At some point in your life it’s likely that you, a family member, or a friend has purchased
a pretty kick-ass seeming computer, only for it to slow down over time.
What a shame that such a seemingly-awesome computer isn’t able to serve as the main
rig, right?
NO MORE!
It’s time to revive your favorite computer and keep it around for even longer.
Let’s take a look.
I’m EposVox, here to make tech more fun and easier to understand via free educational
videos.
This is the Dell XPS M1710.
This was a badass laptop for its time.
Featuring a beautiful 17” 1920x1200 display, an Intel Centrino dual core CPU, 2 GB of RAM
and a Nvidia GeForce Go 7900 GS graphics chip - it was a hefty work-horse of a rig for the
early 2000s.
And the build of it - it had everything that teenage Epos could dream of - SIX USB ports,
a DVD drive, firewire, headphone and microphone jacks, a SD card reader, VGA, DVI AND S-Video
outputs, along with a modem and ethernet port.
And the hard drive was easily removable via this dock slot on the right.
That makes this project even easier.
Oh yeah, and it features huge, booming speakers, full media control buttons on the front, and
LEDs EVERYWHERE!
This was the “gamer-y aesthetic” before that concept even existed.
Green LEDs on the speakers, vents, and XPS logo on the back, blue LEDs from the media
controls, and the trackpad also features a red-lit XPS logo.
Someone had fun designing this.
So what was the problem with this XPS beast?
Windows flipping Vista and the “mere” 2GB of RAM inside.
I used air quotes there, because at the time 2GB was high-end for laptops, but Microsoft
decided to make a bulky-AF operating system that ate RAM for breakfast and made most computers
- even high-end ones - slow and unresponsive.
Install any programs and even basic tasks like closing windows and opening the file
explorer become one of the strongest tests of patience in the history of personal computing.
Trying to use a used Vista build this many years later would be impossible - but we can
fix that right up with two things: A Solid State Drive, or SSD, and an installation of
a Linux operating system.
We’ll be using the OCZ Trion 150 500GB SSD for this project.
This is a great SSD with super fast read and write speeds that I’ve used many times,
so thanks to Toshiba for sending one of these out.
For this project, I created a couple of scenarios.
I installed Lubuntu - a lightweight Linux installation created to perform fast on low-end
hardware - onto a Solid State Drive to show the “optimal” operating conditions.
A fast OS on a super fast SSD means this computer zooms and vrooms like never before.
Suddenly this beast of a PC feels like it was meant to feel when it was made.
Not only that, but the media keys are automatically supported by media players in Linux, with
no crazy driver installations needed.
Trying to install drivers for an old PC on a new Windows installation can be a nightmare.
But that’s easy mode, I didn’t stop there.
I installed a late 2016 build of Solus OS - a heavier Linux operating system - onto
a traditional 2.5” laptop hard drive as well.
The result?
Still responsive and snappy as can be - this thing is a beautiful Linux machine.
Solus OS - even with graphical animations - runs perfectly.
Loading YouTube videos in FireFox and multitasking works great.
Try running more than 3 programs at once in the Vista build and you’ll want to pull
your hair out.
To really test performance here, I decided to test the time it takes to cold boot (from
a powered down state) not just into the operating system, but until the operating system is
usable for multitasking and a YouTube video could be played and skimmed.
As you can see, this is still an older laptop, and boot times won’t been instant.
But the time to usability was vastly improved with Linux.
Lubuntu running on the SSD booted up and was usable the fastest, followed by SolusOS on
the hard drive.
It took nearly FIVE MINUTES for Vista to be remotely usable, and even then - RAM was mostly
pegged in the 90% range, making it overall very unresponsive.
I wasn’t fully satisfied with this, so I went ahead and re-created the Windows Vista
installation (which took FOREVER to install, by the way) on the same SSD and ran my test
again.
Total boot to operation time was cut in HALF!
It still took longer than even the Solus OS boot from the hard drive, but was much quicker.
You can’t get past the fact that the 2GB RAM installed was just not enough to multitask
heavily with Windows Vista, but the ability to swap RAM to disk quicker with a SSD allowed
it to keep up just a little more.
I still much preferred the Lubuntu installation, though, for obvious reasons.
This may not be entirely new information to all of you - but people aren’t considering
Linux enough in their computing choices, and there are a LOT of really cool laptops out
there being sent to die when they’d function just fine still today.
If you want to buy a new computer made for Linux and unleashing your potential, check
out our sponsor, System76.
System76 is the best (IMO) system distributor for Linux-based PCs.
I just keep drooling over their new Oryx Pro workstation with a 4K HiDPI display.
I hope you enjoyed today’s video.
If you did, smash the like button, and get subscribed for more awesome tech videos.
I have a couple HP EliteBooks I’m excited to look at soon, too.
I’m EposVox, and I’ll see you next time.