Author Topic: Laptop died after 12 years  (Read 3770 times)

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Offline PANatsFan

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #25: August 18, 2012, 08:19:13 PM »
Where do you get the part, and don't you have to solder it?
 :(
n2p

you get my responses?


Offline nats2playoffs

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #26: August 20, 2012, 12:14:45 AM »
you get my responses?
I didn't see my laptop model on that site's list for having the part available.
 :(
Craigslist has cheap computers.
 :pimp:

Offline Terpfan76

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #27: September 10, 2012, 12:52:47 PM »
Just aquired a Asus G53SX with an additional 8gig of RAM and a 150gig solidstate hd for $700. A friend of mine is selling it to me in installments due to him having to get a smaller one because of back problems. He just bought one of those net books or something like that. He also gave me a Samsung Tablet w/keyboard and bluetooth mouse. Great guy he his. Oh, and we took two kittens off his hands :lol:

He said I should be good to go on any game I'd want to play on it. Thoughts?

Offline Nathan

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #28: September 10, 2012, 07:12:30 PM »
Torchlight 2 :P

Offline CALSGR8

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #29: September 10, 2012, 08:14:41 PM »
Thoughts abot the PC, games, or the kittens?  Lol!

Offline Terpfan76

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #30: September 11, 2012, 12:07:08 AM »
Hell,all three :lol:

The kittens are the devil, cute fuzzy devils, but devils none the less. The PC is bad ass, at least so far in my opinion. And for gaming, Skyrim first? He said I should be able to play pretty much any pc game out right now on max settings with no issues.

Offline Nathan

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #31: September 11, 2012, 12:11:02 AM »
I wouldn't go that far, but you should be able to play most on decent-to-high settings.  Skyrim on ultra looks astounding (especially with some extra mods) but it is pretty demanding.

Torchlight 2 on the other hand will pretty much play on anything greater than a toaster :lol:

Seriously, $20 pre-order, you get TL1 with the pre-order and TL2 is out in 9 days.  Get it so you can play with Chief and I!

Offline Terpfan76

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #32: September 11, 2012, 12:20:51 AM »
Will do boss. I'll set up a steam account and get busy on payday.

Offline Nathan

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #33: September 11, 2012, 12:24:15 AM »
Will do boss. I'll set up a steam account and get busy on payday.

PM me your id and I'll add you whenever you get it set up.

Offline houston-nat

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #34: March 01, 2013, 07:27:01 PM »
So I can't find a main laptop buying thread...

My current Toshiba has a number of problems.
- The native color settings are not true-to-life. I can't edit my photography because the laptop adds a gray sludge to everything. I once set my camera next to the screen and calibrated the laptop so that the picture on the camera matched the picture on the computer - but then everything else in Windows except my photography was black and white :lol: [a review claimed the screen "improved the look of photographs" - bullcrap!]
- The CD drive is starting to break down in a number of ways. Sometimes it ejects the CD/DVD without warning; sometimes it won't read the media; sometimes it makes an incredibly loud grinding chainsaw noise; yesterday it stopped opening altogether.
- The wifi radio switch sometimes thinks it's turned off when it's not, trapping me in a Catch-22 world where there's no wireless.
- It's nearing its third birthday.

So I think I am going to soon be needing a new laptop.

Here's how I use my laptop.
- Not a gamer, except for OOTP.
- Not a big software guy at all, actually. My most-used programs are Word, iTunes and Paint.
- Portability doesn't matter. Don't take it to work, don't commute with it - just carry it around the apartment. My current laptop is 7 lbs!
- I do watch a lot of DVDs and stream a lot of stuff from Netflix. I'd like to be able to edit my photography again (see above).
- I'm a music critic; I write about 80 CD reviews a year. Until I find a nicer apartment and save up for a stereo, I mostly listen with my laptop's CD drive (and very nice headphones). So having some kind of CD drive - in the computer or USB if necessary - is absolutely mandatory.
- Speaking of music, I have 165 GB of music on my hard drive. There's more on an external. That's not even counting video, pictures, programs. So HD space is a good thing.
- I've never owned a smartphone or used one for more than 5 minutes, so the reviews of Windows 8 are scary to me. I am open to switching to Mac if that's the best option; have enjoyed using them a lot in the past, they're just so darn expensive.
- I get educator discounts.

Any thoughts? Any ideas of what types of computers I should be looking at? Should I keep this laptop, pay to fix the CD drive and suck it up with the other problems? Or should I go shopping?

Offline Squab

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #35: March 01, 2013, 07:42:23 PM »
I think you should definitely buy a new laptop. They're so cheap now that fixing an old one when you could have something new is silly unless it's just one thing and you love the rest of it, which doesn't seem to be the case for you.

If it were me, I'd buy a decent Windows laptop (Lenovo and Asus are my favorites, I'd say don't go Dell, Acer, or HP) with a nice big hard drive (500, 750, 1TB) and a little bit of power (Intel i3) then get Windows 7 on the cheap using your education discount and put it on there. I'm a Mac guy, but really for what you need it seems like you could get something $500+ cheaper that will satisfy your needs.

