Announcing the great (well, the so-so) KCLUG laptop giveaway

[Greg Brooks]

All,

I have a troublesome laptop that needs a new home. It's free - you just have
to come get it - and it'll go to the person who has the most interesting
plans for it.


THE MACHINE:

. Toshiba P25-S670, P4 processor (desktop - loudish and hotish) @ 3.8ghz or
so
. 17" wide-aspect screen @ 1400x900; no dead pixels
. DVD multidrive that supports DVD +/-/RW/RAM
. 1GB RAM


THE PROBLEM:

The machine has one problem, which is why it's a giveaway. As near as I can
tell, something's flukey with the video card (Nvidia GEForce 5700). Here's
what I can tell you:

. Installs Ubuntu 6.10 desktop and runs at a default resolution lower than
1400x900. Doesn't seem to have any instability with this.
. Installs Ubuntu 7.x (beta of Feisty Fawn) and runs at 1400x900, with
seemingly no problems.
. The minute you start getting into the Nvidia drivers, things go to hell.
This is verified by
. Install the restricted drivers in Ubuntu, and you get no video on reboot
. Reinstall to WinXP Media Center Edition using the factory re-imaging disk,
and you get an install that goes well until the files are copied over and
the machine tries to go into setup mode, and then the video dies and the
computer blue-screens. 
. Vista Ultimate ran on it for a while with the aforementioned Nvidia
drivers - but only when I turned off all hardware acceleration.

Now, what does all this mean?

. If you want the machine for parts, it's got 1GB of easy-to-extract RAM in
two 512mb sticks. The screen is in great shape, with no dead pixels, and the
80GB HD seems fine as well.
. If you want something of questionable stability, it *does* seem to run
just fine with Ubuntu and the non-restricted drivers. You won't be able to
play with Beryl on a rig like that, but that's not huge.
. If the graphics card is replaceable, it's probably a fairly cheap fix for
a computer currently valued at around $800 on ebay in full working
condition.
. And if the graphics card isn't replaceable? Well, a new mobo will cost you
just about what the machine is worth on ebay.

Interested? Shoot me an email offlist, and tell me the interesting thing you
want to do with it. If more than one person wants it, the most interesting
potential use wins.

Thanks,
Greg