An Old Laptop Makeover

                
๏ Machine all set to become a workhorse

How does it feel to revamp an old laptop and make it work some of the heavy duty software on it? And how does it also feel to give it a cosmetic makeover to bring its original look? This is what I had experienced turning an old notebook into a workhorse which was lying at home waiting to be discarded.

Such initiative triggered me only when my trusted MacBook Air one fine morning during the pandemic lockdown all of a sudden gave up putting me in crossroads. Had checked with several Mac authorised service centres and all had stereo type response, suggesting to replace the battery module that costed a bomb.

Created hinge cover in the right 

Looking into the state of affairs, my younger nephew pulled out an old Lenovo notebook and handed to me saying that I was free to tinker with this machine since it was in the verge of being discarded and disposed off as junk.

After few days I took some time off to examine the machine closely. The model was Lenovo IdeaPad s400 with licenced Window'8 OS which immediately made me guess that the notebook must have been purchased sometime in mid 2010. The island keyboard appeared fine, but with marks of severe wear and tear particularly in the spacebar, tab, shift, ctrl, and arrow keys including the track pad.

The glossy dark screen had some stubborn horizontal marks in the centre and innumerable scratches in the bezel. Could be due to the changed alignement of the hinges which was on constant friction between the screen and keyboard when in closed position. Additionally, the right side hinge cover which prevents dust from entering the motherboard was missing that made the area look hollow and pretty odd. The two hinges holds the screen along with the combo keyboard and motherboard section.

The exterior of the notebook had a silver look, akin to an aluminium finish on a plastic, but with multiple scratches and slight dents in the front left corner edges.

Turning the machine upside down, I immediately spotted three screws missing while the rubber feet that prevents the notebook from slipping off when on a tabletop, appeared brittle due to constant change of weather and age related factors. The missing hinge cover now appeared clearer and was similar to bike without a mudguard.

Located the original charger and put the machine on charge. After several hours removed the charger, but the battery refused to store any energy and so I put it back on the mains again and started the machine. It took several minutes to boot up and to my utter surprise it was Ubuntu as the Windows'8 OS was missing.

My older nephew who is a software engineer, had installed this Linux OS few years ago and was unable to recollect the password or retrieve the original Windows'8 operating system inspite of the best efforts.

By now I was convinced that this Lenovo notebook had been literally cannibalised. There was lot of hard work needed to be done and I decided to take it up as a challenge to restore the machine even if it could help in light office works such as Word, Excel, Power Point and also primarily run some Ham Radio programs in the digital platform. The way-forward was first to check the hardware followed by software and finally a cosmetic makeover.

Procured a screwdriver set with multiple heads. Took out the battery and then carefully unscrewed the back cover. Cleaned mounds of dust with the help of a soft one inch paint brush and a vacuum pump. Removed the RAM and Hard drive, cleaned the terminals and put it back. Restarted the machine, but it was still taking ages to boot up.

Really could not figure out what was actually causing this slow booting and nor was it allowing to install an old Windows'7 OS version that put me in a fix. Took snapshots of the motherboard, system information and shared it with one of my Ham Radio friends based in Bangalore - alias, Karan Dutt (VU3HGG).

Karan is a software wizard who has been building computers since past several years. After examining the snapshots, he advised to get the hard drive checked and preferably replace it by a solid state drive (SSD).

Accordingly, I removed the hard drive and got it checked by an authorised service centre. The hard drive turned out to be faulty as it failed to install Windows OS even when inserted on a different laptop.

After a lot of soul searching of SSDs, I finally settled with a 500 GB WD SATA SSD

Hard drive replaced with SSD

variant and fixed it on my own. It has up to 560 MB/s read speed and 530 MB/s write speed plus five years warranty.

Had also cheked the CMOS battery which keeps the system's clock and date running among others and then started the machine. This time there was comparatively significant improvement in the time taken to boot up which was very encouraging indeed.

Next, was to trouble shoot the charging section of the notebook as it was not storing energy in the battery. I suspected the battery must have been dead and so searched for a new compatible lithium battery pack.

Checked the original Lenovo battery charger with a multimeter which showed it was fine, but surprisingly, even the new battery was not charging and neither the charging indicator light was glowing in the notebook.This drove me to return the battery to the seller.

After checking with few more sellers, settled with another battery pack which lit the battery charging indicator in the notebook. Though the retention of energy time in the battery pack is much less than the original one which came along with the machine at the time of purchasing, but its okay.

Meanwhile, installed Windows'10 Pro, Office'19 including few other programs. And guess what?! - This decade old machine now boots up as well as shuts down with a lightening speed. A preliminary opinion working on the different programs and applications so far sails like a feather. However, after thoroughly using it for the next few months will be able to give a better review of its performance.

With the machine's hardware and software back in order, the next piece of work was to fix the missing hinge cover and to give a cosmetic makeover too. Was wondering how to do that and just wished if I only knew someone owning a 3-D printer so that a similar hinge could be copied from the existing one and rolled out a brand new hinge cover. Perhaps, this would have been the easiest and quickest fix, though.

Ripped off soap dispenser

I found an empty Lifebouoy liquid soap dispenser, ripped off the bottom and cut a long strip matching to the breadth of the existing left side hinge cover. 

With slight heat gently moulded the plastic strip to replicate the original hinge cover. Once done, took the reverse side of a Haldiram peanuts packet and covered the plastic hinge with Fevicol glue. Yes, it looked silver metallic and with a black permanent marker pen coloured all over the strip until it  matched with the original one to a great extent. I am sure this hack may sound quite amusing to many!

The final stage was to get rid of innumerable scratch marks on the exterior and bottom side of the notebook. Tried cleaning with Colin liquid which only made some of the scratch marks more prominent. The only option left was to get it laminated with a metallic silver matt finish laminate which resembles close to the original colour of the notebook.

Today, this decade old notebook with just 1.50 GHz Pentium (R) processor, enhanced 8 GB RAM and 500 GB solid state drive looks sleek as well as functions smartly. With softwares such as Premiere Pro, Audition, Lightroom, etc running in this machine, it is all set to become a workhorse. Thanks to Karan for inspiring me in renovating this machine which was in the verge of being disposed off as a junk. Thanks also to my nephews who are more like friends, though. And yes, you too can do the same if you are having an old laptop lying in your home.

Below are images related to the article:

The old laptop transformed into a workhorse

Top: orignal hinge cover; Below: created hinge cover wrapped in silver foil 

Cosmetic makeover of the Lenovo notebook

Lookalike hinge cover created; Below, the original hinge cover

The original Hard drive

Hard drive being replaced with SSD 

The Lenovo notebook and the SSD