The Student Room Group

Refurbished laptop recs for cs degree

Hi, I am currently in my first year of my computer science degree and am looking for a new laptop as mine is very unreliable. I was hoping for any recommendations for models that are within a £300 budget, I brought 4 refurbished thinkpad t480s on ebay and they all had to be returned as the fan was constantly overheating so any other recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Reply 1
£300 is a bit tricky, especially for a laptop you need for CS as otherwise you'd probably be fine with a chromebook.
While I don't have any specific recommendations, I would say, try and get an i5 or Ryzen 5 if you can, even one that's a few years old some extra cores will always come in handy. An i3 is fine but not ideal.
Also, what would be great is if you can pick up one without soldered RAM as then you can upgrade your RAM to 16gbs later with some cheap sticks, as you probably won't get 16 of the bat at that price point.
£300 is pushing it a bit though, and what I would recommend is if it's not urgent, then hold off for a bit longer and save some more money so you can get a better laptop later down the line.
Assuming 14" is the best size for your needs:
HP 845 G7

Or HP 840 G8

There's also good deals on 13", 15.6", 16" and 17" laptops on ebay, if they'd be a better size for you.

BTW, having the right BIOS and operating system settings can make a big difference to how often the fan goes into Airbus taking off from Manchester Airport mode.
Reply 3
Original post by Dunnig Kruger
Assuming 14" is the best size for your needs:
HP 845 G7
Or HP 840 G8
There's also good deals on 13", 15.6", 16" and 17" laptops on ebay, if they'd be a better size for you.
BTW, having the right BIOS and operating system settings can make a big difference to how often the fan goes into Airbus taking off from Manchester Airport mode.

Seconded on the settings front. I have a Lenovo X250 ThinkPad that was running hot, so I repasted it and dusted the chassis out , then went into the advanced power conifg and set max processor state to 99% (this disables the super-hot turbo boosting), then installed fan control software and made a custom profile to let the fan run to 100%, and the CPU not to exceed 80 degrees. Some benchmarks return performance just below the average bench for the hardware, but with much more managble thermals and no throttling.

Quick Reply