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Old 02-02-2015, 01:01 PM   #6 (permalink)
jamesqf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vskid3 View Post
I would much rather pay $4-500 for an off lease Dell Latitude or Thinkpad that's a year or two old than for a new consumer grade one.
I'm still using my T61 Thinkpad from about '07 or '08. Upgraded to an SSD a couple of years ago, otherwise all I've done is to clean out & re-lubricate a noisy fan.

If you mostly use an external display, as I do (24" 1920x1600, vs the native 1680x1200 or so), then I'd say just use xrandr to turn off the laptop display. You won't over-stress or wear out your graphics processor, 'cause electronics just don't work that way. Only way you might see problems is if you're running it hard enough to cause the temperature to spike, and that's not likely unless you're doing serious gaming or similar.
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