Laptop woes

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I probably own about four or five laptops – all in states of serious disrepair.  I have broken down laptops like some people have cars on blocks on their lawn or tires in piles in their backyard.  Here’s what I’ve got right now, with a description of what it would take to fix it:

  • Dell Somethingorother.  Purchased used, old, heavy, running Windows 98, one bad pixel1 , terrible battery life, and about 1/2 the keys on the keyboard do not register unless you literally hurt your fingers pressing/hitting it.  With an external keyboard it’s not that bad, really.  I’ve got a PCMII WiFi card for it.
    • This laptop just isn’t for most people.  If you want to surf the web and word processing, it would be fine with an external keyboard.  That said, it’s pretty slow.
  • Dell XPS.  This is one of the few computers I’ve owned since it was brand new.  Big hard drive, DVD burner, speedy.  However, it’s running Vista (boo!!!), the battery lasts about half an hour, and the monitor is extremely dim no matter what I do.  I leave this one plugged into my Cupcake.
    • Vista is a pain, but an endurable one.  The monitor is dim enough that it is noticeable.  There’s no specific thing keeping me from using this laptop except that it is heavier than what I would like to carry around.  It’s on it’s second battery, an after market special, that holds about an hour or so of charge.
  • Everex Stepnote.  A computer I fixed twice,2 the previous owner drained the battery and let it sit for six months, threw it around, broke off both hinge covers, and scratched it all up to hell.  The DVD drive is completely shot and the battery lasts about 5 minutes.  It’s only got 1 GB of RAM, so it gets bogged down with medium tasks.  Last, but not least, the “+/=” button does not work.  At all.  The lack of those two keys makes programming a bear. 3
    • I’ve been using this laptop almost exclusively for the last year or so.  But, having the +/= button go bad means I am disincentivized to program – which is a bad thing.  I’ve taken this laptop apart, but there’s no way I can see to fix that button short of replacing the keyboard.  At $35+, the replacement keyboard costs on eBay not cost-effective.  The cost to upgrade this computer is not appetizing – $50 for 2GB RAM, $35 for a keyboard, $30 for a new battery?  That’s $115 for an underpowered laptop that is weighed down by a non-functional optical drive.
  • Dell Mini10.  Another twice fixed computer, zero battery (it holds absolutely no charge), tight keyboard, and small screen with a pretty poor resolution.
    • Nothing can be done about the screen, its resolution, or battery.  I could get a new battery, but my concern is there’s some flaw on the motherboard causing it to systematically kill the battery.  When traveling I take this laptop with me and use it to connect into my home network via a VPN.  It would be better with a battery, but with the screen as bad as it is, I’m not looking to spend much time using this computer.  This is the laptop I booted with Ubuntu and wasn’t able to connect to my WiFi network. 4

I’m somewhat undecided on what to do.  Should I get a new computer or try to get one of these running better?

  • Anything over 2-3 hours is great.  Bonus points for more.
  • Minus points for an optical drive – I have an external and don’t need the extra weight.
  • Keyboard and monitor size can be small, as long as it has good resolution.
  • Any current processor is fine, I offload all big tasks (video transcoding, etc) to brainier machines on the home VPN, but 2GB RAM is pretty key
  • Lower price is better, obv.

Anyone have any suggestions?  Either for repairing or what you’d recommend for a laptop?

  1. Stuck on red, if you must know [↩]
  2. Seriously, Tom – who the hell deletes an operating system… TWICE??? [↩]
  3. Amusing note:  in order to circumvent this problem, there is a “+=” contained on every page of this blog – in white text on the white background.  When I need either symbol, I just pull up this site, copy the character I need, paste, and rock on. [↩]
  4. I suspect there was some problem with Ubuntu not recognizing my WiFi card [↩]

6 thoughts on “Laptop woes”

  1. Incidentally, Autohotkey may be a good way to get access to + and = again. you’d just need to decide what key combo to use to trigger it. Email me if you need help setting it up.

  2. I would recommend getting a new one and with your history of broken Laptops, dont be too tight with the policies.
    Use Dell or something similar, customize the laptop you want and give it a 5-Year-the-next-day-some-dude-in-a-uniform-will-fix-my-laptop-policy. Most people choose to get a bigger CPU or strong graphicscard for the money saved, but do yourself a favor and get a laptop that will be running for guaranteed at least 5 years.

    It’s crazy what they sometimes have to do to get it running again. Some years ago one of my sturdier PCs broke down (more like completely fried, lightning or something, I dunno). Suddenly didn’t even make a blink.
    So I called Dell and the next day the dude fixed it. By completely exchanging every single part in the Computer, except the harddrive and the chasis for free.
    I’m not affiliated with Dell but I have to say that’s service.

  4. @Sven Hecht: Well, keep in mind, of those three laptops – I had only purchased one new and it’s still running reasonably well. Battery is a bit low, screen has always been dim, but it’s otherwise a decent machine. The other three, well, they’re held together with ducttape and wishes. That said, I’ve had some crazy crazy good service from Dell. But, the “Michael Dell drops what he’s doing to run over and fix the problem himself sort of service” is ridiculously expensive – around $200 for three years. Hmmm, I guess if I had a laptop worth $1000 that might be a viable option…

  5. So I’ve had this dell Inspiron n5010 for about 2 months now and it’s great. it was $649 with the fancy video card, probably ~100 less without. I bought it from the Dell.com site, it has 4gb ram, a built-in SD/MS slot, 4 usbs, and GREAT battery life. I just realized I haven’t had the battery in for the last ~25 minutes and it only dropped to 82%. I easily get 4 hours out of it. You should definitely consider it if you’re looking for a good long-term laptop. And it’s not heavy either – <6lbs! Great for day-to-day tasks, has windows 7 built in. It's REALLY smooth.

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