D630 is a straight TANK. Still toss an SSD in it, but would be great on 7, 10, or Linux. Man I really need to install ut2004 on my retro build, you got me all nostalgic for those frags.
D630, what a compact little powerhouse! I had one about 10 years ago, it was pretty much the top notch model with extended battery. I absolutely loved that machine, used it a LOT! Unfortunately panel backlight failed afterwards, so I replaced it with another machine.
@@TheRetroRecall Up until recently, Mclaren was still looking for people willing to sell their old Compaq LTE 5280 to them for diagnosing their Mclaren F1 cars! They just made the switch to a modern interface that can be used with modern computers, but they still keep a set of older laptops just in case.
Really, that makes sense! I mean I was going to ask why they didn't work towards adjusting the interface - sounds like they did. On the flip side - sometimes if it isn't broken, don't fit it!
UT2004! I spent way, _way_ too much time playing that on my Toshiba laptop back in the day. 3.4 GHz Northwood P4 and GeForce FX 5700 Go. That thing got stupid hot whilst fragging, but it somehow managed to survive and is still very much alive today!
I am sporting antix 23.1 ? with 4 gigs ram, cheap ssd and waiting on a x9000 2.8 ghz upgrade chip in the mail. I use it as my work killing time laptop. its rock solid. We just have to remember its only 2 cores and a ddr2 system.
I have a D630 but only purchased second-hand a few years ago to add to my collection, never used in anger. I've also got the smaller Latitude D430, and Precision M4300 which uses the same chassis as the Latitude D830. I've also got most of the D-family docking stations, media bases, and external media bays/modules. Overall I prefer the later Latitude E-series but the D-series is a close second.
Before I watch even a second of this- I have this very exact laptop. And to this day, it is the most reliable machine I own, and have ever owned. Running Windows 10, 6 gigs ram, stock HDD, and stock battery still gives me about 45 minutes. LOVE this machine, it's my bedroom's TV now days. I've spent many thousands of hours playing Halo CE, more than I ever did Xbox. Only difference with mine, is I don't have the fingerprint scanner on the middle button. Also, the Wifi switch can be configured to turn off bluetooth and wifi both, and the switch itself has a 'catcher' function. You can put a SIM card in it for LTE internet, and mine also came with an extended battery. I also have the floppy drive, which can be used externally with an older style micro-usb cable.
Great Vintage Laptop! I have 3 retro laptops in my collection so far. Toshiba Satelite A135-S2386 from 2006. Dell Inspiron 600m from 2003. HP Compaq 6730b from 2008.
@@TheRetroRecall Thank you! The battery still works perfectly on the dell inspiron from 2003, which lasts for 2 hours! For more information on these computers that I have, check out my video! I have made a video of my almost complete computer collection, you can see the laptops themselves!
Haha yes for sure! I mean, it's so awesome to think how far we've come and what we used to do compared to what is in our cars or cell phones!!! Thanks for your support, for watching and stay tuned!
I still have a ThinkPad X31 i like to take with me sometimes, it is a Pentium M banias 1.70ghz with 2gb of ram and i upgraded the wifi card to a G card, it runs a stripped down version of windows 7. I LOVE old laptops, and with this stripped down version, it is pretty fast, and i use a combination of portable google chrome browser and palemoon, and i do get by! Even facebook runs surprisingly well under google chrome, the installable versions uses a TON of ram, but the portable version? Just around 150mb with the google page open, which is not bad! Keep up those videos, i like your channel and the variety. Do you review/show off older macs? And my brand new Asus gaming laptop doesn't have a webcam as well :p we're going back in time i guess :p
Love this share and comment! I'm shocked you are running on such low spec'd hardware yet still functioning - talk about fun! Also, thanks for the compliment! I am happy you are enjoying the channel. I am working on getting some older Macs and doing some reviews of those and other things. Stay tuned!!!!
Set Computrace to disable. You won't ever need it. It will send a whole bunch of info to specific web addresses. it is pretty much a bios backdoor. if you disable it it can never be enabled again. Yours is currently deactivated, so no info was ever sent, but there's no reason not to disable it.
LOVE my D630. Bought it used for $60 about 10 years ago, because it had a serial port which I needed. Maxed out the RAM, added an SSD, new battery and that little machine tackled Windows10 Pro with no issues. It's got it all. Gigabit ethernet. Dial up modem. Cellular modem. Serial port, VGA port, plenty of USB, the disc drive works, the touch pad and nub both work, a joy to type on it and it's easy to work on any part of it. Currently running Xubuntu on it and it just screams. Getting a Pi Zero 2W at list price is the best tech dollar I ever spent, but that D630 is a close second. Absolute bargain for what it can do.
Mad eme happy to read alll of the above!! I completely agree - it's definitely a machine that won't be going anywhere! Now, time to update the SSD and replace that battery on mine! Thanks for this and for watching!
