I think my fascination with collecting machines began with the classic Pokemon games.
Trading between systems was neccesary to complete the Pokedex. So, you either needed to have lots of friends, own a lot of specialized hardware, or (more likely,) a combination of the two. I started with the fourth generation games, where you needed not only a DS but also the GBA games in order to get some Hoenn exclusive Pokemon.
This quickly gave rise to a sort of army of different electronics, all with their own unique ways of interconnecting with eachother. Not only that, but many of these systems have a large hacker / homebrew scene, and custom firmware opens the doors to many more possibilities. I once tried hosting an HTTP server on my Wii to act as a FastDL server for Counter Strike: Source custom maps, for example. The possibilities are endless, and a lot of the most interesting hardware to experiment with can be cheap if you know how to get a good deal... or, if you can figure out how to fix something you buy in broken condition.
I don't know what got it into my head that operating systems are just another kind of video game (probably Joel's legendary Windows Destruction streams) but it quickly became another hobby of mine. Collecting, connecting, and flashing custom firmware onto video game consoles later transformed into collecting, networking, and flashing coreboot onto older laptops. After all, the manufacturer's intentions became irrelavant the moment they planned their obsolescence. Console or not, they are programmable computers. All of them.
I believe this is the best laptop ever built. Like almost all the other Ivy Bridge Elitebooks, it has a socketed CPU, a feature almost unheard of in the laptop world, and even rarer in the 12.5" class. Of course, the RAM, and many other components are socketed as well. This is my flagship, the machine I wrote most of this website on, and the one who rips games for my Wii and OG-XBOX. There is only one issue I'm stil interested in fixing: she has an overhead keyboard light which is stuck on. Yes, the keyboards on these elitebooks were front-lit, not back-lit... they have a little spotlight up top. The plastic cover for it is cracked and falling out, and the light shines all the time. I've gotten used to it, for better or for worse.
I don't know why I bought ECC RAM, but I scored it before the RAMpocalypse and I really wanted to put it to good use. This is my totally overkill fileserver that really ought to be smaller and less power hungry. She currently hosts a Minecraft server, and ocasionally works as a Wi-Fi hotpsot (WEP security) so I can connect my DS to the internet and trade Pokemon. Otherwise, she hosts files for both me and some of my friends (those 14TB drives were an irresponsible impulse purchase...)
I have a few modifications planned for this one. Eventually, I want to upgrade to a Broadwell processer, but I don't think coreboot can enable the ECC features of the RAM if I do that, yet. I managed to get a LTO-4 tape drive for an unbelievably cheap price, although I'll need a PCIe SCSI card to plug it in. I'd also like to have her fully operate as a router, perhaps get one of those nice PCIe cards that have multiple 2.5gbe ethernet ports. That way I won't need the seperate network switch sitting next to her, and I could set up something like a pi-hole or DNS-level ad-blocking for all the connected machines. But, more than anything, I'd like to lower her power consumption as much as possible...
This is a lovely mini machine, even in stock condition. I highly reccomend them! Flashed with coreboot, it supports up to certain 9th gen Intel processers, though without a pin mod you will be limited to 4 cores. Fortunately i3-9100t is more than fast, and cheap! I originally planned on getting a PCIe riser to replace the NVME SSD with a graphics card, but Intel iGPUs these days are beasts compared to what I was used to on Ivy Bridge hardware. Especially on the i3-9100t, it was way more than anything I needed. Granted, the most graphically intensive games I play are Trackmania, HL2:Deathmatch, and Minecraft... but do you really need anything else?
Hey, I'm extremely curious about something. This machine has an LGA1151 socket, right? Have you heard about those modified bootleg Intel CPUs available on aliexpress? They take engineering sample CPU dies and put them into odd, unapproved configurations. You can get many processors, much more modern than what LGA1151 is supposed to take, and put them in. I understand that typically these require a modded BIOS, but has anyone tried these with coreboot? If you have a clue about this, contact me! I'd love to upgrade this machine to include one.
The first machine I really got into modifying. Replacing the dying stock HDD with an SSD blew my mind, it was so much faster than even a different much newer laptop I had. Learning that even the CPU is upgradable, and the allure of expresscard PCIe eGPU setups inspired me to do a lot more research. This machine ran Windows 7, Windows XP, and many different Linux distributions while I was still exploring. I don't use it anymore, because the 2570p is so much lighter, and Libreboot doesn't support the dGPU since it requires a binary blob in the boot flash. At this point, I am planning on giving it to someone else, someone who would really benefit from a laptop they can just screw around with, without worrying about losing important files. I should still compile coreboot for it with the neccesary binary blob for graphics init. However it already seems to have management engine disabled by HAP bit, probably by request of the buisness it was originally enlisted in... always nice to see!
It's sad to write about this one, given the condition it is currently in. The 8570w has the potential to be one of the best laptops in the whole world, but I'm not skilled enough yet to bring it to that point. It is important to note that there are variants of the mainboard of this laptop: the models shipped with a 4 core Intel CPU had more RAM slots and supported up to 32GB of RAM (others are limited to 16GB), and a special some of them were outfitted with the mythical Dreamcolor display (uses eDP instead of LVDS, the motherboard is different for the Dreamcolor models). This machine I have was in fact 32GB capable and shipped with the beautiful Dreamcolor display. This is most notable because the GPU is upgradable (it is in an MXM slot, look it up if you are unfamiliar) and the Dreamcolor models supporting eDP can have much more modern graphics cards plugged into them. MXM graphics cards are still manufactured for certain embedded solutions (medical imaging machines, among other things?) so you can actually put certain RTX graphics cards in here. People online have done so. My plan was to be one of perhaps the only people in the world with a Nvidia RTX-equipped laptop that was flashed with coreboot and had management engine disabled. Quad Core Ivy Bridge processers, when kept cool, are still arguably able to keep up with modern needs, and 32GB of RAM is still overkill, so I thought I'd really be able to get an almost-modern experience in a laptop that was still upgradable, repairable, and supported hardware freedom.
Bad news is this: The Dreamcolor display is not properly supported in Linux! I could not get the monitor backlight to turn on. This filled me with uncertainty: I'm not willing to spend the money buying expensive and sketchy embedded GPU hardware just to have it not end up working on Linux. It is definetely possible that this could be fixed, and perhaps a newer graphics card with a newer driver could make it work. But, I'm not willing to attempt that any time soon. I can't spend that amount of money and time just to be dissapointed or to fail spectacularly. It's a shame, though, to not bring this machine to it's true potential, to leave it as an organ donor I yank parts from...
It doesn't just sit out to rot, though. It has made itself a very, very nice Windows 7 gaming PC, more or less on par with what I actually had as a desktop during that era. Even as a Windows PC, I may still do a GPU upgrade on it, get the good RAM back into it, and use it to play CS:S and Spore for a long time. At least until I finally say goodbye to it, and sell it to a better home where it can be appreciated for what it is truly capable of.