End of Year PC Build

It's the same over here. Last time I actually bought a laptop was in 2005. I still have connections, so I get decent laptops for free. Sometimes desktops too, but business desktops are seldom any good. Unless they are high performance workstations, but those are rare.

Yeah, most businesses prohibit their employees from taking those "obsolete" laptops or desktops home and keeping them. They always dispose the HDDs and SSDs separately, but they still don't want those old hardware to be reused or donated to others. They probably have their reasons.
I'm curious as to why you didn't keep the 3600 yourself and use it in your personal rig. I mean that's what I would do.

Wow, good job bending those pins back and getting the CPU to work again. I don't think my eyes are good enough to do such thing. I definitely need a good magnifying glass stand with light.

I assume the damage was from improper removal of the heatsink. I hadn't worked on an AMD system for years before this build. Now I need to remember to be extra careful when I pull the heatsink off a PGA socket CPU. Always twist the heatsink/water block a bit first and make sure it's loose before yanking it off the CPU.

Also I honestly have never heard of Athlon II X2 270. I didn't even know it existed. That's a big downgrade from the mighty Ryzen 3600. I hope your brother can at least watch YouTube on that. Haha.

Me neither. Thanks for reminding me, I would've yanked that cooler way too hard for sure.

My advice is to spend a bit more and get a better Windows 10 laptop with a more powerful CPU and more RAM. Most Windows laptops come with the 11th gen Intel Core CPUs and the Iris Xe iGPUs. So even with a budget laptop, you can still do some relatively basic gaming at 720p and 30 FPS at least. That's just so much more than you can ever do on a Chromebook.

Yeah, I'd definitely spend more and get a Windows 10/11 laptop. Any 11th Gen Intel Tiger Lake CPU with Iris Xe Graphics is fine.

If you're on a limited budget, there are still a lot of options out there. Do your research because there are many things that can make or break a laptop. First you want to avoid any laptop with a bad keyboard, bad touchpad, or bad screen. You should also make sure you get enough RAM (8GB?) and the NVMe SSD is upgradable at least.

Laptop is one of those things that if you could just spend a little more, you would get so much more in return. That's why I always end up overspending whenever I shop for one.

If you have no budget and you don't care about Windows compatibility or hardware upgradability at all. I'd recommend you a MacBook Air M1 instead because that's what I'd get. Haha.

Do you mean a portable battery bank or another spare laptop battery?

Unfortunately, as laptops get lighter and more compact, most of them no longer have easy replaceable batteries.

Nowadays, most laptop batteries cannot be replaced without disassembling with a screwdriver.


It is done this way to reduce weight, size, and cost. The good thing is that modern laptops all have very good battery life and fairly big batteries to begin with. A typical laptop like the Dell XPS 13 and the Apple MacBook Air M1 can easily last you 12-16 hours on a single charge.

If you ever need extra battery, you can just bring a portable battery bank with a USB-C cable to recharge your laptop.

If your laptop doesn't support USB-C charging, you should just carry the charger with you.

I know it isn't technically Q4 yet, but I've started the build. Some parts are still in order, but I expect them to arrive soon.

First impressions: Fractal Design Define 7 isn't all that big. I'll post pics later, but let's just say that, if you're planning a custom loop with a large GPU, buy the XL instead. My problem: optical drive + a 280 cooler + pump-res-combo + two 140mm front fans equals a lot of space already used. I may have to ditch the optical drive, we'll see.

You mean the Ethernet port? Yeah, most small thin and light laptops don't come with the Ethernet port. Even the business-oriented Lenovo X1 Carbon and Dell XPS 15 require an adapter.

However, there are still some 14" and 15.6/16" laptops that have it. Such as my Gigabyte Aero 15.

If having no Ethernet port is a deal breaker for you, you just have to search a little harder. Finding the right laptop is always difficult especially if you're on a budget.

You can look up Acer Aspire 5. 

It's a good laptop that's relatively inexpensive and it also has an Ethernet port. It is an older laptop design with a mediocre screen and keyboard, but you get a lot for your money.

Now I think of it, they also come in 14" model. So it might be what you're looking for.