Offline CALSGR8

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #36: March 01, 2013, 08:14:42 PM »
Ok. Ok, the following us MY EXPERIENCE.  Take it or leave it.  Oh, and I know juuust enough about computers to be dangerous!   ;)   I went through a similar experience.   Only my laptop turned on to a black screen with a blinking  cursor.   Yours may have a bad video card/chip. So here are a few things you can do.   I'm just making you aware of choices.

1.  Back up your documents and/or pictures to a back up hard drive or cloud location like drop box or box.
2.  You can take the laptop to staples or best buy geek squad and see how much they would charge to diagnose your issues.Sometimes they have free diagnosis specials too.   

The following I did to my laptop.   Afterwards my laptop still makes grinding hard drive noises (it did that before too).   It works for now and it was dead.
When you start up your machine for a quick 30 seconds or so, it will say push F2 or F12 for boot set up.  I did that.  Then it had an option for diagnosis.   I pushed ok to that.  Left it alone to go through memory checks.   It passed the first set.  Asked me if I wanted to do more.   Clicked ok.   Said it found nothing wrong.   Ok again.   Restarted and it came up.   

Buying?   Have a techy relative?   I do.   Must always have the best and most recent.   

He said under NO CIRCUMSTANCES get Windows 8! 
He recommended me getting an Android Tablet like the Nexus 10 and get a wireless keyboard.   At least 32GB of internal memory.  Microsoft products or similar are available online or you can save as a word doc.  I got an ASUS TRANSFORMER, 700 (something like that)

You could also search websites for a Windows 7 laptop.   My cousin had a disdainful opinion of that.   Said yeah I could get one of those if I wanted to live in the past!   (turkey!)

Anyhow that's my thought processes.

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #37: March 01, 2013, 08:22:26 PM »
Whatever you do,  don't go to geek squad - by the time they finish diagnosing and repairing it,  you'll have paid a decent portion of a new laptop,  besides,  laptops don't exactly retain enough value to justify repairing.  Have you considered a desktop if portability doesn't matter,  they last longer,  have upgradeable components and are far easier to repair

Offline Nathan

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #38: March 01, 2013, 09:08:32 PM »
While I haven't extensively used Windows 8, I too am turned off by the interface changes, mostly the fact that you can't turn off the metro ui stuff and have it work like a windows 7 desktop.  There are start menu replacements out there now, but I have no idea how well they work.

I will say that although Macs are expensive, they use decent hardware and are well built.  My MacBook Pro is nearly 4 years old now and still works fine for everything other than gaming.  It can run titles like Path of Exile and Diablo 3 on low settings barely.  But for OOTP (which has a Mac version), it would be fine.  Plus they do have an education store.  The 13" MacBook Pro starts at $1,099.

http://store.apple.com/us-hed/findyourschool

Like Squab said, you can certainly get a PC notebook for fairly cheap that will do pretty much everything you want to do.

Offline Squab

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #39: March 01, 2013, 09:59:32 PM »
I will say that although Macs are expensive, they use decent hardware and are well built.  My MacBook Pro is nearly 4 years old now and still works fine for everything other than gaming.  It can run titles like Path of Exile and Diablo 3 on low settings barely.  But for OOTP (which has a Mac version), it would be fine.  Plus they do have an education store.  The 13" MacBook Pro starts at $1,099.

http://store.apple.com/us-hed/findyourschool

Like Squab said, you can certainly get a PC notebook for fairly cheap that will do pretty much everything you want to do.
I would like to add my 15-inch MacBook Pro is nearly 4 years old and works like a champ. They're expensive but IMO you get what you pay for.

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #40: March 01, 2013, 10:04:31 PM »
my iMac is four years and still flies with the addition of less than $100 worth of ram

Offline Kevrock

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #41: March 01, 2013, 10:08:10 PM »
I'm an IT professional that has made a living primarily off of MS software and operating systems for years... I love my 2 year old Macbook Pro.

I also GM a perennial third place OOTP squad from this slick beast.

Offline Nathan

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #42: March 01, 2013, 10:27:52 PM »
Plus software like Aperture for photos.  My parents are using a 7 year old iMac that's beginning to show its age.  They never upgraded from Tiger and never upgraded the ram past 1.5GB.    I'd be willing to bet a ram upgrade and an upgrade to snow leopard or whatever it can go up to would give them another few years of usefulness for what they would need it for.

Offline lastobjective

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #43: March 02, 2013, 09:43:03 AM »
As everyone said, for your needs the Macbook is fine. But I decided to snoop out ConsumerReports for you to see what they recommended. Here's two options for you at $600:

The Toshiba Satellite U845W-S400 Ultrabook, which is around $600 at Best Buy, is one laptop CR loved. Link to it on Bust Buy:
  • Upsides: Very fast at the tasks you're looking to do, long battery life (9.25 hours apparently), light (3.7 lbs), has a USB 3.0 port to connect divided like a CD player or a hard drive, comes with Windows 7.
  • Downside OR upside-- it has a really wide, short screen, which makes it great if you travel on airplanes a lot or whatnot. Also great if you watch movies a lot.
  • Real Downside: No CD drive.

