Dying Laptop- Repair or Recycle? HP14-b109wm

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RetiredAndLovingIt

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I pulled out an old laptop I have not used in a couple of years, at the time it was giving me problems so I bought a cheap Chromebook to replace it.
In the past I had been able to factory reset and bring it back but when I tried resetting it to original factory settings today it stops at 7% and kicks me back to the F11 screen
It looks like the drive is failing according to the DST test, I can pick one up on EBAY (used) for about $50 with Windows 10 preloaded and I'm trying to decide if it's worth fixing.
The laptop has a 500GB drive and touch screen which at the moment is not working, I assume because of the bad drive? It originally came preloaded with Windows 8 with a free upgrade to Windows 10.
Before I recycle it, I was wondering if there is anything else I can do to at least reload Windows to see if that might fix the issue. It running right now on 10 but very sluggish and unresponsive.
What would you do?
 
What is the cpu?

If one of the i's like i3, i5, i7 worth thinking about repairing.

What would I do? I'm probably the wrong person to respond and I've become a laptop hoarder. I blame Linux for that :popcorn:.
 
The specs I see on that laptop is 1.4 GHz Celeron with 4GB memory and 5400 RPM disk. I wouldn't put any money in to it. Just get rid of it.

If you are determined to use it, add the additional 4GB memory to the open slot (8GB max), and put a SSD in it. However, by the time you add these, for the money you could be well on your way to a newer/better laptop.

You're very likely experiencing the sluggishness and unresponsiveness because of the CPU/memory/disk configuration.
 
njhowie said:
The specs I see on that laptop is 1.4 GHz Celeron with 4GB memory and 5400 RPM disk. I wouldn't put any money in to it. Just get rid of it...
Click to expand...

+1

The CPU V10 PassMark for this CPU is 642. That's very slow. Aye, aye, aye...

Last month, I bought a new laptop weighing 3.2 lbs. with an AMD Ryzen 6-core CPU benchmarked at 15,308.

I am retiring the previous laptop because it does not run Win 11 due to lack of the TPM 2.0 hardware. It benchmarked at 2,523. Slow, but would still be usable if not for lack of the TPM.
 
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I would get a $20 120gb SSD from Microcenter and clean install Win 10, if that didn't help, garbage time.
 
NW-Bound said:
I am retiring the previous laptop because it does not run Win 11 due to lack of the TPM 2.0 hardware. It benchmarked at 2,523. Slow, but would still be usable if not for lack of the TPM.
Click to expand...
I have Win 11 running on non TPM machines, so lack of TPM doesn't prevent running it. Work arounds are available.
 
Personally, I’d get a new laptop. I’ve found that once computers are a “spare” or the second in line, that’s the same as it never getting used. Of course if I was strapped for cash and this was my only option, then I’d probably try the cheap SSD as jim mentioned. Since you already have a chrome book, do you really think you’d use this once you get it running? I’m doubtful and thus, I recommend recycling it and moving on.
 
Jerry1 said:
Personally, I’d get a new laptop. I’ve found that once computers are a “spare” or the second in line, that’s the same as it never getting used.
Click to expand...

It took me years to understand this and then clear out my collection of unused computers.
 
RetMD21 said:
It took me years to understand this and then clear out my collection of unused computers.
Click to expand...
OP here, I definitely have that problem. Right now I have 2 chromebooks, 4 laptops, 1 PC and don't even get me started on how many tablets I have.
This is the start of my clear out and I'm already trying to fix the first laptop I grabbed.
Can anyone say hoarder :LOL::LOL:
 
Pull the drive and recycle the machine. Celeron is a slow nag. Get a cheap USB carrier for the drive and see if you can reformat. It might be ok, but you'll find out when you reformat and chkdsk.
 
I don’t hoard computers, but I have every hard drive I’ve ever owned. Some day I’ll smash them or drill them, but for now, they sit in a box not taking up much space. There actually have been a couple times when DW wanted to see an original file of a picture but it’s rare.
 
jim584672 said:
I would get a $20 120gb SSD from Microcenter and clean install Win 10, if that didn't help, garbage time.
Click to expand...

