Replace Battery - or Laptop?!!

[mcdhu]

This laptop is a fully functional, 3.5 year old Dell Inspiron 630m which I use for all the usual functions and take with me on very frequent trips to the sim.
(Win Xp, AOL Bb, Intel Pentium M 1.7, 2G RAM, 60G HD - nearly full!)

The battery is on its way out - it holds its charge for less and less time and the 'health check' LEDs on the batt itself confirm that.

A replacement Dell batt comes in at around £110, but there seem to be 'compatible' batts available on the web for around £60.

Given the age of the machine, the liklihood of further tech malfunctions, the price of the replacement battery and the plummetting price of netbooks, I wonder if it is more 'cost effective' to chuck it in favour of a smaller and lighter machine - but I'm Scottish!.

I know there are many more variables than I have discussed above, but your views, experiences and opinions in this field would be most welcome.

Cheers,
mcdhu

[Saab Dastard]

If you decide to buy new, hold on until you can get Windows 7 as the OS.

It's easy enough and not expensive to add a larger hard disk (up to 250GB, assuming IDE), especially if you clone the old to the new. Cheapo battery and new disk would keep you going for another year or so for around £120.

What do you mean by "further tech. malfunctions", btw? As long as the screen is OK and the case (and hinges, keyboard, connections etc.) are sound, then what's to break, apart from the hard disk?

SD

[green granite]

If you search E-Bay you'll find batteries for it from £25 to about £50 a bit more reasonable, but might be time to upgrade, as Saab says.

[mcdhu]

SD - thank you for your input.

As to 'further tech malfunctions', it seems to me that the average laptop's design life is probably not more than 3 yrs or so and thus one can reasonably expect 'trouble' after that - depending on usage of course. The screen and hinges are fine and my local Asian run computer shop is quite good at re-attaching/replacing keys at modest cost so I don't really know what to expect next - hence the dilemma.

Cheers,
mcdhu

[x213a]

I had a laptop whoes battery started to really degrade. I went on manufacturers website (Packard Bell in my case) and saw a BIOs update available. I dont know why, or how..but it sorted the problem anyway...until I killed it properly by drowsing it in wine.

Are BIOS updates able to affect battery life?? It seemed to work for me then. Im sure someone here can explain if i'm wrong.:ok:

[Loose rivets]

Like dustbins and ink cartridges, they've got a chip in them. I prized my battery apart intending to fit new cells for about 7 quid, but the nasty piece of circuitry in there would not have approved.

So, a BIOS setting that would override the battery info?...yep, my guess is that's what happened.

[mcdhu]

x213a - I'll have a look - when the wine and other distractions have worn off!

Thank you,
mcdhu

[Keef]

My previous IBM ThinkPad is approaching 7 years old and still doing good service on daughter's boat (don't ask!). There's no reason any part other than battery or hard drive should die.

I don't know your specific device, but I've got batteries for the ThinkPad (old and new) off Ebay for under £40. If the performance is adequate, I'd treat it to a new battery (<£40) and a new HD (also <£40), and be happy.

[61 Lafite]

A brand new Dell inspiron 15 is now only £349 including VAT, shipping, etc.

Depending on the spec of your old laptop, if this one is an improvement, I'd go with the ne one, which will net out costing you less than £250, plus you get free Windows 7 which is an absolute must (been running it for 6 months now - vast improvement over Vista, quicker, and better than XP).

However if, like me, you bought one that was top dog for its day and spent about £1500 for the greatest displays, CPUs etc, you may well find your old laptop will still outperform the standard new ones, in which case do the battery/disk.

Also be wary of aftermarket batteries. I've had two in the last 6 months purchased for a thinkpad that simply won't charge after about a week of use. I've also had capacity issues with others where they simply don't do what they claim.


BW

[Maxbert]

I have a related question, so I won't start a new thread-

I also have a venerable laptop, a Medion bought at Aldi back in April 2003! It has never let me down, although boot is now extremely slow. The battery holds about 15 mins charge, but this is not the problem as it is happy to sit on a desk plugged into the mains.

I really want to cure the sluggishness though, and as I have just bought a new über-laptop and will give the old one to my son, I thought I would clear the HD completely and use the OEM CD to reinstall everything. So my questions are:

Will this entirely restore the HD to its former glory, or should I do a format C before (and in this case, can somebody please post the correct line of text)?

More importantly, the OEM software was XP, and I'm not even certain it was the SP1 version at the time. If I re-install a jurassic version of XP, will the MS update site still update it?

Many thanks!

Maxbert

[mcdhu]

..........and also related, something like the new Samsung N110 - an improvement on the NC10 - seems a good bet for what I want if the trusty Dell should fail, but when will Windows 7 be available on netbooks if ever?

