• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Salvage parts from a laptop after an "attack?"

5

5pips49

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 7, 2025
Messages
89
My neighbor is throwing out a "broken" HP laptop.
The laptop mainly consists of 3 pieces--
1) the half with the screen (screen is smashed in 2 places)
2) most of the half with the keyboard,
3) a large plastic piece/shard, which was 2/3 of the casing on the bottom of the laptop. In other words, it's the piece that you would unscrew to get to the parts inside.

It's weird how the bottom was cracked, jagged edges. It's not obvious what the story behind that could have been.

I want to say that someone took a small hammer to the computer. Maybe the guy was thinking that "I am destroying the hard drive so that no one can steal my passwords." But, the M.2 SSD does not appear to have any physical damage. Same with the internal parts.

There is also another laptop of similar status but that's a story for another day.

I don't think it got rained on at all but it could have.

So far, I think I will remove
Edit more detail: the data drive, "WD 250 GB PC SN530 NVMe SSD... 17 May 2021."
2 x 4 GB Samsung RAM,
maybe the wireless card, and maybe the CPU.
Also, I saw a date of 2019 somewhere on it. But, can't find it again.

So, I don't know much about what model the computer is. I could not find anything that reveals that.

My question is
1) is there much else of value that I can salvage?
2) If I do take the CPU out, will it be labeled enough to know what it is?
 
Last edited:
1. Not much. 250GB SSD won't be NMVe, so pretty slow. 2x4GB is pretty much worthless these days, even if it's DDR4. From that date, it's probably 2400MHz or slower. WiFi will also be outdated.
2. CPU won't really be labelled, and will be pretty slow these days. It'll also likely be soldered, and would be more trouble than it's worth.

Maybe if you have a crucible and a forge, you can melt down the parts for small bits of gold and copper.
 
5pips49 said:
My neighbor is throwing out a "broken" HP laptop.
The laptop mainly consists of 3 pieces--
1) the half with the screen (screen is smashed in 2 places)
2) most of the half with the keyboard,
3) a large plastic piece/shard, which was 2/3 of the casing on the bottom of the laptop. In other words, it's the piece that you would unscrew to get to the parts inside.

It's weird how the bottom was cracked, jagged edges. It's not obvious what the story behind that could have been.

I want to say that someone took a small hammer to the computer. Maybe the guy was thinking that "I am destroying the hard drive so that no one can steal my passwords." But, the M.2 SSD does not appear to have any physical damage. Same with the internal parts.

There is also another laptop of similar status but that's a story for another day.

I don't think it got rained on at all but it could have.

So far, I think I will remove
Edit more detail: the data drive, "WD 250 GB PC SN530 NVMe SSD... 17 May 2021."
2 x 4 GB Samsung RAM,
maybe the wireless card, and maybe the CPU.
Also, I saw a date of 2019 somewhere on it. But, can't find it again.

So, I don't know much about what model the computer is. I could not find anything that reveals that.

My question is
1) is there much else of value that I can salvage?
2) If I do take the CPU out, will it be labeled enough to know what it is?
Click to expand...
You need to start a thread specifically for this rebuild. I want to see this!
 
The drive is the most useful thing in that whole pile. If I had a 256GB fall into my lap I'd pick up a USB-C enclosure for it. They're ~$20.

WiFi 6 became widely available in 2020. If it has a WiFi 6 card it might be possible to use it as an upgrade for a slightly older WiFi 5 laptop. Anyone trying that is going to need the part number if it's Intel WiFi. Some Intel WiFi adapters require chipset support and won't work unless the machine has a compatible Intel chipset.
 
zandor said:
The drive is the most useful thing in that whole pile. If I had a 256GB fall into my lap I'd pick up a USB-C enclosure for it. They're ~$20.
Click to expand...
I am behind the times on post HDD storage. I read up on it but a lot of it didn't really stick. I have old hardware ie. HP Pavilion 500-336 (circa 2015) https://hardforum.com/threads/no-vi...flashing-power-light.2047755/#post-1046327247
I am guessing NOT a lot of "budget consumer" and "entry level business" computers support multiple M.2 form factor internal drives. Anyway, it's tiny amount of storage for your average HardForum member.
As an aside, I am drawn to the idea of looking into data drive firmware updates as one of the first steps. Motivation: malware defense. If there is an update, it seems recommended to connect it via its native interface.
 
I'd put the drive in an enclosure just to peruse the data for fun then wipe and use like a flash drive.

Beyond that, nothing else seems worth the effort to pull, sell or store.
 
5pips49 said:
I am behind the times on post HDD storage. I read up on it but a lot of it didn't really stick. I have old hardware ie. HP Pavilion 500-336 (circa 2015) https://hardforum.com/threads/no-vi...flashing-power-light.2047755/#post-1046327247
I am guessing NOT a lot of "budget consumer" and "entry level business" computers support multiple M.2 form factor internal drives. Anyway, it's tiny amount of storage for your average HardForum member.
As an aside, I am drawn to the idea of looking into data drive firmware updates as one of the first steps. Motivation: malware defense. If there is an update, it seems recommended to connect it via its native interface.
Click to expand...
Depends on the type of machine. Lower end laptops are usually one M.2 or they just soldered the flash chips to the mainboard and you don't even have an M.2 slot. Larger, higher end laptop sometimes have 2. Think gaming laptop or mobile workstation. Basic DIY PC "B" chipset mainboards have 2+ these days and have for a while. Nicer boards have more. Pre-built desktops are all over the place. Even if you have more slots a 250GB is a runt drive, hence why I'd buy a USB-C enclosure for $20 and turn it into an external. Even an older, slower PCI-e 3.0 256GB M.2 in a USB-C enclosure can saturate USB-C 10Gb or 20Gb bandwidth and makes a very nice external drive.
 
zandor said:
The drive is the most useful thing in that whole pile. If I had a 256GB fall into my lap I'd pick up a USB-C enclosure for it. They're ~$20.
Click to expand...
SticKx911 said:
I'd put the drive in an enclosure just to peruse the data for fun then wipe and use like a flash drive.
Click to expand...
A couple years ago I got a free Samsung 970 Evo 250GB. It sat around for a while cuz I didn't know what to do with it. Not too long after I soft-modded my Wii U. I needed an external drive for installing games. I grabbed the NVMe drive, threw it in an external enclosure, and now it's the drive for my soft-modded Wii U. Haha sure the drive speed goes to waste, but I didn't have any other spare drives lying around that I could have used for that, so it worked out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top