Another Observatory Laptop DIED!!!!

[MarsG76]

Hello All,

So another observatory laptop died... that's number two, but to be fair this one did get rained on about 6 months ago and came back to life after being dried out for about a week... so I guess it was running on borrowed time.... 

Initially when I turned it on on 16 May, it showed up with "NO OPERATING SYSTEM" message, but booter after a reset... than on 18th, the HDD was not detected at all no matter what I done.. reseated it, cleaned the connectors and left it in a dry environment for a day.. nothing.

The HDD is OK as I plugged it in to my desktop to get my subs off it, so I'm once again in the market for another obsy laptop... 

What makes it worse is that I have nothing but clear skies for the next week where I could do some SII subs, even with being around the full moon time of the month.... Looks like I'll need to take out the NexGuide, and insert a CF card into the 40D for some computer less (almost blind) imaging like in the past.

Clear skies everyone....

 

 

[cotak]

Getting refurbished laptops off Amazon is usually really quick. 

Maybe keep your laptops under some rain protection?

[MarsG76]

3 minutes ago, cotak said:

Maybe keep your laptops under some rain protection?

Usually it is, but that night I left it out from the computer hub and well, rest is history....

 

[RT65CB-SWL]

Ouch - that's a b***er!

Panasonic ToughBooks are rather expensive, but survive most things.

[MarsG76]

17 minutes ago, Philip R said:

Ouch - that's a b***er!

Panasonic ToughBooks are rather expensive, but survive most things.

if I can get a 10 years old Core2Duo laptop for $50-$100, it'll do the job and if protected enough, it'll last a bit of time with a minimal cost.... Something that old will be more than powerful enough to control the scope, camera, sky cam etc...

 

[Neil27]

Plenty of SH lenova lappies on Fleabay, been using one for the past 3 years still going strong, cost me £150, i5 SSd drive plenty of Ram and win7.

[MarsG76]

3 hours ago, Neil27 said:

Plenty of SH lenova lappies on Fleabay, been using one for the past 3 years still going strong, cost me £150, i5 SSd drive plenty of Ram and win7.

Yeah currently looking... I have my eye on another SONY VAIO... but if that falls through, I'm considered by a small desktop in the obsy protected from the moisture and rain being located under a permanent roof.

Convert the dead laptops LCD screens to a wall mounted dual spanned monitor and VNC into it as necessary instead of carryover by the laptop inside...