marxveix wrote on 2024-09-20, 18:05:

20 euro android tv boxes can playback netflix, even my old raspberry pi 3 did it at up to 720p, but i recommend something faster […]
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20 euro android tv boxes can playback netflix, even my old raspberry pi 3 did it at up to 720p, but i recommend something faster than that.

Tanix TX2
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005006806473197.html?

Tanix W2
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005004493874115.html?

Those aren't proper Android TV boxes, they have the regular (mobile) Android OS installed on them which makes them a PITA to use because you end up with the regular apps that expect a touch-screen to be present. They're also not certified for Netflix and won't be able to play proper HD content (limited to low bandwidth 720p as stated).

The allwinner chipset android boxes can take a version of LibreElec too it seems, picked up a likely candidate last year for $5, but that's experimental/reserve if a smaller TV turns up I'll try the roku out first.

jmarsh wrote on 2024-09-20, 19:48:

marxveix wrote on 2024-09-20, 18:05:

20 euro android tv boxes can playback netflix, even my old raspberry pi 3 did it at up to 720p, but i recommend something faster […]
Show full quote

20 euro android tv boxes can playback netflix, even my old raspberry pi 3 did it at up to 720p, but i recommend something faster than that.

Tanix TX2
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005006806473197.html?

Tanix W2
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005004493874115.html?

Those aren't proper Android TV boxes, they have the regular (mobile) Android OS installed on them which makes them a PITA to use because you end up with the regular apps that expect a touch-screen to be present. They're also not certified for Netflix and won't be able to play proper HD content (limited to low bandwidth 720p as stated).

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-09-21, 05:00:

The allwinner chipset android boxes can take a version of LibreElec too it seems, picked up a likely candidate last year for $5, but that's experimental/reserve if a smaller TV turns up I'll try the roku out first.

Tanix W2 has custom S905W2 firmware i think, but Xiaomi Tv Box S 2 Gen for 40+ eur, it has Google TV and Netflix certificate, also needs usb to lan adapter if over cable. There are many other great box options out there and they take less power than standard pc.
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005007264231622.html?

marxveix wrote on 2024-09-21, 10:00:

Xiaomi Tv Box S 2 Gen for 40+ eur, it has Google TV and Netflix certificate

For that price you can buy a chromecast and skip dealing with aliexpress.

jmarsh wrote on 2024-09-21, 10:19:

marxveix wrote on 2024-09-21, 10:00:

Xiaomi Tv Box S 2 Gen for 40+ eur, it has Google TV and Netflix certificate

For that price you can buy a chromecast and skip dealing with aliexpress.

Chromecast cost is 52 upt to 99 euros if i look them with lowest prices in my country and i like to use cable connection (more stable) if possible.
Aliexpress chromecast price is 23 euro. With Futureproof support and Windows 11, then SS4.2 CPU should be better to have for PC&Netflix use case.

Boxes/sticks are not a problem, like I said there's a spare Roku box around, I have a BNIB firestick that I wouldn't mind giving up, and 'roids are building up enough that I might have to use preparation H on them, but a small TV screen is as much a problem as a laptop, nothing under 32" seems to exist any more, or rather they unexisted themselves with leaky caps just outside of warranty. There was a load of crap around in the teens. Because this person is naturally awkward and everything involving her has to be difficult, she has her bedroom in kind of an attic/dormer type room where there is not a vertical surface convenient to hang a larger TV if I got a cheap bigger one.... and you guessed it... the vertical portion of the wall stops about at dresser height before the roof comes in at 45 degrees or whatever it is, meaning a big TV would have to kind of teeter right on the front edge of any furniture to get height clearance, and did I mention she is awkward, that includes clumsy. Crap, I might get to considering a cheapass projector is it's HDCP compliant.... that might be worth a look actually to see if there was any of those android box projector combos still around.

LibreElec is failing on this available hardware at the moment, I optimistically thought "legacy nVidia GPUs" meant everything that you can't launch recent games on, which is basically DX10 stuff, not stuff people still build budget gaming boxes with... but yeah, legacy only goes back to GT6x0 kind of era... it's apparently 3 or 4 xorg nVidia legacy driver packages ago that I find the GPU in this, soooo not sure if I can get it working, might have to revert to a LibreElec version too old for the version of Kodi that supports the 3rd party nitflux shizzle. I was under the misapprehension it would failover to standard SVGA and I could see more of what's what, but that ain't happening, trying yet another image I guess....

