Worth breathing life into old Dell Inspiron 4000?

An Ri rua

Hi,

Was looking for some advice on what to do with a spare laptop. I don't believe in binning (recycling) unless something has no use value any more.

I've an old laptop that I want to upgrade myself as I've seen some very cheap HDs on eBay in US. OEM for Dell.

Its a Dell Inspiron 4000 original spec 192MB RAM, 5GB HD, PIII 850MHz etc. cd drive, no dvd, no wireless card. I'm wondering is it worth my upgrading it to 512mb even a 40GB HD as its less than €80 and I've fitted RAM no prob before so I'll give the HD a go too.

It has a dodgy DC jack connector so I just ordered that for €4 delivered on eBay from UK (€75-99 for an Irish company to do it for me!! Its pricing like that that makes us all learn stuff ourselves). I know I'll need a soldering kit but that can be used in future projects, so its not a cost in this project.

My question is, although it own't have a 1.3MP webcam built in , nor wifi, nor bluetooth (but neither does my 1300 have bluetooth), and although its a slower processor, it still ran great on XP. Wouldn't it be €80 better spent on upgrading an Inspiron 4000 (quite light) to the max, for use as a netbook, rather than shelling out €200-350 for one?

In fact, leaving the RAM at 192 wouldn't be so bad with another OS such as GOS or Ubuntu if the HD went to 40GB. It's a lovely light laptop. Old but such a shame to get rid of.

Any thoughts?

It was stable for me. Perhaps I'd just change the DC jack and donate it to a good cause.

I currently use a Dell Inspiron 1300 upped to 2GB RAM but with a 40GB hard drive. Use an external drive with that.

Does anyone here keep old laptops going or do you just junk 'em? Contacted Camara but because this has a DC connector problem, they wouldn't be interested (must power up). Also they want €20 donation to wipe it, but I can do that myself with Defraggler.

Any thoughts? I like some of the suggestions on here http://ask.metafilter.com/96796/Someone-just-gave-me-a-crappy-laptop-Now-what

wildefalcon

Nothing wrong with an old laptop.

Before you spend the money, what would you use it for?

If you don't have a use for it, fix it, wipe it and stick a light linux distro on it and give it to a charity shop.

If you do have a use for it, upgrade it and use it, though you'd probably get better value by buying a newer machine.

Check out adverts for an idea as to second hand prices, and parts prices too! Sell it and give the proceeds to SVP/your favourite charity.

An Ri rua

wildefalcon wrote: »

Nothing wrong with an old laptop.

Before you spend the money, what would you use it for?

If you don't have a use for it, fix it, wipe it and stick a light linux distro on it and give it to a charity shop.

If you do have a use for it, upgrade it and use it, though you'd probably get better value by buying a newer machine.

Check out adverts for an idea as to second hand prices, and parts prices too! Sell it and give the proceeds to SVP/your favourite charity.

I'd probably just keep it as a back-up laptop (if I was keeping it). What I will do so is see if I can fix the DC jack myself economically and, if not, see if I can get it done outsources economically i.e. 30 labour max. Then I can see how good / bad the battery is. I thought it was not bad before the DC problems started. If not, a reasonable 'titanium' replacement is 40 max on ebay and then a wifi card is about 10-20. Would be a lovely donation then to a charity or direct to someone I know who needs a laptop.

Thanks for the psychotherapy. Nice to 'think out loud', as it were! All input appreciated. Just hate to see old stuff die if it doesn't need to.

Alanstrainor

I wouldn't dream of putting almost 100 quid into that laptop. It's just not worth it at all. You could probably pick up a second hand netbook for about that price.