Good Prices for a Laptop?

Zerokku

So my laptop of 4 years went kaput on me yesterday. The thing has always ran hot, but it finally cooked itself yesterday (On the first day of classes, in the middle of class no less). It'll still turn on for about 20-30 minutes, but will overheat and automatically shut off within that time.

I believe it was a Toshiba Satellite A105 (Or something like that)
1.6 GHz Celeron M
1gig of RAM
60G Hard Drive
DVD-RW Drive


The thing is, I don't need much more than that. I did a bit of gaming on it (Pretty much just Blizzard games. WoW, D2, Starcraft, Warcraft 3, ect.) so I'd like one that would at least be able to handle what I did previously, but I don't need much more. A little bit more RAM and a slightly faster processor would be nice (I had to run WoW on all the lowest settings besides Draw Distance) but I don't want to spend too much.

Would I be able to get a laptop remotely close to what I had anywhere close to 300? I'm a fulltime college student with a shitty part time job (I mean real shitty), so money isn't exactly the easiest to come by.


Another question related to all of this - I know theres places that will buy old Desktop computers for spare parts, but are there any places that will do so for Laptops? I mean my old one works, it just overheats, but I assume theres at least some things that are salvageable there. If so, where would I go to do something like that/find a place that would do so?

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this. just looking for some advice.

ronya

If it turns itself off, it's probably just clogged with dust. Clean it. Everyone recommends cans of compressed air here, but if you can't find one easily, removing the fan assembly and wiping away the dust with some cotton buds also works (albeit slowly). As is giving the heatsink a wash, with soap. Remember to leave it to dry before attaching it back to your motherboard.

For $300 USD I could get a second-hand laptop that could pound that one into the dust (C2D ~2 ghz, dedicated 8xxx geforce video card), though. This'll probably vary a lot depending where you are.

Yes, I've seen shops that buy laptop components, but I wouldn't expect more than $50 for a laptop of that spec and age.

DHS Odium

You can easily find a new one that will suit your needs for $300 to $400.

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/944936/
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/937713/
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/945360/

In general, you should probably just keep an eye on fatwallet, cheap laptops come up all the time.

Zerokku

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9368169&type=product&id=1218092959299

Looks to be the one I'm probably going to be going for after some research last night. The only question I have is if the graphics card could manage WoW. I'm not really familiar with hardware specs at all.

#
Graphics
Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
#
Video Memory
128MB - 830MB dynamically allocated shared

Is what it says on the specs page.

Also for reference, I played WoW on my old laptop for a couple years with 10-20 FPS at lowest settings (Yes I actually stomached that) If its on par/better than that It's good enough for me.


One last thing. Again sorry for not being very knowledgeable/literate about computers. Is it possible to downgrade from Vista to XP? From what I've used of it I don't care for the style. and it's also my understanding that it uses up more system resources as well.

lowlylowlycook

AFAIK Intel's integrated graphics are pretty useless. On the other hand most toasters will play WoW.

A quick google seems to show that it will do so on the lowest settings. For $300 maybe that's good enough.

Zerokku

So it'll probably be on par with what I was dealing with previously. Meh, good enough for me. It's not like gaming is the primary (or even intended) use of it.

My old laptop was a ATI Radeon Xpress 200M (Just remembered after doing some googling myself) and in the thread I'm reading it says this one is "leaps and bounds" better than that. Sounds like I'm set. Just looking for an answer about XP Downgrade and I'll be good to go.

corky842

How about this one instead?
$80 more, but:

• Better processor (Athlon X2 vs. Celeron)
• Bigger screen resolution (1366 x 768 vs. 1280 x 800)
• More RAM (3GB vs. 2GB)
• Better video card (Geforce 8200M vs. Intel GMA 4500)
• Bigger hard drive (250GB vs. 160GB)

Plus, it qualifies for the free Windows 7 upgrade.

Zerokku

1. I'm poor and want to get as cheap as I can manage
2. I don't need too much concering its more for school than gaming, and the only gaming will be older games and blizz games.
3. It's an AMD and my dad owns intel stock and will only help me out buying a new one if it has an intel chip
4. I'm poor.

DHS Odium

That $300 toshiba will be fine. And it will run WoW just fine too. Integrated isn't entirely useless, it will work fine for your purposes.

As to what you heard about Vista, it's fine. It's better than XP in every way, and just as fast. Use that, or get Windows 7. I highly recommend Windows 7, you're a student, so chances are you can get it for cheap or free. Plus, newer computers might not have drivers for XP, as they were made for Vista/7. If you are in any kind of technical major, check to see if you can get access to MSDN AA. You can get it free there (I got 2 licenses that way).

Zerokku

Awesome. One more (Hopefully last) question. About Vista - That Toshiba will almost assuredly come with Vista "64-bit" won't it? What the hell are the differences between Vista 32-bit and Vista 64-bit?

DHS Odium

Programs made to run on 64 bit will theoretically run faster, and it allows for more than 4gb of ram to be used. That's the very quick explanation. I say keep 64 bit if you can get it, some programs might have issues, but I haven't had a problem yet after using Vista 64 since it was released. 32 bit programs will run fine.

ronya

Whatever you do, make sure you qualify for the free 7 update.

Get 64-bit if it's free, otherwise don't bother, I think.

For smooth gaming performance the limiting factor with laptops is almost always the GPU. I've played Warcraft III on an old Intel GMA 950-powered laptop and a newer (but still old) 8xxx series mobile gpu; although you get used to the Intel card struggling over time, I can assure you that a newer card will perform leaps and bounds better. Particularly with larger maps like DotA, and larger post-1.24 maps.

tl; dr: get a laptop with a discrete GPU, whatever you do.

Consider second-hand; the price drops rapidly once it's no longer perfectly new. If there are laptop repair shops near your place, just trot in and ask them what they have.

edit: also, have you tried fixing the Toshiba Satellite? How's it coming along? :P

Zerokku

ronya wrote: »

edit: also, have you tried fixing the Toshiba Satellite? How's it coming along? :P

I'll be taking it to get looked at later today actually. When turning it on yesterday I realized whats wrong with it. The fan isn't working, and with a laptop thats always ran ridiculously hot, its no wonder it's dying on me after 20 mins. I may get a new laptop anyways though as this one is old and worn, and probably won't last too much longer even if I get it fixed.

The reason I asked about Vista 32/64 is because the way my Internet is set up I have to use the Nintendo Wifi USB connector to get online with my DS games, and it apparently doesn't work with Vista 64.

Crashtard

I know you don't want to spend more than 300, but if you're able to get up to that $380 mark things will be MUCH better. At 300 bucks you're going to get very little computer, and even though you'll only do minor gaming on it, if you're running a vista laptop with 1GB ram and a single core processor you're NOT going to be happy. My wife's old laptop was that way and it was awful to use, even for simple things like web browsing.

Zerokku

And I may not need to replace after all. Took it to a repair shop, they took a look at it and said it was the fan. Ran some compressed air through it, and while it didn't work there, it seems to be working fine here at home. The fan's not running quite 100% from what I'm feeling from the vent, but I've never payed attention before so I don't know whether or not thats normal, or if its always 100% of the time.

ronya

ronya wrote: »

If it turns itself off, it's probably just clogged with dust. Clean it.

Zerokku

ronya wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

If it turns itself off, it's probably just clogged with dust. Clean it.

Sorta glad it looks to be fine, as I had been wanting to spend this money on a psp and dissida.