Reusing a Broken Laptop, Getting Comfortable with Linux, and Building My First Home Workbench

• I am not a technician.
• I am not a hardware repair expert.
• I am just someone who does not like giving up on things too easily.

This article is about an old laptop that refused to die — and maybe about me refusing to give up with it.

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A Laptop That Never Fully Worked — But Never Fully Left

I bought Asus FX504GD laptop years ago, during my bachelor’s degree. It was expensive for me at the time. I didn’t buy it casually — I researched, watched reviews, compared specs, imagined what I would build, learn, and play on it.

Reality was different.

From around 2020, the problems started:

• Random Windows BSODs
• Browser crashes (especially Chromium-based)
• Screen lines, black dots, flickering
• Status access violations
• Instability that made no clear sense

I tried everything I could understand at that time:

• RAM checks
• Thermal paste replacement
• Cleaning
• Undervolting experiments (and learning when not to do them)
• Core affinity tricks in Task Manager
• Hours of reading forums, Reddit threads, manufacturer complaints
• Asking ChatGPT, reading articles, thinking deeply

Sometimes, disabling certain CPU cores would make things feel stable. Sometimes it wouldn’t. Nothing was consistent.

At some point, I learned about VRM issues, common FX504 motherboard problems, and the uncomfortable truth:

Some problems don’t have clean fixes.

I never replaced the motherboard. I never went for costly repairs. Not because I didn’t care — but because I wanted to understand, or at least reuse.

This laptop sat on my shelf from time to time. Quiet. Waiting.

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I Didn’t Fix It — I Re-imagined It

In 2022, I bought a refurbished ThinkPad T490s. Light. Stable. Linux-friendly.

I switched fully to Ubuntu — and I stayed.

But the old laptop was still there.

Every now and then, when I wanted to play GTA V (which I used to play on it), I would return. And every time, instead of gaming, I would end up trying to fix it again.

From childhood, I’ve always been like this — trying to fix, reuse, or at least re-purpose broken things.

Even the hinge broke once.

I don’t even remember exactly how I fixed it — some bending, pulling, improvising — and finally brown packing tape. Literal plaster. It held.

Not clean.

But it worked.

If effort were commits, this laptop would have a green GitHub activity graph.

Eventually, I stopped asking:

“How do I make this laptop normal again?”

And started asking:

“What can this machine still be?”

That question changed everything.

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The Decision: Make It a Workbench, Not a Laptop

Instead of fighting the screen, the GPU, Windows, browsers, and instability, I chose a different path:

• No daily desktop usage
• No expectation of perfection
• No emotional attachment to “it should work like new”

I decided to turn it into:

• A headless Ubuntu server
• A home workbench
• A network storage node
• A learning playground

This was not a grand plan. It was curiosity plus stubbornness.

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The Reality: Painful Linux Installation, One Error at a Time

Installing Ubuntu Server was not smooth.

I hit:

• Installer crashes
• clocksource tscfreezes
• ACPI issues
• NVIDIA IRQ errors
• Secure Boot conflicts
• Curtin crashes
• Read-only filesystem errors
• Broken installs that almost completed

There were moments where:

• Login passwords didn’t work
• I dropped into initramfs with no disks detected
• GRUB was my only interface
• The system booted, crashed, rebooted, looped

I didn’t solve this in one go. I solved it by staying with the problem.

Eventually:

• pci=realloc solved the NVIDIA IRQ issue
• Ubuntu 24.04 Server booted
• The system stayed up
• SSH worked
• The machine stopped fighting me

That moment — when I saw a clean login prompt — felt quietly huge.

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What the Machine Is Now

Today, this is what that broken laptop does:

• Runs Ubuntu Server (headless) No GUI. Lid closed. Always on.
• Mounted storage A dedicated ext4 filesystem for files.
• Remote access SSH from my main Ubuntu laptop , SSH from my Android tab. File access via Samba from Android and Linux , Tailscale connectivity
• Network-first The machine exists as a node, not a screen.

From this machine:

Using this setup, I created my first image transformation script using Python, inside a virtual environment, accessed over SSH.

That moment mattered more to me than any benchmark.

I’m currently studying Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.

Seeing something I built — even small — running on my own improvised home lab felt deeply satisfying.

This wasn’t about proving skill.

It was about proving growth.

And yes — the internet helped. A lot.

That’s how learning works.

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Why This Matters to Me

This project is not about showing off commands. It’s about showing:

• Persistence
• Systems thinking
• Comfort with Linux internals
• Willingness to learn without guarantees
• Ability to re-purpose instead of discard

I am not a pro. But I am also not seeing this world for the first time.

I like:

• Control over systems
• Understanding components
• Knowing why something fails
• Accepting imperfect solutions

This laptop is not perfect. My setup is not perfect.

But it works — and I built it with patience.

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What Comes Next

This machine can still grow:

• Lightweight AI experiments
• Background jobs
• Scheduled scripts
• More automation
• More learning

Maybe one day it will fail completely.

But until then, it’s useful.

And it earned that place.

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Closing Thought

Like Japanese repair art — not hiding the cracks, but building around them.

This laptop is my version of that.

It has seen:

• My frustration
• My patience
• My refusal to quit
• My curiosity
• My limits

It’s not fixed.

It’s not reliable in the traditional sense.

It’s a patched, imperfect, working compromise.

And somehow, that makes me proud.

It’s no longer a failed laptop. It’s a useful machine with a story.

And maybe that’s what learning really looks like.

This article isn’t about being a pro.

It’s about trying, learning, and making something work anyway.

And honestly — that’s enough.

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