42 replies to this topic

[abarbarian]

Well I made it to the end of the month without tearing anyone's head of or causing a riot or gnawing me arm of. Oh did I not say , I have stopped smoking. So to reward myself and to get rid of all that extra loot I decided to buy myself a treat. My smoking habit just for the nicotine side of things cost me around £20 a week. Over four weeks that adds up to £80 add in an extra pat on the back bonus and I decided I could spend around £100.
Hmm what to fritter me loot on ?
Perusing some old threads here I saw that way back in 2012 I considered buying a Toughbook the CF-18/19 version. So of I went to read up about them again. After some research I decided that a 10.5 inch screen would not be suitable for me as I would be using the Toughbook as a permanent backup pc and also as a traveling pc. I intend to take the Toughbook with me on my voluntary driving for the Welsh Ambulance service where I often have to sit around waiting for a couple of hours waiting for patients at clinics. Now I have been filling in time enjoyably with a e-reader and a whole host of sci-fi books. However I do have quite a collection of anime series that I have not watched and as they tend to be half hour episodes watching several of those would be a super way to while away some waiting time.
I thought the Toughbook would be an ideal tool for my proposed use as I can just chuck it into the boot of me car without worrying to much about minor knocks and bumps. An ideal tool for a barbarian perhaps.
Hunting on E-Bay I came across this CF-53 with a 15.5 inch screen and punchy enough specs to fulfill my needs. So I dove in and bought it


This particular CF-52 has a 1200x800 screen and is a Mk 3 version I believe. Oh and a 120 GB ssd. I did see a CF-52 with a 1920x1200 HD screen but it was only a Mk2 and had no hdd caddy or hdd. It was £20 or so cheaper and I was tempted but decided to go with the one above. What made the decision difficult was that the 1200x800 had quite a lot of use hours  whereas the 1920x1200 had only  around 70 days worth of use.

I do not intend using the Vista os and think for ease of use will try a install of MX-17 as my first Tough Penguin. The Toughbooks have easy swap hard drive caddys so I may at some time buy an empty spare caddy and use it to experiment with different penguins.

I'll post more once the Toughbook arrives.

Edited by abarbarian, 29 January 2018 - 10:33 AM.

[zlim]

Quote

I have stopped smoking.

CONGRATULATIONS!
My husband quit in June 2004. It was the hardest thing he ever did and at times he was so miserable I was tempted to tell him to start smoking again. I saw first hand the addiction side of nicotine on his body.

Now that cigarettes are about $8/pack (£5.68) and higher in states that tax more, his habit would cost him more than $80/week (£70) the savings are substantial.

[securitybreach]

Nice, let us know how it performs. I would start with maxing out the ram if I were you.

[abarbarian]

zlim, on 29 January 2018 - 11:00 AM, said:

Quote

I have stopped smoking.

CONGRATULATIONS!
My husband quit in June 2004. It was the hardest thing he ever did and at times he was so miserable I was tempted to tell him to start smoking again. I saw first hand the addiction side of nicotine on his body.

Now that cigarettes are about $8/pack (£5.68) and higher in states that tax more, his habit would cost him more than $80/week (£70) the savings are substantial.

Well saving some loot is always nice but my main reason was health wise. If me legs were still reasonably functional, ie: for rough walks in mountains or hills I doubt I would have stopped. However I am forced to be more sedentary these days and I found that my breathing was becoming a tad not so smooth at times. So I made the decision to stop without any aids or patches. It has been not too bad as I have not smoked in the house for the last ten years. I was doing all my smoking by the back door gazing at the sky this helped to limit my smoking due to the hassle of getting up, walking to the door, standing whilst smoking(usually) etc etc.
I wonder if I will keep it up as I have stopped for several months at a time before. Only time will tell I guess.

securitybreach, on 29 January 2018 - 11:18 AM, said:

Nice, let us know how it performs. I would start with maxing out the ram if I were you.

