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Laptop Advice - Should I buy?

Seeker_UK

Seeker_UK

Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
My current laptop is a 9-year old Dell Vostro 1700 (17" screen, Core2 Duo 2GHz processor, 3Gb RAM) and is getting a bit flaky in its old age (occasional BSOD) as well as struggling with some apps. As a replacement, I've been offered a refurbished Dell Precision M6400 (17" screen, Core 2 Quad Extreme 2.53 GHz processor, 8Gb RAM) for £225 with a 6-month warranty - I think it's about a year younger than the Vostro.

Is it worth having or would I better putting my £225 towards a newer i7 based PC.

I want to be able to run Cubase in a live situation so whizzy graphics aren't a concern.
 
Agree.
Decide exactly what the new(er) laptop should have to serve your purposes (and a bit more) and a budget.
Something like;
Min 15" screen
USB 3 & 2
Min. i5 3rd gen.
Min 4GB RAM upgradable.
Backlit keyboard
OS of choice
SSD
£xxx
 
If I'm buying new, I might as well go for i5 / i7, 17" screen, 8Gb RAM, USB 3 but I suspect that's going to be a s**t load more to buy than £225. :)
 
Seeker_UK said:
If I'm buying new, I might as well go for i5 / i7, 17" screen, 8Gb RAM, USB 3 but I suspect that's going to be a s**t load more to buy than £225. :)
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If you had kept your eyes open a Dell L702x (17" screen, i5, 8GB) sold just a couple of days ago on pfm and was within your budget.

http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/...laptops-inspiron-and-xps.210067/#post-3274616

I have to ask why you want a 'laptop' with a 17" screen. I have one but its not really portable as its bulky and heavy and its also a few years old so I'm looking at a small(ish) desktop with a separate display.

If you drop the screen size down to 14 - 15" then you'll get an i5 based lappy close to your budget s/h. Here is an example and its a great machine https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01K7GK5MO/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

Cheers,

DV
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
Slightly off topic but I made a huge mistake with my first (and only) laptop in 2004! I had money at the time and bought the top of the range Toshiba for... £1400! cash! Within 6 months there were models of at least the same spec for £600 and after a year there were models of twice its spec for about £500... To top it all, after about 9-10 years of seeing only about an hour or two a week use it packed up altogether. Power light comes on but dead other than that. No doubt a dead CPU, hard drive or similarly vital organ. I ruled out RAM failure and without access to compatible parts to fault find by substitution I guess it's scrap really... now that was a waste of money!!
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Slightly off topic but I made a huge mistake with my first (and only) laptop in 2004! I had money at the time and bought the top of the range Toshiba for... £1400! cash! Within 6 months there were models of at least the same spec for £600 and after a year there were models of twice its spec for about £500... To top it all, after about 9-10 years of seeing only about an hour or two a week use it packed up altogether. Power light comes on but dead other than that. No doubt a dead CPU, hard drive or similarly vital organ. I ruled out RAM failure and without access to compatible parts to fault find by substitution I guess it's scrap really... now that was a waste of money!!
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Do you not see the BIOS logo? If not do you get any beeps? If the answer to both is a no then try an external screen and if that is blank then its most likely a dead mobo.

I have several hard worked Thinkpads and some go back to around 14 years old and they all still work. I am running Win 10 Enterprise, Win 7 and Unbuntu on a 12 yo 32 bit T.62 with an SSD. I was thinking of upgrading the CPU to 64 bit as they are still available for around £17 including delivery. I could let you have an old working T.2x with Windows XP and M$ office for just the price of postage. No power supply but you can buy these quite cheaply or knock one up yourself.

Cheers,

DV
 
Darth Vader said:
Do you not see the BIOS logo? If not do you get any beeps? If the answer to both is a no then try an external screen and if that is blank then its most likely a dead mobo.

I have several hard worked Thinkpads and some go back to around 14 years old and they all still work. I am running Win 10 Enterprise, Win 7 and Unbuntu on a 12 yo 32 bit T.62 with an SSD. I was thinking of upgrading the CPU to 64 bit as they are still available for around £17 including delivery. I could let you have an old working T.2x with Windows XP and M$ office for just the price of postage. No power supply but you can buy these quite cheaply or knock one up yourself.

Cheers,

DV
Click to expand...

Nope, nothing. I did try it "just for a laugh" about a month ago after it had not been switched on for years and it seemed like it was going to work, much to my surprise, but after the first 2 -3 seconds of BIOS screen it died and went back to power light on but dead otherwise. No amount of switching it on and off or waiting an hour or two and trying again made any difference after that, as it hadn't when it first failed. I had been using it the night before it failed and it was working perfectly normally. I switched it on the next afternoon (it hadn't even been moved) and you know the rest...
 
Just as a comparison, for £228 you could get this:

https://www.tesco.com/direct/acer-a...KDeals_47868&dclid=CLaLi-nRqNgCFWWkUQodaR0HIw

(use code TDX-GRYK at the checkout).

No idea if this would suit your needs, but I would say a very definite no to an 8 yr old (obsolete as mentioned above) for the same £££.

Edited to add..if you need a bigger monitor, suggest get a big s/h monitor and an older s/h desktop (maybe a Dell smallformfactor?)- for less than the lappie.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Nope, nothing. I did try it "just for a laugh" about a month ago after it had not been switched on for years and it seemed like it was going to work, much to my surprise, but after the first 2 -3 seconds of BIOS screen it died and went back to power light on but dead otherwise. No amount of switching it on and off or waiting an hour or two and trying again made any difference after that, as it hadn't when it first failed. I had been using it the night before it failed and it was working perfectly normally. I switched it on the next afternoon (it hadn't even been moved) and you know the rest...
Click to expand...

So your CPU is working. Next try entering your BIOS by pressing a key like F3 during startup. Search the web for BIOS entry keys for your lappy and enter the BIOS. We on pfm can then guide you.

Cheers,

DV
 
Darth Vader said:
So your CPU is working. Next try entering your BIOS by pressing a key like F3 during startup. Search the web for BIOS entry keys for your lappy and enter the BIOS. We on pfm can then guide you.

Cheers,

DV
Click to expand...

Only on the one occasion, several years after switching it on last, did it get as far as a BIOS screen and then only for 2-3 seconds! There is not even a flicker from the HDD led... we are talking dead here. no sign of life other than the power, and "battery on charge" leds lighting.
 
You can probably search youtube for the toshiba (eg my dell precision has a rather large videocard that needed some minutes in the oven, to cure similar problems)
 
As much as I like dell, they seemed to have purchased a shed load of crappy 1600x900 screens, this particular device being no exception.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Only on the one occasion, several years after switching it on last, did it get as far as a BIOS screen and then only for 2-3 seconds! There is not even a flicker from the HDD led... we are talking dead here. no sign of life other than the power, and "battery on charge" leds lighting.
Click to expand...
One possibility is a dead BIOS battery. Somewhere on the mobo will be a 3v battery usually a coin cell. This keeps amongst other things the RTC in the BIOS chip running. Replace this battery then enter the BIOS and set the time and date and you may be lucky.

If you can get to a BIOS flash screen your computer is actually working. Maybe clean it up and reseat any connectors as well. The hard disk will not activate until the BIOS is happy so you won't see any activity light.

Cheers,

DV
 
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