The second laptop is called the Acer M5-581T-6807 Ultrabook. They don't seem to make this Ultrabook anymore, however it's successor, the Acer M5-581T-6405 Ultrabook  is around for $600 at Best Buy and has similar reviews. Link to it on the Best Buy site
  • Upsides: CD Player, very fast, 8 hours battery life, 4.6 lbs for a 15.6 inch laptop, lighted keyboard
  • Upside OR downside
: Has Windows 8. Though don't knock it until you try it, I'd probably recommend just going to a Best Buy or similar computer store and asking them to show you around on it before making a decision on it.
  • Downsides: Display angle needs to be adjusted a LOT to look good for everyone, no ExpressCard slot


So just some cheaper options than an expensive Macbook!  :P

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #44: March 02, 2013, 09:48:56 AM »
the fact that CS would recommend a toshiba and an acer is enough reason to disregard them on computers.

Offline lastobjective

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #45: March 02, 2013, 09:52:09 AM »
the fact that CS would recommend a toshiba and an acer is enough reason to disregard them on computers.
:lol: Just want a counterpoint to the Macbook circlejerk we got goin' on here. I didn't feel I got my money's worth out of my Macbook pro when I got it. It's really good, but for the stuff I was doing it was not worth $1200+.

Offline HalfSmokes

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #46: March 02, 2013, 09:55:42 AM »
:lol: Just want a counterpoint to the Macbook circlejerk we got goin' on here. I didn't feel I got my money's worth out of my Macbook pro when I got it. It's really good, but for the stuff I was doing it was not worth $1200+.

I'm talking about as opposed to Asus or lenovo- Toshiba especially has crap build quality,  now that ram on an imac is soldered on,  my apple days are probably over

Offline lastobjective

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #47: March 02, 2013, 10:01:06 AM »
I'm talking about as opposed to Asus or lenovo- Toshiba especially has crap build quality
I would think in this case that the perceived quality of the brand does not match the actual (higher) quality of the single product, but I'm not going to defend either the laptops since I can't personally vouch for them. Just slurped them off my subscription.

Also I try not to rely on judgement by brand as my friend got an Asus laptop (which, at least where we are, are regarded as a very nice brand) that was designed INSANELY poorly for it's designed use  :doh:  There were lots of vents in the back to keep the computer cool, but they got blocked whenever you opened the screen, resulting in a very VERY hot, and sometimes slow, machine.

Offline CALSGR8

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #48: March 02, 2013, 11:50:20 AM »
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/

http://reviews.cnet.com/best-budget-laptops/



Check out Cnet. 

When I worked for the Navy, we had different brands of laptops and Toshiba was the best among them.  Also had great support.  Consumers sends out surveys to it's subscribers, so I wouldn't go too much against them.  It's hard to get current ratings from them though, unless you subscribe to their website for $25 a year.

Offline houston-nat

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Re: Laptop died after 12 years
« Reply #49: March 02, 2013, 06:22:21 PM »
Zoinks! This is quite the outpouring of help and advice! And this is also why I love WNFF.

I'm not gonna be able to respond to everybody, so - thank you all so much, and if I don't reply to your post, I still read it and really appreciate it.  :)

If it were me, I'd buy a decent Windows laptop (Lenovo and Asus are my favorites, I'd say don't go Dell, Acer, or HP) with a nice big hard drive (500, 750, 1TB) and a little bit of power (Intel i3) then get Windows 7 on the cheap using your education discount and put it on there.
I'm talking about as opposed to Asus or lenovo- Toshiba especially has crap build quality
Also I try not to rely on judgement by brand as my friend got an Asus laptop (which, at least where we are, are regarded as a very nice brand) that was designed INSANELY poorly for it's designed use  :doh:  There were lots of vents in the back to keep the computer cool, but they got blocked whenever you opened the screen, resulting in a very VERY hot, and sometimes slow, machine.
Lenovo and Asus are recommended then? I have had Dell and Toshiba and they've each burned their bridges with me. Honestly I feel like every brand is going to have some kind of boneheaded design flaw. (Also, Asus still seems to be making some Win7 machines.)

Is there some extent to which they're all basically the same inside?
Have you considered a desktop if portability doesn't matter
I'll put it this way, I wrote my first novel in bed in my pajamas  :lol:
While I haven't extensively used Windows 8, I too am turned off by the interface changes, mostly the fact that you can't turn off the metro ui stuff and have it work like a windows 7 desktop.  There are start menu replacements out there now, but I have no idea how well they work.
Exactly - I don't want to have to spend a weekend fiddling with Windows 8 so that it will act like Windows 7 again. This also sets the really high-end Macbooks off limits because I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars to get USB disc drives.

The stories of Macs lasting 4+ years are pretty inspiring. My brother has a Macbook Pro and uses the photo album printing business all the time - those are gorgeous books.

Special bonus thanks to LO for the Consumer Reports stuff!

And one more question... good reason to spend on Office over something like OpenOffice if I'm just doing personal use and mostly only use Word?