Trying to repurpose old laptop, worth it?

1st Official Post

    Recently upgraded my mom's old Windows 8 machine to a chromebook. Hoping to save this from the bin by repurposing it as a kodi box:

    ASUS X55U-RH21-CA

    • AMD E2-1800 (1.7GHz)
    • 4G DDR3
    • HDD 500GB 5400 RPM
    • Windows 8 (64 bit)
    • ATI HD 7340G

    Saw another thread here about a boot problem but that the computer was too old to be worth the trouble. That graphics card seemed to be ~2005 while mine is 2012. Still quite old for technology, but I'm hoping it's not destined for the electronics recycling bin yet.

    I've been able to boot the Live USB, so going to try it out there for a while first but still interested in opinions on if I should use this or chuck it.

    Edited once, last by RussetWolf (August 15, 2021 at 1:31 AM).

    • Official Post
    Quote from RussetWolf

    ATI HD 7340G

    The only decent video format it should handle is h264, and possibly mpeg video. All the rest will have to be decoded by the CPU, which is already a simple & slow to begin with. So forget about h265/hevc, HDR or anything else from today's available features.

    AMD apu/gpu support from back in the day wasn't all that great, it was usually a hit or a miss. AMD itself didn't care all that much about Linux then, so video drivers had to be reverse-engineered to make things happen. That has changed since Ryzen came along.

    You could also try installing a full blown Linux OS like Ubuntu, and install Kodi itself. The available driver package could help, and perhaps installing AMD's own driver is necessary. But again, support for the older AMD graphics was "meh". Installing it on a bootable USB drive could even prove faster than using the onboard 5400rpm HDD.

    So IMHO, in short: if it works (even with an older LibreELEC or even OpenELEC version), fine.

    If it doesn't work, you'll have yourself a new techno book end.