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-09-23, 01:49:

LibreElec is failing on this available hardware at the moment, I optimistically thought "legacy nVidia GPUs" meant everything that you can't launch recent games on, which is basically DX10 stuff, not stuff people still build budget gaming boxes with... but yeah, legacy only goes back to GT6x0 kind of era... it's apparently 3 or 4 xorg nVidia legacy driver packages ago that I find the GPU in this, soooo not sure if I can get it working, might have to revert to a LibreElec version too old for the version of Kodi that supports the 3rd party nitflux shizzle. I was under the misapprehension it would failover to standard SVGA and I could see more of what's what, but that ain't happening, trying yet another image I guess....

Their wiki says:

LibreELEC v7.x - v10.x include two different nVidia GPU drivers; a "legacy" driver (340.xx) and the latest stable driver.

but according to Nvidia the latest driver for the GF 7150M is 304.1370; 340.xx only goes back to 8-series. You might have better luck on Windows 10, at least some claim the Windows 8 drivers do work on Win10.

Yeah 304 is what I need, though I am wondering what is worse, only 20% CPU unloading if all the acceleration works, with w10's bulk and random hijacking of your resources on top, or lighter OS 100% CPU decoded... if we can keep it to SD or 720.... I thought it had a RAM slot free too, had a single 2GB in, but nope, 2x1 so can't put a lot more in it, all my 2GB PC2 SODIMM are gainfully employed. Can you get SODIMM stackers? 🤣 I could give it 16MB in 1s 🤣

None of my spare monitors seem HDCP compliant, at least I can't find shit on them. Didn't wanna have to test a whole bunch.... Nothing spare with HDMI so playing guessing games with DVI versions. Had a thought about sound though, she's already got a boombox there, so tape adapter being the level/age of tech she can manage might provide sound out of android box with jack socket... well at least we don't have to stack a compact cassette adapter into an 8 track player and put the converter in that 🤣

Dammit, the "Sunday evening listings" (why the hell everyone lists shit for sale on Sunday I don't know, just is) ... aren't showing anything promising, a few laptops under $60 but they're basically 1 generation better than this turkey, and not a lot more clocky so benefit seems marginal if any. I miss Limewire, used to scramble the software brains of many a laptop with all the virii and I'd get 2 year old stuff for pennies on the dollar.

Bah, another useless exercise, wife tells me she remembers someone giving me something in the last couple of years that needs fixing, go looking at the storage again... oooh, that looks shiny and I see an HDMI out can't be THAT old.... CQ50, got given it dead 5+ years back got inside saw the bumpgate northbridge and fried board around it, pronounced it deader, thought I had it stashed much further away/deeper in case I ever needed screen, so wasn't expecting it... anyway, pop the RAM hatch, more 1s, pop the HDD hatch, no drive, well screw you too then. CPU is only 1.9ghz and S1G2 not G1 so extremely marginal boost if it would even work in the other. Though just thought of another long ago received dead casualty that might have a nicer CPU, and maybe RAM, will investigate...

I dunno if LibreElec is actually winning me over much right now, so the version with the legacy nVid drivers were saying it couldn't start X, figure drivers too new need 304 as noted, however, other versions seem to be not even getting that far. Was hoping for SVGA basic mode, but it does not appear to get as far as X... when I get fed up of staring at the single starting up message, (and I've tried leaving it for hours) and vulcan nerve pinch it or hold power down, I'm seeing something flash up quick about couldn't create filesystem. Wat? Why come can create filesys with useless xwin drivers, but not with no nvid drivers ???? Everything I am looking up sayyyyys I've got enough RAM in there, but I think I'm gonna have to steal the 2x2GB out of something else and try that... I wanna see it fired up first, it might need more RAM to run off RAM filesystem but then work on the amount I want to let it have if installed... so that to try.

Apparently I really hated buying monitors that were not VGA... very light on the digital hookups most of my spares, only the monitors I regard as my good keepers seem like they would work. Otherwise I was looking at throwing a HD7350 in a C2Q SFF box... I know media player boxes cover the stated objectives, but think she is gonna bitch if she can't check her gmail. I didn't wanna give her that box but got 2 ATX cases/machines come in this week so one can be used for what I was wanting to save that for.