@user-kw4jt1tk1h Online memory vendors say 8GB. I believe mine is at 4 and I was pretty sure 4 was the limit. Surprised to see 8 now. If it is cheap enough, I will try going for 8 and see what happens, although it runs so well with Xubuntu, I don't think more RAM will really do much.
Do you have one of the Floppy Disk Drives for the machine by any chance? I'm on the hunt for a classic machine with internal floppy drive to use Omniflop and some other programs that require internal floppy drives vs USB connected. The concern is that the modular floppy drives from this machine may be connecting over the USB bus and as such won't work for those programs. Trying to get some hands on experience before picking one up and finding out it won't work.
I unfortunately do not. I remember they were available when I ordered this but didn't see the need at the time as I had an external USB drive. In hindsight, I wish I had :). If I find one, I will definitely let you know.
I have a D630 as well, still use it today for serial purposes because of the built in serial port. Did you know that it can run using toothpaste as thermal paste? I had an issue with it overheating and needed to get it running and didn’t have any proper thermal paste, so in desperation I used some ordinary toothpaste. It worked fine in the machine for about 4 years before I finally took it apart again and put on actual thermal paste. Worked great but really do not recommend
I had no idea! I mean, I probably would never try not wanting to ever risk the older hardware - but it's a cool story that you were able to go 4 years! Not too sure if that would have worked on the GPU for that long? Haha. Thanks for watching!
@@TheRetroRecall I never did any serious temp checking when using it, the fans would run a fair bit but then, they always did on these era Dells. I remember seeing a RU-vid video about alternatives for thermal paste and toothpaste was a suggestion, so I can't claim all the credit for picking it as a thermal transfer compound. But I think my worst complaint, other than maybe reducing its lifespan was that the exhaust air never smelled minty fresh at all :(
<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="148">2:28</a> Yes the business class Dell Latitude Laptops were way more tougher than the consumer class laptops but the consumer class ones had more bells and whistles. I was able to take a fully optioned out Inspiron motherboard and put it in a Latitude chassis, I seem to remember it was a 8000 series. I worked for a retail company that had district managers that were very hard on their laptops and the off the shelf machines from Best Buy would not stand up to the abuse, but the Latitude models fared much better. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="207">3:27</a> I have 2 modular batteries, 1 CD/DVD and a floppy 1.44 drive. The floppy drive has a mini USB port on it so it can be used externally too.
I got a Dell E6400 that my sister found for me that someone disposed of. The weird things about this laptop when I originally started it years ago is that the keyboard does not work correctly and all of the function lights above the keyboard do not light. There was a ransomeware virus that prevented it from starting, which I easily removed. Also, the BIOS will NOT appear on the laptop screen itself. You have to plug it into a monitor to access the BIOS screen then you can go back to the main screen. I replaced the keyboard with a small wireless one that just fits perfectly on top of the original one and it works just fine! Oh, I almost forgot one other strange thing, if you do not leave its battery plugged in, the small internal BIOS battery will actually drain in a few days otherwise it will last for a long time. I think I actually replaced it 3 or 4 years ago. The laptop battery actually DOES still work, though not for too long. I just keep it topped up so the BIOS battery won't drain. This laptop is from 2009, I believe. It must have been through hell with the original owners and yet it STILL works fine! It just has some "scars" so to speak. It has Vista on it like yours but this is only 32 bit unfortunately and it has 4GB RAM. I just may get an SSD for it like I just did for my other old HP DV7 laptop. That still has good old Windows 7 but I think that I may try Win 10 on this old Dell. I also love that it is ALL aluminum. Dell used to make decent PCs but now I hear that they leave much to be desired in their work. They surely messed up the Alienware brand that they took over. 😕
Whoa, now that is a share... I love it! Funny thing about the CMOS battery draining as much as it is... Or maybe I'm reading it wrong. Either way I wonder if there was a short of some kind or if that CMOS battery was doing other things - my Zenith is like that. Also you are correct... Dell has not met the mark IMO in recent years - I've stuck with Lenovo! Hope all is well Arthur :)
@@TheRetroRecall I was thinking some kind of weird short too, but other than just cleaning it of inner dust and putting some new thermal paste on the CPU I figured to just leave well enough alone. By the way, how are you holding up with all the wildfire smoke? You are in Canada, right? I'm in the big city in the US and the sky and air quality is AWFUL! Everything smells of burning wood! I still need surgery on my eye, but I have been in so much back pain now for months that I am afraid I will not be able to hold position for the two or more weeks needed for healing. I just keep praying my good eye holds up or I will be in VERY serious trouble. All the smoke IS affecting my breathing too which does not help! Be well yourself out there! 👍👍
We had some really bad scares around our province but we have been fortunate that most of the fires are now contained due to the last several days of solid rain. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Quebec and Ontario - I think that's what's drifting down your way. I heard on the news today that today New York had the planets worst air quality recorded. Stay safe yourself and get that eye taken care of!!!
