How to sell dead laptop fairly?
February 20, 2006 2:51 PM
Help me sell (ebay?) my dead laptop, or its working parts, fairly but safely.
My Dell Inspiron 9100 died and I am pretty sure it's the mother board that's dead. I took out everything except the mb and the cpu and it wouldn't POST, then I tried a different cpu with the same result. I decided it would not be worth it to buy a new mb; I'd rather put that money towards a new laptop.
The problem is what to do with all the still working parts in the dead laptop. The cpu (a regular p4), screen and video card were upgraded over the default options, and I had recently replaced a couple parts that were prone to breaking on that machine - headphone jack ($15), AC Adapter ($50).
My first concern is how to go about selling these parts. Would it be better to try selling the parts individually or sell the whole thing as a "fixer uper?" I'm thinking ebay, but I'm open to other options.
More importantly though, I want to be fair about this without being taken advantage of. I'm fairly sure it's the mb that's bad, but I don't have any way to test the other parts. I'd like to tell sellers that if a part is DOA they can ship it back for a refund, but I'm afraid people will buy my part, and ship back their broken part. I seem to remember Gord (http://www.actsofgord.com/) used to mark games with a blacklight marker, so I was thinking something like that might work.
So in short, I'd like recommendations on whether I should sell it in parts or whole, and more importantly, how I can sell it fairly without being ripped off myself.
My Dell Inspiron 9100 died and I am pretty sure it's the mother board that's dead. I took out everything except the mb and the cpu and it wouldn't POST, then I tried a different cpu with the same result. I decided it would not be worth it to buy a new mb; I'd rather put that money towards a new laptop.
The problem is what to do with all the still working parts in the dead laptop. The cpu (a regular p4), screen and video card were upgraded over the default options, and I had recently replaced a couple parts that were prone to breaking on that machine - headphone jack ($15), AC Adapter ($50).
My first concern is how to go about selling these parts. Would it be better to try selling the parts individually or sell the whole thing as a "fixer uper?" I'm thinking ebay, but I'm open to other options.
More importantly though, I want to be fair about this without being taken advantage of. I'm fairly sure it's the mb that's bad, but I don't have any way to test the other parts. I'd like to tell sellers that if a part is DOA they can ship it back for a refund, but I'm afraid people will buy my part, and ship back their broken part. I seem to remember Gord (http://www.actsofgord.com/) used to mark games with a blacklight marker, so I was thinking something like that might work.
So in short, I'd like recommendations on whether I should sell it in parts or whole, and more importantly, how I can sell it fairly without being ripped off myself.
This thread is closed to new comments.
You never know what people will want to buy. I would just be honest and as descriptive as possible in the listing. I would sell it as a whole laptop.
As for not getting ripped off--don't accept returns, don't accept cashier's checks and don't accept any money orders. It's ok to be picky about who buys from you. You can even make the purchaser buy insurance so they can get their money back in the event the package is mangled by the UPS truck.
Good luck!
posted by FergieBelle at 4:25 PM on February 20, 2006