However.... going to a big fleamarket tomorrow, chance I might find something for peanuts, either HDCP compliant monitor with speakers or laptop with more stones, or something.

edit: more RAM went in annnnnd IDK, the USB light seemed to flash longer before it did nothing.... The legacy nvidia one gave an extra error about windowmanager dependency failing, before the xorg errors repeating. Now I made it boot in "make filesystem on the USB and run off that" mode and it made the fs, I think, and rebooted and now is still stuck at the startup message, but is blipping the USB light periodically, like it's still doing something, but if it's hung in a loop it's a really long loop because I can't tell... and it's been doing that 45 mins... WTF is it doing? Compiling from scratch? I did catch a flash at the beginning before the startup message that said CPU not detected/initialized, hmmm maybe it's the CPU... what's weird is that I've got Xubuntu on same base I think running on a Turion X2 on another machine just fine, so not sure what the actual screwup is here... yeah actually, I booted a xubuntu stick on it last week, unless it's actually got a bumpgate chipset problem, which doesn't show up in it's orig win vista install, since seems to be working in that.

Oh, while I was typing the stick seems to have stopped flashing completely now, back in my day things crashed faster when they crashed, not pirouetting through 57 evolutions of nearly saving itself before it faceplanted....

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-09-27, 13:39:

edit: more RAM went in annnnnd IDK, the USB light seemed to flash longer before it did nothing.... The legacy nvidia one gave an extra error about windowmanager dependency failing, before the xorg errors repeating. Now I made it boot in "make filesystem on the USB and run off that" mode and it made the fs, I think, and rebooted and now is still stuck at the startup message, but is blipping the USB light periodically, like it's still doing something, but if it's hung in a loop it's a really long loop because I can't tell... and it's been doing that 45 mins... WTF is it doing? Compiling from scratch? I did catch a flash at the beginning before the startup message that said CPU not detected/initialized, hmmm maybe it's the CPU... what's weird is that I've got Xubuntu on same base I think running on a Turion X2 on another machine just fine, so not sure what the actual screwup is here... yeah actually, I booted a xubuntu stick on it last week, unless it's actually got a bumpgate chipset problem, which doesn't show up in it's orig win vista install, since seems to be working in that.

Oh, while I was typing the stick seems to have stopped flashing completely now, back in my day things crashed faster when they crashed, not pirouetting through 57 evolutions of nearly saving itself before it faceplanted....

Hard to tell what it's doing without seeing any logs, is it possible to ssh in from another machine? Is it connected to an external monitor? Maybe it can't make the built-in display work, for some reason.

ODwilly wrote on 2024-09-18, 21:49:

Heck I found a sandybridge i3 Toshiba laptop for $20 locally a couple years ago. 250gb SSD and Windows 10 felt like a new PC and activated with the 7 home code under the battery.

You're making me wonder what was wrong with mine. I could only get usable performance by running Linux on it. In Windows, even the most basic tasks felt horribly CPU bottlenecked, but it still got even better synthetic benchmark scores than the published results on the Internet. YouTube was limited to 720p, even with hardware decoding. Twitch couldn't even do 480p without constant dropped frames and the CPU usage pegged at 100%, even though the GPU was being used for video decoding.

Disk performance got worse over time as well. Even the factory 5400RPM HDD didn't perform as expected, so I never put an SSD in it. Wasn't that the degradation problem with early Sandy Bridge chipset revisions? This laptop is new enough to have the fixed chipset revision, but after Toshiba's warranty repair center tried to fix bad RAM by replacing the motherboard (and cracked the plastic base around every single screw hole in the process), you never know.

Yah something sounds wrong with that, that's more like current low end core 2 performance, which I get on this A200 beater.

I jinxed the fleamarket by mentioning it 🙁

lti wrote on 2024-09-28, 15:05:

ODwilly wrote on 2024-09-18, 21:49:

Heck I found a sandybridge i3 Toshiba laptop for $20 locally a couple years ago. 250gb SSD and Windows 10 felt like a new PC and activated with the 7 home code under the battery.

You're making me wonder what was wrong with mine. I could only get usable performance by running Linux on it. In Windows, even the most basic tasks felt horribly CPU bottlenecked, but it still got even better synthetic benchmark scores than the published results on the Internet. YouTube was limited to 720p, even with hardware decoding. Twitch couldn't even do 480p without constant dropped frames and the CPU usage pegged at 100%, even though the GPU was being used for video decoding.

Disk performance got worse over time as well. Even the factory 5400RPM HDD didn't perform as expected, so I never put an SSD in it. Wasn't that the degradation problem with early Sandy Bridge chipset revisions? This laptop is new enough to have the fixed chipset revision, but after Toshiba's warranty repair center tried to fix bad RAM by replacing the motherboard (and cracked the plastic base around every single screw hole in the process), you never know.