It all depends on the machine and the access to getting the board out. Once out, it is relatively simple if you have the replacement part - solder removal, clean up, new solder and more clean up. After that - put everything together :). I am sure there are a few videos online showing the process - just not sure if there are any videos related to your exact machine or not. Good luck with the project!
Thanks, @@TheRetroRecall , I used my d630 for some crazy stuff back then. I always used my d630 for playing Minecraft Java with optifine, and used windows 7 ultimate on there, such a fun experience! My parents threw it away when we moved to greece :(
The ones with the Quadro GPU are pretty notorious for going bad. Basically any laptop with nVidia GPUs from this generation really. I e-wasted so many of these because of dead GPUs... :(
@@TheRetroRecall There was a class action lawsuit against Nvidia for the defective graphics chips which Nvidia lost. You're extremely lucky that your laptop has survived. I've never come across a D630 with an original Nvidia gpu that survived (I'm a laptop refurbisher (retired)). Here is the list of defective GPUs by Nvidia. Code names: G86, G86A2, G84, C51, G72, G72M, G73, G72A3, MCP67 and NV42 officially (in lawsuit). That effects the following: 84 86 = GeForce 8300 GS, 8400 GS, 8500 GT, 8600 GT, 8600 GTS; Quadro FX 370, 570, 570M, 1600M, 360M; Quadro NVS 130M, 135M, 140M, 290 C51 = Geforce 6100~6151 (chipsets) G72 = GeForce 7200 7300 7500 (LE SE & GS) - mostly OEM only cards. G73 = GeForce 7300 GT, 7600 (but not 7600GT with G73-B1 lastest) G72M = Geforce GO 7300 7400 & 7450 NV42 = GeForce 6800 XT GS (varies! Some XTs use NV40, NV41 & NV42) Some of the GeForce 9000 series are effected... but its not clear. G92 & G94 are also problematic. The B versions are supposed to be fixed. G92 = 8800GS, 8800GT, 8800GTS-512, 9600GSO, 9800GTX
Haha 'Made for' is relative. I mean they were throwing Designed For or Vista Capable badges on a pile of systems as a marketing roll out strategy - even when systems were just not ready enough. Again - in my experience. But yes - I do remember Vista working well on the system although Windows 7 worked incredibly better.
Nice!. I have one fully operational with windows 7 on SSD. I also have the floppy drive as optional expansion instead of the cd/dvd. As noted by other commenters: built like tanks. I once 'killed' it with a liquid spill: no response at all. Dried it out and the next day it turned on again like nothgin had happened: self resetting PPTC fuses for the win! The CCFL backlight has turned a vintag yellow from age, and it is strugling with modern (internet-) loads. Or maybe I should replace the thermal paste? At work I had a D830: the 15.4" screen version with the mad WUXGA display with a resolution of 1920x1200 !!
Yes a total tank! That D830 sounds like a beast of a machine - no doubt the same or better quality build. As for the backlight I am not too sure as mine has yet to give any issues. Thermal paste more directed at CPU / GPU?
@@TheRetroRecall the D830 was pretty much identical in design and quality, just bigger and heavier, with speakers on both sides of the keyboard. I reckon the thermal paste on the cpu has crumbled to dust by now, but it does not get much use these days.
Ah! a D630, very nice. I have one sitting here on the desk beside my desktop. Besides that one, I have a D630 that i downgraded the OS to something really old Windows 3.11 with DOS
@@TheRetroRecall It actually boots faster than my desktop does, I found an older stick of RAM also to go in the other D630, Most of the drivers are a pain to find but that is a work in progress.
@@TheRetroRecall i my self use LMDE for over a year now as daily driver and don't use ubuntu because of some corporate decisions by canonical i don't like
A well built laptop and I have a D530 which still works well with 4 gig., of ram., and an ssd., and Linux Mint, the battery still takes a charge but it does not last long, so I use it with the charger.
I really need to swap out for an SSD! That would make a world of difference. It sounds like you had a really decent system there as well especially with Linux!
It may be your hardware. I customized this machine when I bought it new (ordered direct from Dell) and had the dedicated graphics installed. Your challenge may be your hardware?
@@TheRetroRecall I recommend Macrium reflect to back up the current contents. You can also make a clone copy if it's useful for the recovered machines.
@@TheRetroRecall I just retired my Lenovo N585 as my daily driver for the last ten years. It still runs even thou the case is cracked and one hinge is broken. Currently turning into a home serve but adding a larger hard drive in place of the DVD writer drive
Nice , If you want something like that brand new nowadays you probably would have to go to velocity micro , what’s comparable model Dell has now to that D630 ?
I'm not 100% sure to be honest. Although Dell does have Latitude in their line up today, I just don't get the same feeling from their newer machines as I did and still do with these machines. Heck, it's still working perfectly today - not sure if a system purchased today would last as long.
