- Dude!
So this, my friends, is the laptop that started the channel.
Well, I guess not this specific one, but this model.
This is the Aspire 3680 from our good friends at Acer.
So, one of the fun things about this laptop,
and when I say fun, I mean not fun at all,
is the fact that it was slow.
Largely because it only had 512 megs of RAM.
Yes, I used to make videos with 512 megs of RAM
in Vista Basic.
Now remember, after a little while,
I did work on upgrading it.
So the very first time I pretty much ever
worked on a computer, was when I upgraded this laptop to,
I think it was a Gig and a half of RAM at the time.
Which made a massive, massive difference.
Okay, it's charging.
(air whooshing)
You hear how loud that fan is? (chuckles)
(computer chimes)
Oh, it works.
A Celeron M CPU, single core at 1.86 gigahertz,
and 512 megs of RAM,
with a blistering-fast Intel 945GM express chipset.
A speed-demon, this was not.
However, I actually was able to edit video on this.
- [Ken] What camera did you use to record video?
- So I initially shot on this Kodak,
it was like this point-and-shoot, it was really terrible.
And then, a little while after I started the channel,
maybe six months later, I got the Sanyo Xacti CG10.
Which was--
(camera clatters) (chuckles)
This is the Sanyo, is this supposed to be Mystery Tech?
Cause this is too much for Mystery Tech.
So this ridiculous camera was what I used to shoot videos
for probably two years when I first started.
So even though it looks ridiculous,
this actually was pretty solid.
It was much better than the Flip cameras of the day,
as not only did it shoot 720p video,
but also had a pretty decent zoom.
So, if I hit record,
All right, Ken, you are now live on the Sanyo Xacti CG10.
Look at that smooth zoom.
One of the cool parts about this camera
is that you actually had a flip-out screen.
Which was really cool for back in 2009.
Only problem was that the microphones are on the back,
So it sounds much better when you flip the camera around.
But this was a really legit little camera.
In fact, you know I actually got this
Because Marques bought this.
That was the beginning of the camera war.
He did a video on this, I was like, that sounds dope.
So I got it for like 150 bucks at Best Buy.
How much was this today?
- [Ken] 17 bucks.
- $17?
You know what, for 17 bucks you actually, I think,
could do a lot worse than this.
There's some dude's pictures on this. (snickers)
- [Ken] Oh.
(camera clicking)
- Okay, I feel uncomfortable,
I'm gonna stop watching that now. (laughs)
So one of the fun facts about my old laptop,
is that it actually had ports, unlike laptops of today.
So we have a modem, an optical drive with DVD support,
We have USB-A ports, we have ethernet, you've got VGA,
a PS2 port, and you also have an SD card reader,
Which I hope actually works.
You know what I wanna do, I wanna upgrade this
with some more RAM, I wanna probably put like an SSD in it,
see if I can run Windows 10.
And I'm going to try to edit a video,
shoot and edit a video with the Xacti.
So now, let's get a little bit of upgrading action
for my laptop.
So, the first thing is, I'm definitely going to replace
this battery, which has, well, not seen the best of days.
So, that by itself, once it's installed,
it looks a little goofy,
but should give us kind of good battery life.
As part of what I'm doing here,
I'm also going to be upgrading this to Windows 10.
Now, you can buy the USB flash drive
that has Windows already installed.
However, I actually like to use the little tool
that Microsoft includes.
You can literally just download it from their site,
And it will download Windows 10,
the most up-to-date version,
and you can burn it to a flash drive.
So, I'm kind of excited to see exactly how far
I can upgrade this.
I've bought a few different things which,
hopefully will work.
I feel like so many of the videos that we do these days,
like upgrading older systems,
we just won't be able to do in the future.
Because so little is upgradable.
So, this, my friends, this is the 512 megabytes of DDR2
that I used to work with with this laptop.
However, we were able to order off of Amazon,
four gigs of Crucial DDR2.
Which should be much, much, sort-of, healthier.
Especially given that, well,
everything takes up more RAM now.
So, on this side, we have another door,
which should give us access to our hard drive.
So, inside this little bracket
we have our 5400 RPM 80 gigabyte hard drive.
Now, we're going to be replacing this with something,
which, by modern standards, isn't all that impressive.
It is a 840 EVO, it's a 120-gig SSD.
You know, the best part about this,
is that obviously I'm doing this much more for nostalgia,
than any kind of like, practical use.
But this laptop costs almost nothing these days,
and all of these upgrades are incredibly affordable.
I mean, even something like a 120-gig SSD,
I mean, this didn't even exist when the laptop came out,
and now it costs like,
what, less than 20 bucks at Micro Center?
It's a super-affordable upgrade.
And, there we go.
So now we have four gigs of RAM,
as opposed to half a gig of RAM,
a 120-gig SSD as opposed to an 80-gig HDD,
We have our beefier battery, but one of the cool parts
about this is that we also have a little surprise.
