Considering upgrading an old laptop

[Mr. Rogers]

I was given an old laptop yesterday (Dell Inspiron 3000). It's got:

* P1 processor - 233MHz
* 48MB 66MHz RAM
* 2-3GB hard drive
* Running Windows 98

I could probably upgrade it to:

* 144MB RAM
* Wireless Internet
* CD-Burner
* 10-20GB hard drive

for $100-120 or so.

Think it's worth it?

[LorentzForce]

Or grab a used Thinkpad off eBay with all of above and more at about the same price. Upgrading a really old system usually isn't worth it. You'll probably end up with horrible battery life anyway from age, which means it won't be portable, which defeats whole purpose of having a laptop. That and finding upgrade for that laptop RAM of such ages might be a nightmare, let alone possible price tag for it.

Unless you have some funky plans for it, such as a server farm monitoring thing.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

even with those upgrades, it has that rediculously slow processor

I don't see it worth the upgrade, if the processing speed is that low.

[RedMage]

I don't see it as being worth it at all, it'll never come close to being halfway respectable by current standards. You'd just be throwing money away.