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Fix or Replace Laptop? Suggestions?
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Last edited by Sugarphreak; 08-15-2019 at 01:45 PM.
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Unless youre able to do the work yourself or are really attached to that PC - I wouldnt deal with that many issues in a repair/purchase consideration.
250$ is parts only but add hour labour for keyboard replacement, hour for basic drive swap plus time to clone or to rebuild the OS. Suddenly its 5-600$ for everything.
With dual drive systems, better battery life, etc. youre far better off buying new.
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Do not fix.
Originally Posted by killramos
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Last edited by Sugarphreak; 08-15-2019 at 01:45 PM.
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brand new hard drive 500gb with 64mb cache is about $70 (used ones for half that)
Keyboards can be found on ebay for $30-$40, sometimes less
OEM batteries are are probably close to $100, Chinese ones can be had for about half that, however they have shorter lifespan
I can put everything together and install OS in under an hour
An upgrade would be good if you need it, but I wouldn't write this one off. I would just toss in a used hard drive and change the keyboard and keep it as a backup, well under $100 to fix. Specs are still good for today's standards
Last edited by MR2-3SGTE; 11-01-2015 at 11:16 PM.
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New battery and solid state drive would give it some new life. I would say fix as long as you are willing to put some time in it. I think 250 is a good budget. You said you would look for something equivalent for around the same price? Not from a big box store. As well if you drop let's say 500 on a new laptop I don't think it would last you very long. Also if you get a solid state you can always use it in other rigs when you decide to invest in a real upgrade .
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Your time ought to be valued, more than spending 12 hours plus dealing with an old ass computer with wonky parts added.
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Last edited by Sugarphreak; 08-15-2019 at 01:45 PM.
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They are. Unless it's a small super slim laptop, those may have something different. standard 14"+ laptops like yours would all use the same hard drive size/interface
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They should all be 2.5" SATA. What you probably have is the traditional spinning drive. Solid state would significantly boost your applications / operating system loading times.Originally posted by Sugarphreak
Are hard drives for laptops fairly universal in size and interface?
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Since you're doing all the work - if you can find some similar-spec RAM, I would upgrade to 8gb while I'm inside as well (perhaps even swap all-new RAM out for max performance instead of dissimilar RAM).
SSD (256?) for sure if drive space isnt a huge consideration as it will also improve battery life by 20-30% (at least on mine it did).
If you can get another 5 years out of this machine after the "renovations", you've done well IMO ....
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Last edited by Sugarphreak; 08-15-2019 at 01:45 PM.
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If it's something as simple as swapping out a hard drive, battery, and keyboard, and you can do the work yourself and it's already capable of handling what you need it for, it's a no brainer; put the time into fixing it.
Hard drives are cheap and since space isn't that big of a deal you can even save a few bucks by not needing to get the latest and greatest flavour of the day. Heck, 120GB SSD drives are as little as $80 nowadays and they always go on sale.
A quick search on eBay shows you can buy replacement batteries from China for under $40. I've bought one for my old Dell netbook and it's still holding a charge a couple years later. Looks like keyboards from China are about $20 too.
Sounds to me, you could probably have everything replaced for about $150 if you're not in any rush. Even then, the keyboard and battery aren't show stoppers if it needs to be functional ASAP. You can always use a USB keyboard until the new keyboard arrives.
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Last edited by Sugarphreak; 08-15-2019 at 01:45 PM.
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Is that really a concern if you currently don't NEED better specs? It would make sense, say, if a newer version of AutoCAD requires you to have more RAM or video graphics... Otherwise why drop more money on new laptop for low gainz
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They aren't. And they never will be. Upgrade when you outgrow your current set up, not when something better comes along. IMO.Originally posted by Sugarphreak
I mostly am just not sure if the specs are still any good compared to today's laptops.
I can eat more hot wings than you.
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Last edited by Sugarphreak; 08-15-2019 at 01:44 PM.
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Last edited by Sugarphreak; 08-15-2019 at 01:44 PM.
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