Digital Archaeology: Dell Latitude D430

The Dell Latitude D430 is meant to be an ultraportable. Even by today's standards, it is still pretty small for a laptop. In terms of depth and width, you can't really get much smaller and still have a full size keyboard and trackpad. I suppose that modern ultraportables have gotten a bit thinner but not that much.

There are always tradeoffs for size though. Being this small means that there isn't a lot of space for useful things like larger batteries, robust cooling, or extra ports. Or less useful (these days) options like optical drives. And of course there's the smaller, lower resolution screen. A discrete GPU is really out of the question and to make up for the smaller battery and reduced cooling capabilities, a slower ultra low voltage (ULV) processor is used.

Hardware in this laptop includes:

• CPU: Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.2 GHz
• RAM: 2 GB DDR 1066
• Video: Intel Mobile 945GM/GS Express
• Screen: 12-inch @ 1280x800

For more complete hardware specs, check out the output from HardInifo.

One other sacrifice made for the small size is with the hard drive. It has a 1.8" drive instead of the more common 2.5" size in most laptops. It also only runs at 4200 RPM. It is fairly low capacity (60 GB) and is going to be slower than the average hard drive.

I guess something this size could be a possible alternative to a tablet if you really needed something that would fairly easily slide into something like a purse. Otherwise, I'm not sure why you would make so many sacrifices to get something this small. I mean if you are carrying a backpack or laptop bag anyway you might as well get something a little bigger with a lot more power probably for the same price, even at the time.

Despite being a low voltage processor, the one in my D430 runs pretty hot when under full load, occasionally even throttling. This is a pretty old laptop so its possibly I just need to take it apart clean out the dust and reapply thermal paste. It seems pretty clean though so I'm not sure that's the issue. It could just be that the small size and design makes for poor cooling. The heatsink and fan are small by necessity.

This laptop would have originally shipped with Windows XP though I am currently running Xubuntu on it. In addition to the Windows XP sticker on the palm rest area in also has a "Core Duo inside" sticker. Seems a little odd as the CPU is a Core 2 Duo. Normally, the sticker would reflect that.

It's not going to break any records, but like all the machines I run, this one is running BOINC and crunching tasks for various projects including Einstein@home, Milkyway@home, Asteroids@home, Rosetta@home and Universe@home. Universe@home hasn't had any tasks lately but this machine should be able to crunch them. It also hasn't received and Rosetta tasks but the 2GB of RAM may not be enough for that project. You can see how it is doing overall at FreeDC.

Check out some of my other recent posts:

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (157-160)
https://ecency.com/photography/@darth-azrael/vintage-photos-lot-6-157

Amiga CD32 Gamer (January 1995)
https://ecency.com/retrogaming/@darth-azrael/amiga-cd32-gamer-january-1995

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (154-156)
https://ecency.com/photography/@darth-azrael/vintage-photos-lot-6-154

PC Zone (September 1999)
https://ecency.com/retrogaming/@darth-azrael/pc-zone-september-1999

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (149-152)
https://ecency.com/photography/@darth-azrael/vintage-photos-lot-6-149

Books I am reading or have recently read:
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling.
Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling.

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