 1501, a Compaq Intel, both are about 7 yrs old and work well. I also have 2 laptops about 15 yrs old Toshiba Techra 8000s that work well for what they are capable of doing. Will the Rasberry PI B attach to these laptops?  The Dell & Compaq can already surf the net, do office functions, watch movies and store quite a bit, but the download times are long. The Toshibas are basically good to type with and email with a little surfing. My question is this will the Rasberry B give them a comparable functionality to newer Laptops?

  • I think your missing the point the Pi is a stand alone computer..

     

    It wont attache other than via networking, and would not be easy to mount inside an old laptop.

  • Short answer: no.

     

    1. No, it will not have the performance of an "new" laptop. Not even a very, very low end one. But probably more performance than the 7 year old laptops. Certainly more than the 15 year olds.

     

    2. It is very unlikely that the HDD in the old laptops connect to the motherboard via USB, so those will be unusable. You'll have to buy a USB HDD to connect to the Pi.

     

    3. It is very unlikely that the LCD in the laptops connects to the motherboard using HDMI. You'll have to connect the Pi to a stand alone HDMI input monitor.

     

    4. It is unlikely, but *possible* (and if so, probably using a non-standard connector) that the track pad and keyboard of the laptops connect to the motherboard with USB. You will have to connect external mice and keyboards to the Pi's.

     

    You can see that at this point it really looks more like road kill than a laptop.

  • in reply to Former Member

    "2. It is very unlikely that the HDD in the old laptops connect to the motherboard via USB, so those will be unusable. You'll have to buy a USB HDD to connect to the Pi."

     

    Actually, no, he doesn't need to buy a new HDD. There are external HDD cases that use the old IDE HDD interface. I have one of those, and my 11 year old laptop's HDD works fine with that one. image

  • in reply to danixdefcon5

    True. Forgot about that. I've kept the old HDDs from discarded laptops and put them in those cases. Kept the old drive as backup for a while for the data migrated to the new system then used them when moving files around.

     

    But the OPs old laptop looks even more like roadkill. image

  • in reply to Former Member

    I think you are missing the point of this device; it was designed for hacking and building things not to take on your next road trip or to the office(right out the box). It is not a finished product for a reason it has been designed so that you make the final device, it is just a platform to build on top of to make the device that you take to work, build into your car and put in you house.

     

    Message was edited

  • in reply to Former Member

    People will use it for whatever they want, not for it's "designed use" as with everything else. I don't get what the OP is thinking in acomplishing, though. the RPi it's not some sort of expansion board but a barebones computer. He could try to cannibalize pieces from his old laptops to use with the RPi, but it doesn't seem practical.

  • in reply to Former Member

    I understand that it is a stand alone computer but from all of the pictures and

    some of the discussion that I have read there is no casing around the Rasberry

    Pi boards am I incorrect that it is the internal mechanisms? Which brings my

    question about using old lap tops.

  • in reply to Former Member

    Duke.

     

    The release in September will have a transparent case. I do not see any reason to use your old laptops to case the Raspberry PI - its pointless - and a very hard task.  Although this release has no case it can still be used to plug all of your devices into it (keyboard, mouse, etc).  It will run perfectly well as long as you dont spill drinks on it, overheat it, etc.

     

    Ed

  • You could actualy make a rpi laptop but it's very expensive and it will be a very low performance setup.

    You will need:

    0 - The answer to the question "Why do I want to do this?"

    1 - Laptop

    2 - TFT LCD controller with DVI input (wicked expensive) and a HDMI->DVI converter

    3 - Keyboard controller(from a USB keyboard)

    4 - A psu to provide power to the lcd and rpi(probably the laptop battery isn't good anymore so you will need a new one).

    7 - A decent memory card(16gb or 32gb, class 10)

    8 - A lot of hacking and will power and some electronics skills(soldering included).

     

     

    Trow away the the stuff in the laptop except the keyboard, the display and the external ports on the side.

    You can read here how you can hack the keyboard: http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:4488

    You will need some a voltage regulator(12V i think), caps and diodes for the LCD.

    Try to put all the things together and make them stay that way. image

  • in reply to Former Member

    LOL!  Thank you! That answers everything! It would be a nightmare then.