Yup have looked into maxing ram. 4 GB kits are a reasonable price but 8 GB kits or 4 GB singles are stupid money over here. I recon 4 GB will be more than sufficient  for my needs. I'll be running with the 2 GB for now which should do quite well as one of my old pc's running MX-17 only has 2 GB in it and is coping well enough for simple stuff.
I have a wi-fi card on its way as well as the CF-52 apparently did not have one. Bit puzzling as they came as standard, mind you if it has been a company laptop they may have taken it out.
If I find that the 52 as a wi-fi card I will still replace it as the one I ordered does the "n" standard whereas the original ones only go up to "g". Hope I ordered the right type.

[ebrke]

Quote

Oh did I not say , I have stopped smoking.

Terrific! I stopped some years ago (35?) and had a hard time at first. Every time I had anything alcoholic, even a single glass of wine, I would have to have a cigarette. A year or so later, I discontinued all alcohol at doctor's suggestion to try and cut down on terrible migrane headaches I was having, and after a year or so I discovered I had kicked the smoking habit. Haven't had one since.

[raymac46]

Good luck with your new machine and I agree that MX-17 would be a good choice for it. You want to get rid of Vista for sure.

[securitybreach]

abarbarian, on 29 January 2018 - 03:08 PM, said:

Yup have looked into maxing ram. 4 GB kits are a reasonable price but 8 GB kits or 4 GB singles are stupid money over here. I recon 4 GB will be more than sufficient  for my needs. I'll be running with the 2 GB for now which should do quite well as one of my old pc's running MX-17 only has 2 GB in it and is coping well enough for simple stuff.
I have a wi-fi card on its way as well as the CF-52 apparently did not have one. Bit puzzling as they came as standard, mind you if it has been a company laptop they may have taken it out.
If I find that the 52 as a wi-fi card I will still replace it as the one I ordered does the "n" standard whereas the original ones only go up to "g". Hope I ordered the right type.

Well until you get the computer, it is hard to know if it can even go up to 8gb. If I had to guess, based on the processor, 4gb is probably the max it can handle. Most Core2Duos could only go up to 4gb ram.

Yeah, G is pretty old and cannot go any faster than 54mbps. Most wireless N usb dongles should work fine for you and they are pretty cheap. Most can be had for under $20 or less.

[sunrat]

Core2Duos are pretty good. I'm still running my 3.2GHz desktop one as everyday driver. And Toughbooks have a very good reputation.

abarbarian, on 29 January 2018 - 10:31 AM, said:

I did see a CF-52 with a 1920x1200 HD screen but it was only a Mk2 and had no hdd caddy or hdd.

What did it use for storage then? I would have been tempted to see if it would accommodate an SSD.

Quote

I have stopped smoking.

Excellent! I'm still working on it. Cigs are about $1 each in Oz now or $25 for 20g of tobacco. I've cut back to a pouch every 8-10 days and just bought a vape. So far replacing every 3rd cig with a few puffs on the vape which is promising.

[abarbarian]

securitybreach, on 29 January 2018 - 05:32 PM, said:

abarbarian, on 29 January 2018 - 03:08 PM, said:

Yup have looked into maxing ram. 4 GB kits are a reasonable price but 8 GB kits or 4 GB singles are stupid money over here. I recon 4 GB will be more than sufficient  for my needs. I'll be running with the 2 GB for now which should do quite well as one of my old pc's running MX-17 only has 2 GB in it and is coping well enough for simple stuff.
I have a wi-fi card on its way as well as the CF-52 apparently did not have one. Bit puzzling as they came as standard, mind you if it has been a company laptop they may have taken it out.
If I find that the 52 as a wi-fi card I will still replace it as the one I ordered does the "n" standard whereas the original ones only go up to "g". Hope I ordered the right type.

Well until you get the computer, it is hard to know if it can even go up to 8gb. If I had to guess, based on the processor, 4gb is probably the max it can handle. Most Core2Duos could only go up to 4gb ram.

