If you mean my post, it wasn't really against Dell. I've had good luck with them. Have the laptop, big LCD monitor, and a half dozen PPCs and all are going strong. The PPC are 13 years old and doing fine in daily use. A little shop worn from handling but working.
The problem I mentioned was with the battery and replacing it with a Brand X took care of that problem - even after it too wore out. If you buy a used machine, you are probably looking at a new battery soon anyway.
Reviews on this model were excellent ... it has most of the available high-end options , like the I5 processor and 4Gb of RAM . Now if I can figure out how to get it to talk to my XP machines I'll be happy . I'm not even sure if this thing has antivirus ! Win7 is a foreign country for me , but we'll learn to navigate it .
Lithium batteries need circuitry to protect them from overcharge, too-deep discharge and excessive charge or discharge current. The circuits to do that track State of Charge (SoC) by monitoring current and voltage and can report them to the laptop.
As the battery ages and degrades the SoC value becomes inaccurate unless the battery is fully discharged and recharged to recalibrate theSoC estimate to the measured actual capacity. Eventually the supervisory circuit can completely lose track of the battery's deteriorating condition and transmit nonsense. This shows you what the battery reports:
I have some old batteries that need to be reinserted a few times to nudge their voltage up enough with the initial qualification test for the charging circuit to accept them.
Dell laptop chargers contain a Dallas memory chip that tells the BIOS the charger's power rating when the laptop boots, via the center pin of the power connector. If the comm link fails the laptop may assume it's on the lowest capacity charger, run at half clock speed and not charge its batteries. The higher power charger gets quite toasty charging a nearly depleted battery even with the laptop Off.
--jsw
At work the lab laptops were former front office Thinkpads and Toshiba Satellites, which served us well and didn't permanently hog bench space. I added a pull-out keyboard tray for this one for easier typing, and modified a padded chair to roll under it. I went with Dell when large batches of used top-end office machines and their accessories flooded the market, not because they are better than other brands.
While they lack good gaming video the thick and heavy business laptops are nearly as expandable as desktops but use much less power, which for me translates to less spent on UPSs and solar panels.
--jsw
Jim , I did the desktop shortcut from the link above , we be jammin' !! I now have access to all the other comps in the network . THANK YOU !
Good info as well at the Windows master control panel link. Thanks.
I would buy both, keep the Dell, and sell the Toughbook to me for cost plus shipping.
Well , for a while there everything was showing up in the network . Now we're back to it only showing itself . Have to do some research , surely there's a reliable way to connect a Win7 comp to a network of XP machines .
You need to have the "Network Discovery" turned on.
In Windows 10, go to "Control Panel", click on "Network and Sharing Center", then on the left hand side click on "Change advanced sharing settings".
Make sure you have checked "Turn on network discovery" and "Turn on file and printer sharing".
Make sure you click "Save changes" when you are done.
Your computer will start looking for all connected computers and printers.
You also have to make sure your installed firewall is set to the correct security level to allow "network discovery" and "file and printer sharing". Otherwise your firewall will make all the network computers and printers disappear again.
You need to tell your firewall that you are on a "private network". If you say you are on a "public network" (like you are using a public WiFi hotspot), your firewall will block all network connections to your computer.
You can restrict how certain folder or hard drive can be shared on the network (who on the network can access, and password protection to gain access). Right click on the folder or hard drive icon, choose "Properties", and then "Sharing".
That's all been done , thanks for verifying I have it configured correctly .
Another possibility is that your "Windows Firewall" is also turned on at the same time you are running your own firewall program.
Go to "Control Panel" and make sure "Windows Firewall" is turned off (your own firewall program should have turned off your Windows Firewall).
Get a Panasonic toughbook. - or an Amrel Rocky if you can get a surplus unit. or a Getac Rugged Military Laptop NB-M220-5 . If you are stuck on a Dell, look for something like the Latitude E6420 XFR,, or an XFR D630..
None of them are CHEAP, but good tools seldom are. The XFR630 and the CF30 toughbooks are both available for under $500 - not bad for a $3500+ laptop (new government price)
If a plastic Armada lasted him this long he shouldn't have any problems with a magnesium Latitude.
--jsw
It's a flashback to 2007. Drivers for obsolete XP-era hardware can be a real problem when you install a new operating system. Even if you stay with what it came with you may find that some functionality is missing with stock MS device drivers. I couldn't add an external monitor without hunting down an Intel video driver for similar, later hardware in Vista.
This shows what additional software you need to make a Windows 7 clean install work right on a slightly newer Dell laptop:
--jsw
Not saying they are no good - I think those are Cop Computers, aren't they? They are "vehicle ruggedized" where the ones I mentioned are "military grade Field Tough"
General Dynamics generally makes pretty decent stuff. The General Dynamics Itronix VR-2 is a semi-rugged notebook computer released on June 6, 2007 - so it is "semi rugged" 9 year old technology. It is not a "ToughBook " it is a "GoBook"
If you want a rugged General Dynamics unit you want an XR, not a VR.
A little digging reveals that it has a SATA-I hard drive interface, meaning you could clone its hard drive onto a good modern SSD.
Computers with older IDE/PATA drives should probably be avoided unless you already have a stock of spares.
The laptop beside me which has a 2.00 GHz T7200 CPU and a Micron SSD boots to the desktop in 20 seconds, almost half of which is the BIOS selftest, and shows live TV in 35 seconds from a cold start.
--jsw
ree 12 volt UPS units are 350 or 500Va in most cases. I have not seen a 12 volt 1kva unit in the last 10 years in the business. A few 24 volt units perhaps - but most of them are 850va units All of my 1kv units are 36 volts or more - 4 that I have in use here are 48 and one is 54 volts.
Dells are super easy to get parts for and easy to repair.
Easy to check Download thew manual from dell.com
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.