Old laptop looking to learn new tricks

Published on September 17, 2009 By CharlesCS In Personal Computing

Calling all fellow Geeks! Calling all fellow Geeks!

I need some help fellas. I have an old Toshiba Satellite 2105CDS with Windows 98, 160 MB memory and a 5 GB hard drive from a friend who would like to put this laptop to some use rather than throw it away. I believe she intends to let a child use it for internet purposes and would like to know how much it would cost to make it Internet worthy.

She has 3 options (in my opinion):

1) Get a USB hub (since the laptop has only 1 USB port and she may need other ports in the future) and use a wireless USB adaptor (hopefully there will be Windows 98 drivers for it). Something like the image below (images are just example):

2) Get a wireless network card like the one below:

3) Get an Ethernet card or USB Ethernet adaptor like the ones below:

My question is this. Can this laptop be made Internet worthy and if so which one of these options would be the best alternative for this laptop? If there is another option please share. Thank you.

Comments

SnallTrippin

on Sep 17, 2009

I'd go with wireless USB. And I had worse computers on the net under Windows 95...and Netscape for that matter.

DraekAlmasy

on Sep 17, 2009

I'd go with a PCMCIA Ethernet card, they're easier to find drivers for and you keep the USB port open for future use, plus laptops that age usually have a dead battery so if you're gonna keep it plugged in you may as well go wired for the internet as well.

Though I'd install Linux on that computer or at the very least Windows 2000, 98 is ancient, insecure, crash-prone, and hell to find drivers for, and the same goes for any browser still compatible with it.

CharlesCS

on Sep 17, 2009

I would have to agree since the battery is dead that wired will be the way to go here. But odds are she might want to go wireless so I will offer both options to her. So it's safe to say that the card slots on this laptop are the same as those of today so that todays cards will work just fine as long as the proper drivers or in it?

You know, Linux may not be a bad idea. After all she seems to just want to use it for Internet and Linux with FireFox may just be what she wants. I will look into this as well.

Anthony R

on Sep 17, 2009

not much you can run good with such low memory... if you can cheaply upgrade to 512 then do it and install linux.

cplair

on Sep 17, 2009

Option 3 hard-wired ethernet would be the more reliable.

You don't have to worry about dropped or slow connections and router configurations.

Drivers shouldn't be an issue because all of the Windows OS's including '95 auto-detects the PCMCIA slots. Older Toshiba laptops were good for that.

Adding a USB hub is always a good thing.

May I recommend a docking station or port replicator to hard-wire any existing peripherals, that is if you can still find them for this particular model. This offers optimum connections while still allowing portability.

Try this spot: Toshiba 2105CDS

Lantec

on Sep 17, 2009

PCMCIA....and hard wired. The USB port is likely to be USB v1 instead of v2. Wireless cards will have additional driver overhead and she's got very little memory to give up.

-Micman

on Sep 17, 2009

Don't buy a PCMCIA card for that laptop. You're wasting your money in the long run. Yes it would work well for that laptop, and you can easily find drivers for it both for Windows and Linux, but if you need wireless on another pc such as a desktop or another laptop without wireless or PCMCIA, you can't plug it in. USB is compatible with everything so you can keep a wireless USB stick forever. Just my thoughts, hope it helps.

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