St. Carnal's Pub - Page 7542

**hunto** · 05-08-2008, 06:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaboom187

Perhaps glare was the wrong term, i was looking to your for your input on cautions to take, etc.

Let me know, i'll only be up for a few more minutes.

If it were me, I wouldn't buy a used laptop. Problems with the battery, etc, plus the fact htey're hard to work on, or expensive to have it done, leads me to say 'buy it new'. Dell.com has a $499 laptop, and I just scrolled thru it, and for $50 I'd upgrade the CPU to a dual core, and for another $50 I'd bump the ram from 1gb to 2, and there was a hard drive upgrade option, it comes with an 80 gb, if you need mroe storage theres upgrades available, although I'd prefer an external backup HD to a bigger internal laptop drive. Thats what I'd do. I saw some $200 laptops on ebay and hardforum, but battery life and HD life are going to be questionable. Go new.

Ian Coe · 05-08-2008, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hunto

If it were me, I wouldn't buy a used laptop. Problems with the battery, etc, plus the fact htey're hard to work on, or expensive to have it done, leads me to say 'buy it new'. Dell.com has a $499 laptop, and I just scrolled thru it, and for $50 I'd upgrade the CPU to a dual core, and for another $50 I'd bump the ram from 1gb to 2, and there was a hard drive upgrade option, it comes with an 80 gb, if you need mroe storage theres upgrades available, although I'd prefer an external backup HD to a bigger internal laptop drive. Thats what I'd do. I saw some $200 laptops on ebay and hardforum, but battery life and HD life are going to be questionable. Go new.

The one thing I've never considered is buying a used comp.

I don't know why, too much can go wrong IMO

**hunto** · 05-08-2008, 06:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian Coe

The one thing I've never considered is buying a used comp.

I don't know why, too much can go wrong IMO

Actually good buys can be had here, if you're good with a screwdriver. The things to remember are that moving parts wear out. So fans, hard drives, etc, can and will fail. Power supplies also fail. So those 2 things, aside from fans, I'd expect to replace. But all the Core2Duo boxes are going up for sale, all that generation of hardware. I'm still using AMD socket 939 single core, so it'll be an upgrade for me. Motherboard, cpu, ram, none of those have moving parts, and I'd expect them to work a long long time. The fan on the cooler I'd change- same for the video card. Unless the warranty transfers, and it usually doesn't, I keep an eye on the fan on a used video card. Aftermarket coolers can be had cheaply. Power supplies aren't expensive, nor hard to replace, the plugs can only go one way, it would be difficult to mess it up. Same with changing a hard drive. Because the platter spins, these will fail. So grab a copy of Norton Ghost to backup the data, it clones the drive to another, and in the event of failure you merely pop in the Ghosted drive. Expect 4-6 years from a hard drive- they can last longer, and I've seen them die before that. But the core parts, Motherboard, cpu, and ram, usually are ok to buy used. Sound cards have no cooler, so no fan to fail- those are ok used also.

oxcart · 05-08-2008, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaboom187

Thoughts on purchasing used computers to save money?
Looking for a laptop if that makes any difference

Don't bother. You'll pay over the odds for an old machine. It's the same reason you'd never buy a used digital camera - by the time someone has had it long enough to want to replace it, the technology has moved so much that it's pointless.