Son's at uni & laptop just died. Any suggestions welcome please.

bluedog

Hi,

My son is away at uni and he's just rung me to say his laptop has completely died - it's a no hope case & totally caput, not even a blue screen. He desperately needs one so is planning buy a new one tomorrow and has asked me to see if I can find anything.

Obviously, being a student, he has a very limited income and I simply haven't the money to help him either. As he's based in Cornwall, I don't know where he can get one, even if I found a suitable model.

To make matters worse, he's got a presentation to do on monday and all his work will have to be re-done so it's a matter of urgency that he gets one.

He thinks it's just a case of walking into a shop, buying one and then plugging it in when he gets home ... and he'll be back up and running. My brain is scrambled at all of this and can't think what to suggest to him.

It has occurred to me that as new pc's run on Windows 7, it may cause some compatability issues with some programmes, such as Office Home and Student 2007 which he needs.

Also, when he comes home, will the internet connection work? The modem is wired to my desktop and is wireless enabled and although the laptop ran Vista Basic, it was fine.

I would really appreciate any advice, pointers and suggestions in this please.

robpw2

windows 7 doesnt have compatibillity issues with office 2007 i have used both and there is no problems
wireless works like a dream on 7 also

infact 7 is one of the better microsoft operating systems

4743hudsonj

psu? are their any light on atall

i should think his data is recoverable with a hdd caddy

macman

Hang on, he says it's 'died' and a no-hope case? But he doesn't actually know what's wrong with it. So wouldn't it be worth the £25 or so it would cost him to take it to an independent repair shop (not PCW) to find out if it is fixable?-it could be something really trivial, certainly less than the £300-400 it will cost him to buy a new one. If he is so short of money, this would seem a more sensible course of action. I'm sure he will not have to redo all his work, as he will of course have kept a back up of his files?
MS Office is completely compatible with Windows 7. Your modem may or may not support it, not possible to say without knowing the model.

Browntoa

its worth him pulling the battery out and seeing if it boots, sometimes drag it down if they fail

4743hudsonj

Is Apples2 your son?

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2096715

but seriously, your son may have skipped the try to fix it stage just to get a new laptop for xmas, i would definitely go the repair root, most likely his uni will have some sort of pc help service available, mine does.

Tinyshoes

My DD desktop died on her few weeks back, her uni had a pc help service that didnt deal with hardware problems but gave her details of a reputable repairer who gave 10% discount to students. They charged a £25 fee to diagnose problem and also get her work off HDD and emailed it to her so she could access it on one of the uni computers as assignment due in. They gave her quote for repair which the £25 fee was taken off and then the 10%. All in all a lot cheaper than new one. She made do using uni computers & local library for about a week but wouldnt have had time to set up new computer anyway, just needed to get on with work.

Indie_Kid

Silly question - but has the battery died completely? IE, if you try to charge it, it won't turn on.

Oneday77

The old my dog ate my home work...only joking. If he needs to redo his work, the uni will have PCs for students to use all weekend, the library for one. He can work there for free and either copy his work to as pen drive and use the lecturers PC if its a power point presentation otherwise print his work out.
It isn't reasonable to jump into a new machine straight away without investigation. As mentioned before does it work with no mbattery in it but plugged into the mains, does the power socket he's using work, did he change the fuse, was it party time last night and its suffered an accident( not accusing just asking), does any sound come from it when turned on, can he borrow a power supply from a friend to check it. The list could go on. Get the work done and spend time finding out the issue.
If he does go down the new route all will be fine with Office and when he comes home, Win 7 is a dream over Vista

TEDDYRUKSPIN

bluedog wrote: »

Hi,

My son is away at uni and he's just rung me to say his laptop has completely died - it's a no hope case & totally caput, not even a blue screen. He desperately needs one so is planning buy a new one tomorrow and has asked me to see if I can find anything.

Obviously, being a student, he has a very limited income and I simply haven't the money to help him either. As he's based in Cornwall, I don't know where he can get one, even if I found a suitable model.

To make matters worse, he's got a presentation to do on monday and all his work will have to be re-done so it's a matter of urgency that he gets one.

He thinks it's just a case of walking into a shop, buying one and then plugging it in when he gets home ... and he'll be back up and running. My brain is scrambled at all of this and can't think what to suggest to him.

It has occurred to me that as new pc's run on Windows 7, it may cause some compatability issues with some programmes, such as Office Home and Student 2007 which he needs.

Also, when he comes home, will the internet connection work? The modem is wired to my desktop and is wireless enabled and although the laptop ran Vista Basic, it was fine.

I would really appreciate any advice, pointers and suggestions in this please.

Have you read your title????????????????????

Son's at uni and laptop just died? Both?

el_gringo_3

Oneday77 wrote: »

The old my dog ate my home work...only joking. If he needs to redo his work, the uni will have PCs for students to use all weekend, the library for one. He can work there for free and either copy his work to as pen drive and use the lecturers PC if its a power point presentation otherwise print his work out.

You'd think, wouldn't you. Both my Universities were a struggle finding a PC to use in daylight hours during the week or two before handins. When I did my MA it was around a three hour wait when we had similar handins to undergrads,and when only postgrads were in they shut off most of the clusters! We also had a January 7th hand in date, yet the whole University shut from the 20th dec to the 5th of Jan!
It was also a ballache trying to find a location to plug a laptap in, which made matters ten times worse, as did the large number of students on facebook and some chinese vesion of msn when they did finally get a PC.