Yeah, G is pretty old and cannot go any faster than 54mbps. Most wireless N usb dongles should work fine for you and they are pretty cheap. Most can be had for under $20 or less.

$20 !!!!! blimey

https://www.ebay.co....53.m2749.l2649

£1.39 inc postage is more like it.

This is the one I went for though,

https://www.ebay.co....353.m2749.l2649

If using the Cf-52 as my main rig I would have gone for a "ac" type as I have fiber but they are over £25 and I thought it was not worth spending that much.

sunrat, on 29 January 2018 - 08:49 PM, said:

Core2Duos are pretty good. I'm still running my 3.2GHz desktop one as everyday driver. And Toughbooks have a very good reputation.

abarbarian, on 29 January 2018 - 10:31 AM, said:

I did see a CF-52 with a 1920x1200 HD screen but it was only a Mk2 and had no hdd caddy or hdd.

What did it use for storage then? I would have been tempted to see if it would accommodate an SSD.

Quote

I have stopped smoking.

Excellent! I'm still working on it. Cigs are about $1 each in Oz now or $25 for 20g of tobacco. I've cut back to a pouch every 8-10 days and just bought a vape. So far replacing every 3rd cig with a few puffs on the vape which is promising.

It was obviously a ex corporate and has had the drive removed. There are tons of them for sale cheap and even cheaper if they have set bios passwords. As they have an easy in and out removable drive caddy I guess the tech departments just take the whole thing out and dump them as it is quicker than taking the hdd out of the caddy. An I guess they are too lazy to cancel the bios password too as there is no security reason not to. A real waste of good equipment.

Bearing in mind the CF-52 would have cost £70 plus £10 for a charger plus a hdd/ssd £60 new £15> secondhand, plus,

https://www.ecrater....mm-127-mm?gps=1

or

https://www.ebay.co....DEAAOSwoBtW3ipC

I could also have sourced a ide to sata connector and bodged up a ssd caddy to fit in the original slot but decide that I have too much else to do at the moment.



As to the giving up smoking. Small steps, Every cig you do not smoke is one less coffin nail. I found the not smoking in the house helped a lot.

Had an e-mail saying it has been dispatched

Edited by abarbarian, 30 January 2018 - 05:59 AM.

[securitybreach]

Actually, we normally wipe the bios password and run a DOD standard 3 pass wipe on the drives and keep the wipe certificate as proof that they were wiped and the corporate data is secure. Corporate espionage is very lucrative nowadays.
As far as that £1.39 inc postage wifi dongle, it is super cheap but will probably break within a month. Personally, I wouldn't trust a piece of tech at that price.

[abarbarian]

securitybreach, on 30 January 2018 - 06:42 AM, said:

Actually, we normally wipe the bios password and run a DOD standard 3 pass wipe on the drives and keep the wipe certificate as proof that they were wiped and the corporate data is secure. Corporate espionage is very lucrative nowadays.
As far as that £1.39 inc postage wifi dongle, it is super cheap but will probably break within a month. Personally, I wouldn't trust a piece of tech at that price.

You either work for a company that cares about the environment or is wise enough to make every penny/cent count.

As to cheap kit. Yup may break may not but if that was all you could afford and it got you out of a hole

[securitybreach]

I work for Shell Oil (Royal Dutch Shell) so they are a major target.

[raymac46]

If the Intel wifi card fits in your laptop it should be a good one to use with Linux. MX-17 will likely have all the firmware needed to work right out of the box.
I have an AC capable gateway now but most of my adapters are N capable. That is good enough for me as I don't have a super fast Internet connection.

[Ed_P]

@abarbarian Congrats man.   Been there done that.  When I did it I found an unsweetened lemon drop candy helped.  But the smell of a cigarette smelled like a steak on the grill for YEARS.  Take it 1 hr at a time.