I don't know, Iv been using a A6-5200 powered HP that came with a 2007 5200rpm 160gb WD drive from an old Acer Netbook. Before the SSD swap it was almost unbearable to use Windows 10. 720p YouTube had some stutters. After the SSD swap it plays 1080p no problem. Heck before it took a solid 8-10 minutes to be usable after boot up. Even Linux was only slightly better.
EDIT: I do remember on the Sandybridge Toshiba going out of my way to get the graphics driver from the Intel website, the driver that Windows 10 installed was dog crap.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-09-23, 01:49:

but a small TV screen is as much a problem as a laptop, nothing under 32" seems to exist any more, or rather they unexisted themselves with leaky caps just outside of warranty.

Check your local thrift stores. Last place where I lived in the US, just about every thrift store had an overflowing stock of ~24"-40" screens. Most were 32"s. I myself found about 3 or 4 on the curb in the past 2 years and donated or gave away all of them because I had no use for them.

Not all are prone to getting bad caps.
Samsung is hit or miss. Most of the time, they use their own Korean brand caps (Samyoung, SamWha, etc.), which tend to do OK for around 10 years, and then it's a lottery which ones will keep going and which ones won't. Now, I have seen a few Samsung TVs with Delta OEM PSUs with Japanese caps, and these were smaller 32" TVs.
The only Toshiba TV I found also had good Japanese caps.
Sony always use good cap brands.
Visio... is kind of a mixed bag in that regard.
Philips/Magnavox are a pretty cheap brand now and tend to use garbage caps. I've seen more of these in need of recap than any other brand.

So depending on how things are in your area, you may be able to find a cheap used LCD TV. Where I used to live before, it wasn't hard at all to find TV's for $15-20, even in thrift stores (which are usually not that cheap anymore and IMO I rarely saw any good bargains in most of them.)

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-09-23, 01:49:

the vertical portion of the wall stops about at dresser height before the roof comes in at 45 degrees or whatever it is, meaning a big TV would have to kind of teeter right on the front edge of any furniture to get height clearance, and did I mention she is awkward, that includes clumsy.

Maybe mount the TV on the angled wall? Or the ceiling? 🤣 🤣
Will make it nice to view from bed.
The latter option will also make it harder to hit accidentally. 😁

lti wrote on 2024-09-28, 15:05:

You're making me wonder what was wrong with mine.

Quite possible.
A 4th gen Celeron SFF desktop PC I set up for my mother runs YT 1080p video flawlessly without sweating it at all. Browsing in general feels very smooth and loading the OS is quite fast (Windows 7). Only Firefox (latest ESR, whatever it is now... v12_?) loads a little slow. But that's expected, the PC has a 5400 RPM 2.5" HDD... and given that every modern browser for Windows 10/11 is a bunch of bloated crap now, HDDs are simply no good for modern browsers or OSes.
I also set up a relatively modern-ish laptop for a family friends of my mother. In their case, it was a laptop with a dual core CPU (and 2 or 4 thread, I forget) equivalent to a Celeron (if not an actual Celeron or Pentium of some sort.) 4 GB of RAM, Windows 10, and... the kicker... a slow as molasses 5400 RPM 2.5 HDD. IIRC, they bought it new right around Covid... so 2019 or 2020. It was sloooooooooooooooooooooow. So I did what I always do with a Win10 laptop like that: do a factory restore using the built-in Windows 10 option, get rid of all of the manufacturer bloatware, trim down the unnecessary crap in Windows 10, then image the HDD to the smallest SSD that will do the job and... voila! - An actually usable machine! FWIW, that one had even less trouble browsing online. YT 1080p was without lifting a finger. Oh, and the best added bonus was that now with Windows 10 debloated and trimmed, the battery lasted almost 2x longer.

lti wrote on 2024-09-28, 15:05:

Even the factory 5400RPM HDD didn't perform as expected, so I never put an SSD in it.

That's probably a major part of the problem with your laptop. Stock Windows 10 install on a HDD is never any good. Add bloatware from the laptop manufacturer, and I don't even know how anyone in the marketing dept. even thinks it's OK to sell a product like this to the public. It's nearly useless.

momaka wrote on 2024-09-29, 19:25:

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-09-23, 01:49:

but a small TV screen is as much a problem as a laptop, nothing under 32" seems to exist any more, or rather they unexisted themselves with leaky caps just outside of warranty.

