Laptop Salvage Jobs

[mike acker]

my latest Laptop Salvage Job involves an HP Stream that was given to my grandson for Christmas.

when it arrived on my bench it was close enough to DOA as to be useless

BIOS

on this particular machine I had little trouble resetting the BIOS to use legacy boot rather than UEFI. as soon as I had this done the MINT 17 LTS USB stick loaded properly,

however,--

INTERNET ACCESS

no internet access: the MINT ISO did not recognize the WiFi chip installed in the HP Stream.

EDIMAX

when this occurs, I have been using one of these USB wireless adapters: EDIMAX EW-7811Un N150 USB 2.0 Wireless nano Adapter

HP Stream

on the HP Stream though I had a bad time getting through the install: it aborted on me repeatedly. After several hours it finally completed properly.

when I started checking app programs though -- first Firefox, then Thunderbird -- I discovered what is probably the problem: the EDI max loses its connection -- although still showing 70% RF signal strength. my guess is this is a problem in error recovery: when I select the network connection from the active tray and switch the net off and then back on -- it recovers. this is using WPA2 and 802.11n(?) (network properties don't show which 802.11? is used ) .

LMDE/2 RC

interestingly the .iso for the LMDE/2 RC did identify the HP Stream's factory WiFi card. the HP Stream is kinda lame,-- real lame, actually: no RJ45 port and only 2 USB ports. Still it's good as an inexpensive starter for an 11 year old grandson.

His mom loved the Linux MINT 17 -- ( btw ). she can hard wait for me to switch her personal lap-top but-- has to wait until she's done with her online university classes -- which require students to use that "Office" software that is sold someplace. Universities should require compliance with the ISO standard,-- NOT a mfr brand.

[Monsta]

no internet access: the MINT ISO did not recognize the WiFi chip installed in the HP Stream.

You can try installing the newer kernel, 3.16, which is available in Ubuntu 14.04 repos.

[mike acker]

no internet access: the MINT ISO did not recognize the WiFi chip installed in the HP Stream.

You can try installing the newer kernel, 3.16, which is available in Ubuntu 14.04 repos.

thanks!

if they bring the machine back due to the 'Net dropping out I'll try this

[edwardr]

Just a few days ago I stumbled upon the HP Stream laptops and was intrigued by them - a low cost, basic laptop, like a Windows-based competitor to Chromebooks. I was intrigued of course at the thought of putting Linux on them and wondered if it was easy. I'm disappointed to see how much trouble you've had. I hope you get the internal wireless fixed.

[mike acker]

Just a few days ago I stumbled upon the HP Stream laptops and was intrigued by them - a low cost, basic laptop, like a Windows-based competitor to Chromebooks. I was intrigued of course at the thought of putting Linux on them and wondered if it was easy. I'm disappointed to see how much trouble you've had. I hope you get the internal wireless fixed.

I have used the EDI/Max USB wireless several times previously without trouble.... so why this one was troublesome is a puzzle.

I bought extra EDI/Max plugs as it seems every other month someone brings me a laptop that is messed up to the point where it hardly works. So if I have the chips on hand I can do the conversion straight away

so far I have not had anyone go back to their other software

[mike acker]

Update from Mom: Grandson LOVES Linux and is having a lot of fun working with it