[securitybreach]

Well I smoked a pack a day for 22 years and then I switched to vaping for a couple of years and then I quit doing that. Smelling cigs never bothered me any after I quit.

[Ed_P]

I was doing 4 packs a day when I quit.

[abarbarian]

The beast arrived as did the charger and the wi-fi card.

Seems I got lucky as it has 1920x1200 screen. The battery seems to hold charge, enough for a couple of hours at least and it charges up too. I think I fitted the wi-fi card correctly, but both Vista and MX-17 do not see the card. Guess I'll have to do some research.

I am impressed with the speed and smooth way MX-17 runs from a usb stick on this Toughbook which is around ten years old.

[securitybreach]

abarbarian, on 31 January 2018 - 07:25 PM, said:

The beast arrived as did the charger and the wi-fi card.

Seems I got lucky as it has 1920x1200 screen. The battery seems to hold charge, enough for a couple of hours at least and it charges up too. I think I fitted the wi-fi card correctly, but both Vista and MX-17 do not see the card. Guess I'll have to do some research.

I am impressed with the speed and smooth way MX-17 runs from a usb stick on this Toughbook which is around ten years old.

Nice

[raymac46]

Should work for you if you have the right firmware.
https://wiki.debian.org/iwlegacy
You can lspci and see if it is being seen by the system.
This may be one where you have to install via wire or a separate USB wifi dongle to get the wifi card working but hey..it's Intel.
Duh.. another thing to check for is if wifi is switched on or not.

Edited by raymac46, 01 February 2018 - 09:26 AM.

[raymac46]

inxi -n should give you your network devices as well.

[sunrat]

raymac46, on 01 February 2018 - 10:59 AM, said:

inxi -n should give you your network devices as well.

It should, but no guarantees. Mine is a USB Realtek wireless dongle for which I need to build a Github driver. It's working now but:

roger@siduction-brain2:~$ inxi -n
Network:   Card: Failed to Detect Network Card!

lshw sees it:

root@siduction-brain2:/home/roger# lshw -c network
  *-network
	   description: Wireless interface
	   physical id: 1
	   bus info: usb@7:1
	   logical name: wlan0
	   serial: 18:a6:f7:12:ff:8f
	   capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
	   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8192eu ip=192.168.0.4 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn

[securitybreach]

Well if lspci doesn't show it then lshw or inxi will not either.

[raymac46]

No problems here:

Network: Card-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection driver: e1000e
		 IF: enp0s25 state: down mac: <filter>
		 Card-2: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak]
		 driver: iwlwifi
		 IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter>

For usb wifi you'd probably need lsusb.

Edited by raymac46, 01 February 2018 - 07:09 PM.

[raymac46]

ray@ray-debian-T430:~$ lspci | grep Network
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 04)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak] (rev 34)
ray@ray-debian-T430:~$

[raymac46]

ray@ray-debian-T430:~$ sudo lshw -c network
  *-network				
	   description: Ethernet interface
	   product: 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection
	   vendor: Intel Corporation
	   physical id: 19
	   bus info: pci@0000:00:19.0
	   logical name: enp0s25
	   version: 04
	   serial: 00:21:cc:d8:50:83
	   capacity: 1Gbit/s
	   width: 32 bits
	   clock: 33MHz
	   capabilities: pm msi cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
	   configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=3.2.6-k firmware=0.13-3 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
	   resources: irq:26 memory:f2500000-f251ffff memory:f253b000-f253bfff ioport:5080(size=32)
  *-network
	   description: Wireless interface
	   product: Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak]
	   vendor: Intel Corporation
	   physical id: 0
	   bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
	   logical name: wlp3s0
	   version: 34
	   serial: 08:11:96:63:b9:a8
	   width: 64 bits
	   clock: 33MHz
	   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
	   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=4.9.0-5-amd64 firmware=18.168.6.1 ip=192.168.0.17 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
	   resources: irq:30 memory:f1c00000-f1c01fff
ray@ray-debian-T430:~$