Check your local thrift stores. Last place where I lived in the US, just about every thrift store had an overflowing stock of ~24"-40" screens. Most were 32"s. I myself found about 3 or 4 on the curb in the past 2 years and donated or gave away all of them because I had no use for them.

When I say there are none around, I have checked the normal conceivable places that they could be around. Thrift stores seem to be having a run of 4:3 smaller monitors and early widescreens with VGA inputs, and TVs 40" plus. I am aware as previously stated that often things like this can be got cheap or free but at the moment THERE ARE NONE AROUND. I think it's college students picking them up for dorms etc this time of year or something.

I might have another go at a Haier 24" in the junk pile, it rejected a previous recap attempt by blowing those too.

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2024-09-20, 19:42:

An Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet checks all the boxes. It's relatively rugged, easy to use, can sit on her nightstand or be used in bed, and is not expensive at all. Combine it with a tablet pillow stand and you have the perfect TV-in-bed setup.

This is the correct answer for someone who's not technical. They are even on sale for $75 right now, but if you have any other outdated Amazon gear registered to your account you can also do a trade in which will give you an extra 20% off taking it down to $60.

Zero configuration, janky hardware that could fail, and no problems with DRM.

Updates...

Tuesday last week, thrift visit, a Goodwill, no small TVs, a 50" behind the counter, three 4:3 monitors, two of them quite nice, tempting for retro, but don't have space for them right now, but yah, no widescreen/HDCP. No tablets, laptops etc.

Thursday hit the VV, one standless 22"-ish skating around on the shelf with screen scratched all to hell, nope. One 19" VGA input only, two 4:3... again pretty nice ones, key to finding a good retro 4:3 is to go out looking for a widescreen I guess 🤣

Sat, yard saling, saw one monitor period in 10 stops, it was the ~19" Acer model from about 09-10 that blows backlights in 18months to 2 years of daily driver use. We had a couple go on us from new. If it was working then and cheap I was desperate enough, but nope, not cheap, dude thought it was a high spec gaming monitor or something.

Through the week.. FB marketplace finally got the clue I was looking for monitors and started giving me updates on some posted, three freaking times it tells me of one posted under $20 overnight, and in the morning when I check it, it's got sold on it. There was a few possibles from a month plus back, no response to messages, one just got deleted so guess they sold and forgot ad. Anyway, it points to weirdly high local demand at the moment, everything getting bought up. Got two unreplied messages on laptops also. Plus two sub 30" TVs just gone real soon after posting.

Anyhooooo, seems that libreElec boot stick hates AMD or something, got it to boot on C2D, but did not boot on my Phenom II rig either. Had a quick look around on it, typical of my experience with Kodi prior though, my network shares don't show up. They show up on VLC, they show up on MXplayer, they show up in some default android vid players. IDK what Kodi does different, but anyway, not a problem I need to solve for this problem, just odd, but, crimps the ease of testing to see if bluray quality stuff plays on something, figuring if it does then SD streaming shoullllld be okay.

I did just come to a realisation that the Thinkpad T400 I have, does not spark joy, I know, it's close to heresy. The things that I wanted it for previously, are getting done by other things, which have working batteries, whereas this one is dud now. Since the X2 HP is being a bastard and I can't get LibreElec on it easily apparently, I am going to switch focus to seeing if this is okay enough. Though with the 2.4Ghz C2D I am leaning toward trying to get win10 going good on it. Still not sure I want to give it up free and clear though, so I'll call it a long term loan until replaced.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-10-07, 13:08:

Had a quick look around on it, typical of my experience with Kodi prior though, my network shares don't show up. They show up on VLC, they show up on MXplayer, they show up in some default android vid players. IDK what Kodi does different, but anyway, not a problem I need to solve for this problem, just odd, but, crimps the ease of testing to see if bluray quality stuff plays on something, figuring if it does then SD streaming shoullllld be okay.

Missing network shares is likely due to SMB1 being disabled by default on modern versions of Samba, fiddle with the minimum SMB version in Kodi. That's assuming your network share is on an old SMB1-only NAS.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-10-07, 13:08:

I did just come to a realisation that the Thinkpad T400 I have, does not spark joy, I know, it's close to heresy. The things that I wanted it for previously, are getting done by other things, which have working batteries, whereas this one is dud now. Since the X2 HP is being a bastard and I can't get LibreElec on it easily apparently, I am going to switch focus to seeing if this is okay enough. Though with the 2.4Ghz C2D I am leaning toward trying to get win10 going good on it. Still not sure I want to give it up free and clear though, so I'll call it a long term loan until replaced.

