Is it best to go ahead & buy a new laptop when your Pentium 3 Sony Vaio just stops working?

Question

I think the hard drive finally gave up the ghost...I appreciate your answers!!

Answer 1

Monster's post is briliant!  Hard drive is nothing to replace and i am sure you got friends with one's for old laptops lying around.  Not worth it to get a new comp if it does what you want.

Answer 2

yeah it might be best to get a new one if it had died. Pentium 3 is very old as most laptops now use core duo's. It depends how much you are willing to spend for how decent a laptop it is, i got a Dell XPS M1530 Laptop its packed with features like bluetooth, thumbscanner, webcam etc plus some fairly powerful hardware, it is very relaible but it cost me £938 so it may be costly getting a new one  

Answer 3

Laptops cost so much to fix out of warranty that it usually doesn't make sense to do so if the failure is a major part.

The hard drive should be easy enough to replace yourself not to be a problem although with a computer that old you'd need to get a PATA drive and have to hope the BIOS won't panic over the likely very big drive (and that assumes it is the hard drive that's the problem).

Answer 4

You may want to elaborate a little on how it is you think the HDD is the problem...

does the laptop turn on at all?

If it does, you will see an option for BIOS, go into that, find the section on "Storage" and if you have something registered in there, your HDD is quite possibly ok.

If the laptop does not power on:

Remove the battery and try turning on with only the power attached (it's quite safe)

Are there any beeping noises? How many beeps 3 quick, 2 slow etc

You can pick up a laptop for £400 if not less that will easily out-perform your Sony and I'd have to agree with your b/f. If you do get a new harddrive - this harddrive will be "blank" and you will need to re-install your windows that came with the laptop - have you got all the discs? Then you need all the drivers for all the hardware components, do you know how to find these? Then you need to get back the software you used -> more disks/downloads too. Then there's the potential that you have data on the old laptop...

My solution to this problem would be:

Buy a new laptop (reasonable cost)

Buy a 2.5" HDD external USB drive bay (usually quite cheap)

Remove HDD from old laptop and place in Drive bay (if you want data, and the HDD is actually ok)

or

Be VERY nice to the IT guy at work...maybe he can help you work something out.

Answer 5

Hey I have a spare laptop, and it is really nice, in excellent, mint condition,  so I tell ya what.  Come over and get with me and hang out for the night, maybe do a little more than just hang out, and the next morning, my spare laptop is yours.  And the best part about it is we wont even ever have to tell your boyfriend.  Baby, we could have so much sensual fun, and you have a very nice laptop to go back home with.   What a deal huh?  ohh,  one thing;  You have to be a definite mover/moaner.  I really love a female that moves and moans during happy intimate time.  If you don't moan and just lay there, you get no laptop.  Deal??

Answer 6

this again is a very silly question isnt it ?  this laptop cost a packet to buy so perhaps a new harddrive would be the answer here. option 1

option 2

if you do buy a new laptop get the same type, then take the broken 1 back on the reciept and get another new replacement yippee 2 new computors for the price of 1

come on your not thinkin straight this morning are you  x

Answer 7

why not just fit a new harddrive?

Answer 8

ummm yes very much so. a pentium 3  is terribly obsolete, so any new laptop that you buy will be many times faster than your old one. nowadays, there are dual core processors (basically two of your pentium 3's into one but much faster) that allow you to multitask and do all sorts of things faster than any single core processor (example: your pentium 3)