Old laptop but not for sale!!

You’ve upgraded to a brand-new laptop—or maybe you’ve finally decluttered—and now you have an old laptop to deal with. What do you do with it? That depends on your circumstances, how old the laptop is, and how much time and space you have. But chances are your old machine could be up for the challenge of a second lease on life, even if you don’t have it with you. You can give it a new purpose; donate it to a worthy cause; sell it (even if it’s just for parts); or put it to rest responsibly. To help you decide what to do next with your laptop, we’ve rounded up our top suggestions, along with specific project ideas to try if you keep it.

Reuse and repurposing

Converting an old laptop into a Chromebook is a simple and easy project — and in some cases can result in a Chromebook with better specs than current low- and mid-range models.

Before you go out and buy a new device — say, a Chromebook or a media player — consider whether you can repurpose an old laptop for this purpose instead.

These projects don’t require hardware upgrades, but if your laptop is on the older side (more than 7 years old), it may pack a little more punch if you add more RAM or replace the hard drive with an SSD. For older laptops, you may need to find RAM through a reputable seller or on a trusted online shopping site like Amazon or eBay for a reasonable price.

You need to make sure if your laptop will support upgrading to a solid state drive or SSD.?

Guest computer

It's nice to be able to provide house guests with a computer to use without having to sacrifice your primary machine. Upgrade your old laptop with our tips to make it run faster for free, then leave it in a spare bedroom or public area for visitors.

Upgrade to Chromebook

This route doesn’t rule out other uses, as you can obviously use a Chromebook as a guest computer, for example. But you can increase the number of devices to use in your home by switching to a lighter operating system – a laptop that struggles in Windows 10 can feel much more responsive in ChromeOS. Converting a laptop to a Chromebook doesn’t take long either, as you’ll see in our full step-by-step guide.

If your laptop is not compatible, you can instead choose to install a lightweight Linux distribution. Same idea, different flavor of the operating system.

media streaming device

Not only can your laptop stream content from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Now, and other services to your TV, it can also handle specialized websites that popular streaming devices don’t support (for example, foreign-language content). For a reliable, stable connection, use a cable to connect your laptop to your TV—you may need a DVI-to-HDMI or Mini-DisplayPort-to-HDMI cable for older laptops.

Network attached storage (NAS)

Network attached storage can host backups or media files for all the devices on your home network. Instead of spending $200+ to buy a dedicated NAS enclosure and fill it with hard drives, you can instead turn an old laptop into a NAS using free software like TrueNAS Core (formerly FreeNAS). You can even connect external drives to it to expand its storage capabilities.

For other NAS software options, the r/homeserver community on Reddit can be a good place to find suggestions specifically for using a laptop as a NAS. You can then search the software’s website and find and review the user manual to determine the difficulty level of installation, configuration, and maintenance. Most software developers provide a user manual—for example, TrueNAS Core provides detailed installation and configuration instructions.

Use old laptop as a game server like (minecraft)

Want to create a safe gaming environment for young family members and their friends? Turn your old laptop into a Minecraft server, where you can control who has access. Since this old favorite isn’t a hardware-intensive game, many older laptops should be able to handle it with ease.

Kodi or Plex server for live TV streaming

For those who want a better way to watch live TV and/or access a lot of local video and audio files, you can turn your old laptop into a Kodi or Plex server. Which one you should install depends on your tastes and the types of content you want to manage — in our opinion, Kodi and its add-ons allow for a better personal experience, while Plex offers an ever-expanding set of features. (However, Plex reserves many of the best perks for paid members.)

So there you have it: if you watch on one device, want access to live TV (usually for free), and enjoy open source products for tweaking or ideological reasons, Kodi is the one for you. If you want a service that “just works” and is more family-friendly or multi-device-friendly, Plex is the one for you.

Donate to educational or charitable associations and bodies

You can donate an old laptop to a local school, library, or other non-profit organization - ask local organizations to find out what they need.

Before you donate, remember to securely erase all your data from your laptop. In Windows 8.1 and 10, go to Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Reset this PC > Remove everything, then choose the Remove files and clean the drive option.

Sell ​​your old device 

You can sell an old or used laptop on one of the sites dedicated to local free classified ads, and one of the best and easiest of these sites is the ardwatalab site  . Where you can sell your old or used laptop or parts of it, such as rare spare parts, quickly and without registration. 

Recycling

Don’t throw an unwanted laptop in the trash – Laptops should be recycled so that the environmentally toxic materials can be properly handled. Larger municipalities should have local facilities to drop off laptops, but if your local recycling center doesn’t use technical equipment, and if your area doesn’t have such options, you can also try donating the device, or looking into local recyclers, such as the Sanitation and Neighborhoods Authority in major cities! They may allow you to send laptops for recycling. Without causing any environmental risks or damage

Source: PC World