Is it always cheaper to repair an old laptop than to buy a new one?

February 2, 2008 1:16 PM

Should I buy a new laptop or spend $400 to repair my 2004 Dell Inspiron 600m?

This week I turned on my computer and it took about 10 minutes to boot, and then all the internet drivers were missing. Nothing has changed despite my various attempts, so I took it to the Geek Squad. They told me today that the hard drive was damaged and that I could spend about $400 to repair (diagnostic, new hard drive, new hard drive installation, software update - can't find my old stuff, etc.) Money is an object. Should I spend $400 and repair my 4 year old Dell Inspiron 600m, or should I spend about $1300 to buy a new one? Is there any important info I have left out? Geek Squad checked and found no viruses. The Geek Squad guy recommended I buy a new one, fwiw.

They say with cars it's always cheaper to repair an old one than buy a new one. Does the same logic apply to computers?

posted by Amizu to computers & internet (14 comments total)

Err not all laptops cost 1300. Buy a new one. A dell vostro with a 15inch screen was selling for 599 yesterday at dell. 2 gigs of ram, dual cores, XP, etc. 400 to repair a laptop worth 300 dollars isnt a wise move, especially when 200 more gets a machine 4x or 5x as fast.
posted by damn dirty ape at 1:18 PM on February 2

I just sold my 600m for $400 to a guy that wanted something that small. One thing that helped though - I reinstalled Windows XP. However, I just bought a new laptop for $700 and it was a higher end one. You can get a laptop for $300 or $400 - check out dealnews.com.
posted by k8t at 1:23 PM on February 2

Geek Squad is quoting way too high. Replacing a hard drive on a 600M is extremely easy -- the area around the sound jacks has a screw and a tray slips out with the drive; you just screw a new drive into the tray, pop it back in, and replace the screw. A new 80GB hard drive only costs around $60 on Newegg, and installation of the hardware itself only takes a few minutes. If it seems daunting to you, you may be able to find a computer shop to do a hardware installation for 10-20 bucks; it's not unlike changing a watch battery, only without the specialized tool

If you have the Windows media and driver disk from when you bought the machine and feel comfortable re-installing Windows, there's no cost there; it should take around an hour.

If you want a USB enclosure to hook up your old drive to copy over any data that's recoverable, you can get one on Newegg fairly cheaply. Your old drive will then just appear as a D: or E: drive in Explorer or "My Computer".

This is definitely cheaper to repair than replace; you can certainly do it for under $100.
posted by eschatfische at 1:24 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]

Um, $400 is way too expensive. You could put a new drive in for $50 and reinstall windows yourself.

Was that just an estimate or are you on the hook for any of that $400 to get it back?
posted by sharkfu at 1:26 PM on February 2

How to replace drive in 600m.
posted by sharkfu at 1:27 PM on February 2

I feel like you're limiting yourself kind of unnecessarily here. You can get a new or new-to-you laptop significantly cheaper than $1300. In fact, if your current 4-year old machine was doing the trick, you could take the $400 you'd spend repairing it and get yourself a reasonably faster laptop. I just picked up the HP-nc4200 on which I'm writing this now for a little under $400 over the summer and it'll keep on being used as a portable web-surfer and word-processor for years to come.

Unless you really need the bells and whistles of a shiny new Core 2 Duo laptop that'll cost you that $1300, you can do really well now on Pentium-M machines, especially those that are coming off 2-3 year leases and are being refurbished for resale by their manufacturers. If you have your heart set on a new-new laptop, go for it, but don't discount sinking that $400 into what could be most or all of a new-used laptop.
posted by Rallon at 1:28 PM on February 2

If the hard drive is damaged, why not just buy a new hard drive for under $100 and put it in yourself? There are diagrams of how to do this at the dell website. If you can find your original windows cd, just pop it in and go through the steps.

Geek Squad is notorious for quoting ridiculous prices to the average consumer.
posted by pinksoftsoap at 1:28 PM on February 2

$400 sounds a little pricey just for a replacement hard drive. See if you've got any friends with access to the software "Ghost"; It's used to clone hard drives and should allow you replace the drive yourself a lot cheaper. Ghost is most commonly used for managing computer labs at educational places.
posted by krisjohn at 1:32 PM on February 2

Thanks so far, everyone! (I obviously don't know much about this stuff.)

The $1300 was at Best Buy and was a Dell that started at $699, then if I added software and a 2-3 year service plan, and tax, it totaled to almost $1300.

I don't have the original software anymore - got lost in a move. But I think I can buy a new hard drive and install it - I saw them take mine out and put mine back in today and it didn't look too hard. The $400 was to include re-installing the software - that was a big chunk of it, since I don't have the system software anymore.

$400 = ~ $60 diagnostics + ~$ 90 hard drive + ~ re-installing software + installing hard drive
posted by Amizu at 1:45 PM on February 2

you can get a dell recovery disk - probably from dell fairly cheaply, worst case you could buy one on ebay or somewhere cheap - but check dell's outlet site. A coworker of mine has bought several 'new' dell models for $500 or less that are a huge jump up hardware wise.
posted by pupdog at 2:02 PM on February 2

I've dealt with a dozen or so of the 600ms are work. The hard drive is trivial to replace. Flip over your machine and you can unscrew the drive and pull it out and replace it with a workalike.

That said, those machines are entering the time where they just drop dead, or get flakier and flakier. All of the ones we have had slightly odd issues now such as freezing when the power cable is put in, ethernet port no longer working etc...

I'd say, sell the 600m for parts and get a new cheap machine. (or fix it for cheap and sell it)

One thing you will notice though. I just moved from a 600m to a new dual core 'fast' machine with tons of memory and hard drive space. With Vista is feels like a slower machine ironically enough.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 4:34 PM on February 2

A $1300 laptop from a few years ago is a better machine than a $500 one now. Get the drive and the restore disk and fix it.
posted by gjc at 6:28 PM on February 2

A computer is an expense, not an investment. Consider this a lesson in why it's a good idea to buy one generation behind the bleeding edge.

The only reasons I still have my 2001 Dell Inspiron 8200 (a very expensive laptop in 2001) is that I have yet to see a new cheap machine that has as good a screen (1600x1200, very bright, very wide viewing angle) and that I've been able to cadge spare parts from a friend who gave up on his flaky Inspiron 8100.
posted by flabdablet at 7:13 PM on February 2

3 year replacement cycle. Not a geek, buy best you can afford and support. Geek, buy mid range and prepare to buy again in three years or so and hand down your old machine to somebody. Every couple of years when I buy a machine for random family members, it's 2x as buff and 1/2 as $$ as mine. Buy what you can afford to replace every 3 years.
posted by zengargoyle at 11:02 PM on February 2