That would work for diagnosing the problem. But, the OP would fill up that SSD after a couple months of Windows updates, installing some software, system backups, etc. Been there, done that - it quickly becomes painful when Windows updates fail due to insufficient space.

So, a larger drive would eventually be needed for a "useable" Windows computer.
 
So i tried the USB clean install and of course chose the wrong option which was an upgrade that it wouldn't let me do so i then tried repair which lasted over an hour and does not seem to have repaired anything. I watched a video and now understand the steps I should have taken. I'm a little leery about deleting all the existing partitions, is that normal?
 
RetiredAt55.5 said:
That would work for diagnosing the problem. But, the OP would fill up that SSD after a couple months of Windows updates, installing some software, system backups, etc. Been there, done that - it quickly becomes painful when Windows updates fail due to insufficient space.

So, a larger drive would eventually be needed for a "useable" Windows computer.
Click to expand...
It should be plenty of room. Just keep data on another drive and the system on the SSD.
 
Jerry1 said:
Personally, I’d get a new laptop. I’ve found that once computers are a “spare” or the second in line, that’s the same as it never getting used. Of course if I was strapped for cash and this was my only option, then I’d probably try the cheap SSD as jim mentioned. Since you already have a chrome book, do you really think you’d use this once you get it running? I’m doubtful and thus, I recommend recycling it and moving on.
Click to expand...

This is so true..... I have a Netbook I haven't powered up in a year !!

Time to get rid of some stuff...
 
If the windows reinstall doesn't take, you might want to consider loading a linux variant. If all you are doing is mostly surfing, email, using office apps,... you might like the snappier performance the different os brings to a resource limited laptop running windoze.
 
Actually the Windows install went well except the touchscreen is not working. It was originally a Windows 8 machine that got a free upgrade to 10 and at that time the touchscreen worked fine. It's a model HP14-b109wm and I'm assuming it needs a driver update but can't find it on the HP website. It is pretty slow though compared to my Chromebooks.
I really don't know anything about Linux, but I'm open to giving it a try, What would be a good version to try installing for basic web surfing?
I'm also considering installing the Chrome OS Flex from a USB stick and giving that a try, I have a couple of Chromebooks already and overall I prefer them to Windows.
 
All I'm trying to do with my computer is remember my 50 passwords from the past. It's been so long since I used many passwords that they're forgotten.

A second Hotmail/Gmail account is required to reset a password on a couple, and I've forgot that password too.
 
RetiredAndLovingIt said:
Actually the Windows install went well except the touchscreen is not working. It was originally a Windows 8 machine that got a free upgrade to 10 and at that time the touchscreen worked fine. It's a model HP14-b109wm and I'm assuming it needs a driver update but can't find it on the HP website. It is pretty slow though compared to my Chromebooks.
I really don't know anything about Linux, but I'm open to giving it a try, What would be a good version to try installing for basic web surfing?
I'm also considering installing the Chrome OS Flex from a USB stick and giving that a try, I have a couple of Chromebooks already and overall I prefer them to Windows.
Click to expand...

Try Ubuntu, it's very friendly and you can try it without installing it. You can Create a bootable USB stick.

https://ubuntu.com/#download
 
I am trying out Linux Mint 20.3 cinnamon these days. It was fairly easy to install, is supposedly one of the better distros for beginners transitioning from windows, comes with a decent collection of apps (versus installing them later) and it doesn't seem to be too resource heavy, but there are even lighter versions of it on the web page:



https://linuxmint.com/download.php
 
RetiredAndLovingIt said:
Would Linux possibly have the drivers to get my touchscreen working, I think i bought the laptop in 2013/2014 so it is quite old.
Click to expand...
As has been mentioned previously, you can try linux at no cost and without installing it permanently by creating a bootable USB stick. All three distributions mentioned above are good. The websites mentioned in the posts above will walk you thru downloading linux and creating a bootable USB stick. Linux Mint cinamon is probably the closest to windows in its use of menus, layout and so on. Ubuntu is good but a little further away from windows in its "feel". Manjaro is also very good but its a rolling distribution and a bit more "cutting edge" Both Linux Mint and Ubuntu are very stable. When you boot from the linux USB stick you have a fully functional version and you can try anything/everything you normally do to see if you like it and things work as expected.
 
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