Quote:
Having said that - i picked up a free laptop that was on its last legs - upgraded the battery, SSD and memory, and it now has years left in it!
|
A little trick with laptops if people have the abilities, many laptops will drop USB and other ports, working one minute then gone the next. The thermal compound dries with heat and the CPU gets hot and things stop working. Replacing the thermal compound on a semi regular basis makes a HUGE difference.
Hint: A good set of phone tools is invaluable for separating the plastic cases without breaking the clips, quality steel units not the cheap plastic junk.
I'd bought my son an enterprise level HP laptop many years back and it came with 3 years warranty. When things stopped working properly they sent a technician to our home and he replaced the mother board twice, free of charge (I've rarely had service like that but LG will also send someone to pick up a dead monitor and return it when repaired while under warranty).
After the warranty period expired the laptop did the same thing again, USB ports stopped working. My son and I stripped it down, checked everything and eventually decided to replace the thermal compound on the CPU as well as giving it a good blow out with a compressor, we do that with all of our computer equipment, we have cats and it becomes a necessity. Miracle cure, everything worked again and now we do the thermal compound every two years or so and it's now my go to portable to take out with the scope and camera. My son primarily used it to code on when he was little when he was spending weekends at his mothers place, now he prefers doing it on his desktop and like me, has a liking for the 27" monitor. My primary desktop is an old Phenom II 955. Thermal compound gets done every 12 months- 2 years on most of our computer equipment (my son has blade cabinets and a LOT of server gear.
From memory I purchased the HP i5 laptop in 2011.
I've had other old things here die, including a high spec gaming laptop (also HP) I was given as a dead unit and resuscitated. It worked for 2-3 years but now has an undetectable fault, it's in poeces in a box and I'l have another look one day, we haven't been able to find the problem but the PRO HP unit still works like a charm.