The T400 is nice laptop, looks like it has an Intel GMA 4500MHD and an optional Mobility Radeon HD 3470. Both support full bitstream decoding of H.264 high profile so it's a much better option. AIUI, newer versions of LibreElec rely on KMS (Kernel Modesetting), which is well supported on Intel and AMD GPUs, which is a better and lighter option since the X.org server isn't loaded at all. With Nvidia it has to use the proprietary driver, which only works with X.org server and then only if the GPU is supported by the driver (as discussed previously, the 7150M is one generation too old for the legacy driver).

This might be a little off-topic at this point, but I forgot about this thread.

ODwilly wrote on 2024-09-29, 14:39:

I don't know, Iv been using a A6-5200 powered HP that came with a 2007 5200rpm 160gb WD drive from an old Acer Netbook. Before the SSD swap it was almost unbearable to use Windows 10. 720p YouTube had some stutters. After the SSD swap it plays 1080p no problem. Heck before it took a solid 8-10 minutes to be usable after boot up. Even Linux was only slightly better.
EDIT: I do remember on the Sandybridge Toshiba going out of my way to get the graphics driver from the Intel website, the driver that Windows 10 installed was dog crap.

I don't see disk activity when it's failing miserably. It's just the CPU being loaded. It took more than 10 minutes to be usable after booting, though. All of the automatic update stuff on a daily-use computer with modern (at the time) software meant that either the CPU or disk was pegged at 100% usage for hours (and then Malwarebytes added a scheduled daily scan at either 3:00 AM or immediately on boot if the computer was turned off overnight - that took so much CPU that it took a long time to open Malwarebytes and cancel the scan while having almost no disk activity).

I also had to use the latest graphics driver from Intel's website. The driver from Windows Update was the same version that the laptop shipped with, and it caused random BSODs when using hardware video decoding. Unfortunately, that was the only thing I noticed that the latest driver actually fixed. Almost every 3D program I tried to run claimed that hardware 3D acceleration didn't exist.

I looked up the chipset flaw, and it didn't affect the 6Gb SATA ports. The hard drive is on 6Gb SATA, but it doesn't perform as expected in this laptop. It's significantly faster (but still slow) in a USB enclosure.

momaka wrote on 2024-09-29, 19:25:

A 4th gen Celeron SFF desktop PC I set up for my mother runs YT 1080p video flawlessly without sweating it at all. Browsing in g […]
Show full quote

A 4th gen Celeron SFF desktop PC I set up for my mother runs YT 1080p video flawlessly without sweating it at all. Browsing in general feels very smooth and loading the OS is quite fast (Windows 7). Only Firefox (latest ESR, whatever it is now... v12_?) loads a little slow. But that's expected, the PC has a 5400 RPM 2.5" HDD... and given that every modern browser for Windows 10/11 is a bunch of bloated crap now, HDDs are simply no good for modern browsers or OSes.
I also set up a relatively modern-ish laptop for a family friends of my mother. In their case, it was a laptop with a dual core CPU (and 2 or 4 thread, I forget) equivalent to a Celeron (if not an actual Celeron or Pentium of some sort.) 4 GB of RAM, Windows 10, and... the kicker... a slow as molasses 5400 RPM 2.5 HDD. IIRC, they bought it new right around Covid... so 2019 or 2020. It was sloooooooooooooooooooooow. So I did what I always do with a Win10 laptop like that: do a factory restore using the built-in Windows 10 option, get rid of all of the manufacturer bloatware, trim down the unnecessary crap in Windows 10, then image the HDD to the smallest SSD that will do the job and... voila! - An actually usable machine! FWIW, that one had even less trouble browsing online. YT 1080p was without lifting a finger. Oh, and the best added bonus was that now with Windows 10 debloated and trimmed, the battery lasted almost 2x longer.

lti wrote on 2024-09-28, 15:05:

Even the factory 5400RPM HDD didn't perform as expected, so I never put an SSD in it.

That's probably a major part of the problem with your laptop. Stock Windows 10 install on a HDD is never any good. Add bloatware from the laptop manufacturer, and I don't even know how anyone in the marketing dept. even thinks it's OK to sell a product like this to the public. It's nearly useless.

I kept Windows 7 on it (and then dual-booted with Linux). I don't think it's worth putting a good SSD in this thing (like a WD Blue or Crucial MX500), but I've also heard of some low-grade NAND having a data retention time of only a few days.