Thanks all for the thought provoking inputs.

Btw, no BIOS updates available.

Cheers all,
mcdhu

[srobarts]

Maxbert, if you boot from the XP installation cd it should prompt to either a resinstall with existing settings or a clean install formatting the hard disk first. I would go for that, I have just reinstalled XP on my 5 yr old Thinkpad and notice the difference. Make sure you either have the driver disk to hand or preferably download the latest drivers for all the laptop devices before you start.
By the by MS update will download the latest SP (3) with no probs.

[srobarts]

mcdhu
Microsoft has announced they will be releasing a versions of 7 for netbooks. Not sure how long after the release date it will be available.

[Saab Dastard]

Maxbert, building on what srobarts wrote, I would suggest that you download the Windows SP3 file and copy it to CD to install it from there rather than rely on MS Update. I have found it a more reliable (and much faster) approach in this circumstance.

It is also much better to install SP3 before loading any AV or firewall software - and therefore safer to do it off-line, i.e. from CD.

While you may have no problems installing all the drivers from the Windows XP installation disk, I would think it prudent to seek out and note down the details of (and all the drivers for) the main components - graphics, sound, network at least. Always better to know what you are searching for when you can't find a driver!

SD

[x213a]

Mcdu,

Dont know if you have tried this already but - here is a link to the Dell site and a list of available updates for your particular model. I see there is a BIOS one also.

Drivers & Downloads (http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=gen&ServiceTag=&SystemID=XPS_M140&os=WW1&osl=en&catid=&impid)=

[mcdhu]

x213a - thanks, I've had a look under the Tag No for this trusty dell and I see the BIOS update is dated 10/4/06 and I seem to remember installing it some time ago. How could I check?

I'm reluctant to install the others as I am very much a 'user' and don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to 'A' level computing.

sroberts - thanks for the info. Maybe 'wait and see' is the best policy.

Thanks all
mcdhu

[x213a]

To check BIOS version click Start>Run type msinfo32 and press ok

Or just navigate to the system information page.

:ok:

[srobarts]

mcdhu
I have found this with a tad more info about Windows 7 Starter/Netbook edition
Windows 7 Starter edition explained - Crave at CNET UK (http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49302159,00.htm) that might help. Seems info is very sparse. I would wait till someone reviews before I commited. Note the limit on running three applications at once. Email, browser and one office application will be typical. Could be a tad tedious opening and closing apps.
I have just upgraded one laptop to Windows 7 Ultimate to play with. Good news is that it so far it has freed up several gigs of diskspace that Vista was hogging, time alone will tell if it uses them up again. My daughter is the Vista fan and so she is going to roadtest it for me.

[mcdhu]

x213a - Laptop BIOS dated 13/3/06 and update offered is 10/4/06 - perhaps I should have a go. Any traps?

sroberts - my son needs a laptop/netbook for the 6th form starting later this week. Perhaps he will have to have Win Xp and I'll wait for the reviews! But with the memory and processors on currently available on netbooks, what will be the problem of running Win 7? Must go - battery running out of puff!

Thank you all,
Cheers,
mcdhu

[x213a]

Mcdhu

I'd say it's worth a try. I'm sorry but I cant advise you on how to do it though. Somebody else did it for me. I'm pretty certain somebody here will be able to describe exactly what you have to do.

[noprobs]

I would offer just a word of warning on batteries. My Dell battery failed suddenly, 2 years to the day after I first switched on the laptop. I went on eBay to find a battery that was advertised as an original Dell, but at an incredibly good price. It came from Hong Kong in very good time, and looked absolutely genuine. It worked fine for about 6 weeks, then died. The guarantee was for 4 weeks, and the supplier never replied to my messages. I then bought a "compatible" battery from a UK supplier, which so far is fine. Both batteries together cost me considerably less than one from Dell, but this was not an enjoyable experience. :*

[Maxbert]

SD and srobarts- Many thanks for your information, and apologies for the late reply. I've been away and busy, so I will try the reinstall this weekend. I will let you all know how it went!

Maxbert

[Maxbert]

Old lappy re-install from old OEM disc a total success. I chose the "restore factory settings" option from the disc, this took about 15 minutes. Thereafter, armed with a suitable supply of beer, I spent the rest of yesterday afternoon downloading the XP updates from the Windows update site, rebooting regularly... :hmm:

Clean, uncluttered lappy now boots at lightning speed, and, here's the good bit, battery life has improved immensely! :ok: I would say that I'm back in the one to one and a half hour range, up from about 15 minutes.

I've installed AVG free, Eusing registry cleaner, D Link USB WiFi driver and some utility to update drivers (not a great success, some update files install fine, other seem to lack an installer...

Just some form of parental control to install, and here's a brand-new lappy for my son!

Maxbert