In reply to a post by jchamier:

Go for it… just hope you run regular backups in case it doesn’t work out.

I would not risk it either, but people should do regular back-ups anyway, spinny drives can go belly up as I have seen with the drives I have taken from my mates recording studio.


The printer/scanner I was looking at is now not available for delivery, so that put that idea out anyway. I am going to open up my old scanner as I noticed there is a mark on the inside of the glass, so need cleaning, also lubricate the runner that the head runs on as I think that is what is making the noise. To get a scanner that offer the same features as mine will cost around the £350 mark or more, so I will keep what I have got and connect it to the PC.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Go for it… just hope you run regular backups in case it doesn’t work out.

NAS, cloud, external drives off site for important stuff, nothing to worry about me backing up mate

But presumably the dozen or so laptops are not for your personal use?

I can't find any specs on them, i doubt they have any cache so would be pretty slow compared to others. Not that I am going to buy one as I said I will use the one from my PC, it will be mainly redundant anyway. It is a NvME i will get at some point

To my mind the two things you don’t stint on are storage and PSUs. Cheap disks, blank DVDs, SD cards, etc. cause no end of trouble and are a waste of money. Cheap PSUs end up costing you hundreds.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

To my mind the two things you don’t stint on are storage and PSUs. Cheap disks, blank DVDs, SD cards, etc. cause no end of trouble and are a waste of money. Cheap PSUs end up costing you hundreds.

I have got some cheap DVDs and they are fine, but you can go too cheap. A lot of DVDs are produced in the same place, certainly in this day and age where choice is more limited. SD cards, the last lot I got for my Video camera was My memory own brand, £7 for 16GB and again they have been fine, I did go for a brand name for the Panasonic mirrorless camera, due to it being 4K and need something faster, I went for a Lexar 64GB 150Mb/s card, but that was only £24, so not too bad and again it is fine. But these are not in constant use like a SSD,

PSU, I certainly agree with you, I learnt that lesson many years ago. I built a computer for someone, they wanted it really cheap, so I went for a budget PSU, and after a few months it let go, thankfully it did not do any damage to the motherboard.
Never again, I always buy Corsair units now, not that I am planning to build any more machines now, unless my PC decides to go belly up.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

But presumably the dozen or so laptops are not for your personal use?

My son is a network engineer and picks up some PCs but mostly laptops that a company have marked down for disposal, gets permission to take them, I fettle them and we donate them to people who need a machine, usually boy scouts/guides/cadets; a couple of local shelters have taken some.

Decided to go with Vuescan, around £40 to get my scanner working with my Mac, buying another printer/scanner is waste when there is really nothing wrong with the scanner I have got. Just need a clean under the glass, I have tried it but not got good results, need to find the best way to clean it without smears. even if the scanner last for another couple of years or so.
I did get rid of the strange noise it was making when returning the head to its default position, a bit of lub on the rails sorted that out.
Scanners these days are used only slightly more than Printers, I normally us it to scan documents that come in the post, like Council tax

Came to this thread late.

I have had Vuescan for more years than I care to think. Only ever had one problem which was fixed in less than a day.

I have a "lifetime" licence, so I'll leave it in my will.

Its interface takes little getting used to, but you won't regret it.

In reply to a post by Rhynchelma:

Came to this thread late.

I have had Vuescan for more years than I care to think. Only ever had one problem which was fixed in less than a day.

I have a "lifetime" licence, so I'll leave it in my will.

Its interface takes little getting used to, but you won't regret it.

I have just used it properly to scan some documents and it works well, nice to have the scanner back without having to turn the PC on.
The UI is a bit strange and not being able to reconise that the document feeder is being use, in that I have to tell it what to do and also the buttons on the scanner don't do anything now, not that I really use them much. But the scanner has a new life, which is good, otherwise it would be put on a shelf or dumped, which would be a shame and I do like the scanner and while it is pretty slow at 2400DPI, in fact very slow, I doubt any new scanner can even get up to that, in fact a lot are 600DPI and that is it.

My thought was to get a A3 printer with a scanner, maybe use it for posters or stuff like that, but it is just a waste of money as I doubt I would use it that much.

I have the lifetime licence as well, if the scanner lasts for another few years it is worth doing.
As I said, the only thing is finding out how to clean the glass, there are smears on it. I was told water and a micro fibre cloth. I will look more into it.

It is at least lubricating the rail, have stopped it squeaking. it is at least 10 years old, maybe older.