Thanks Guys!
...perhaps we should get an IIS notebook reliability survey going...
This survey from SquareTrade is interesting
http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/S...ility_1109.pdf
According to this, Acer and Toshiba are the most reliable, HP is the worst. I can testify that my HP was dodgy, it's inconsistent performance was a big annoyance.
I might just go for broke and get this Asus... It comes with W7Pro and XPPro optional... 4GB RAM, decent HDD. But apparently short battery life...
http://www.onlinecomputer.com.au/pro...oducts_id=3111
...Or get a replacement LCD screen for $220, a new HDD for about $60, repair the HP myself and re-install everything... lowest cost option, and I already have the high capacity batteries and power adapters..
Cheers... Rob :-)