So, on the side here we have an express card slot,
and this actually a super-useful connector,
because you can add all kinds of accessories
inside this little guy.
Oh wait-- (needle scratches)
Oh no, well that's not the right size.
So, this is actually not the correct card,
so I guess I'll have to come back
and see if I can find another one.
But, that's a really easy upgrade.
And I also need to look into getting a better WiFi card,
if I can find one.
So, let's plug in our USB flash drive,
and see if this guy actually wants to boot up.
That's not a good sign, nothing's happening.
I don't know if it's the problem,
but this RAM slot is super, finicky.
(Austin groans)
Okay.
Let's put the original RAM in for a second,
and see if that is going to fix things.
Okay, fan, optical drive,
okay, it immediately comes up,
so it is definitely a memory issue.
Okay, so, after cannibalizing a couple of older laptops,
I was able to get two gigs of DDR2 together,
which is booting with the system.
So, I think from here, we can just try
to get Windows to actually boot up for us.
Theoretically, this is capable of running Windows 10.
There we go!
So, we have two gigs of RAM, which the minimum is one gig.
Now, our processor, and especially our graphics,
are very much on the lower end,
so, it's gonna be slow.
I'm just gonna keep waiting until it actually
hits the screen, and stops just showing me the logo,
but I'm sure that'll be fine.
It's not like it's gonna take all night
to install Windows on this thing.
That's definitely not gonna happen.
It'll come up any minute now.
Unfortunately this didn't go quite according to plan.
After a couple of months on and off
troubleshooting this project,
I happened to cross a tweet from Nathan Sivewright,
who happened to have gotten the exact same
Aspire 3680 in to do a video on.
- The CPU, it's basically, you got those widgets,
back in Windows Vista, it's like on 100% all the time.
- You know what, I think you've made up my mind here.
I'm gonna put Vista back on the laptop,
and that's how I'm gonna finish the video.
I'm just gonna give up on 10.
It's not gonna do anything.
So after a lot of work to make not a lot of progress,
I finally have the PC pretty much up and running.
So, I've got a fresh copy of Vista here, and the next step
is to see what actually works.
Oh, do I have to launch Internet Explorer 7 right now?
Oh, oh, it's loading!
Something's happening.
Oh, oh, it works!
I mean, it looks a little broken, that's fine though.
You know something funny, even though
the CPU sits at 100% all the time,
we're not maxing out our 2 gigs of RAM,
and the SSD actually feels reasonably snappy.
I open, like, documents or something,
this doesn't feel that far behind.
So now, my challenge is very simple.
Goodbye 8K Red camera, and hello 720p Sanyo Xacti CG10.
I have spent, I don't know how many hours the last two days,
trying to get this project to work.
So, I've run into a few issues.
First of all, the Xacti shoots in H.264,
a very modern codec, especially by 2009 standards,
and a codec which actually,
was not officially supported inside Vista.
Now mind you, Microsoft does have a codec pack
which will work with MOV files and H.264.
However, it 404's, and I couldn't track it down
anywhere on the internet.
Fine, I thought, why don't I just HandBrake it,
get it into a couple of other formats.
I tried a wide-range, ended up WMV
was the closest to working, no problem.
HandBrake'd it, brought it back over to the computer,
while it kind of plays back, what it doesn't do,
is work inside Movie Maker.
Like, straight up,
it chops up into a bunch of random chunks.
It'll play it for like, a second and then crash,
And every time I try to reset something,
or re-import things, I'm literally sitting around
for like, five minutes waiting for it to process.
So, without further ado, let me introduce to you,
A 2009 Austin video,
shot by a very grumpy, 2020 Austin.
Or, a 2019 Austin, I don't know how long it's gonna take
to actually finish this video. (snickers)
This, is the brand-new Acer Aspire 3680.
And with a whopping single core processor,
512 megs of RAM, which has been upgraded to two gigabytes,
as well as an incredibly sleek.
As well as a wide variety of ports,
so if I open up our optical drive bay,
of course, this is the future of media.
Acer is truly innovative
when it comes to powerful Windows Vista Home Basic laptops.
You also see a CPU meter, which pretty much permanently sits
at 100 percent.
Merely showing you the incredible power of the 3680.
When you look at the profile,
you'll see that this is an incredibly sleek and thin laptop.
There's also a lot to like with something
which has this much power, in such a tiny package.
Now yes, some might argue that dual core is the future,
And to them, I say, ha!
What mere future are you living in,
where we need more than one core,
Real talk, though, this is what I used to start the channel.
And while, yes, by today's standards,
it is certainly not powerful.
It really wasn't even powerful by like, 2007 standards.
But the important thing was it was good enough
that I could actually start the channel on.
And realistically, if you were considering
starting a channel today, something like your smartphone
is absolutely so much more capable
than this laptop ever was.
I'm sorry that you had to watch this video,
Which I edited in Windows Movie Maker.