Laptop problem - fix or buy a new one?

fredsnail

My laptop has started playing up.

I have an Aspire 9301AWSMi 120GB HDD, 1GB DDR2 it is almost 4 years old and when I bought it they'd upgraded the XP to Vista.

The on/off switch does not always switch the pc on now, it lights up and you can hear the fan working but the pc does not boot up.

It has started to switch itself off (just goes to black screen not the windows shutting down screen) - sometimes after 10 mins, other times several hours (sometimes it works perfectly).

The date has reset itself to 2006 2 or 3 times in the last couple of months - it retains the date otherwise ok.

I've googled the problems and it seems to indicate a motherboard problem, I took the laptop to PC World this morning who also said it was probably a motherboard problem - but they could only fix it under the £229 incl parts and labour laptop repair category.

Question is do I pay for it to be repaired - or buy a new pc?

If I buy a new one which one would you recommend? I do work with video, audio and photos which would require a fair sized hard drive and a reasonable processor. I'd be looking to spend about £400 - £450 as I can't really afford more than that.

Thanks in advance :beer:

free4440273

absolutely buy a new one/given the cost of repair quoted /

closed

date - needs a new cmos battery, costing a pound or two.

backup your data to dvd or external drive, if it fails completely buy a new one.

Paying £229 for a repair would be a waste of money, new laptops are around £300

Hammyman

Date =- CMOS battery about 99p
Shutting down - 99% of the time due to overheating because the space between the fan and the heatsink is blocked full of fluff.

If I buy a new one which one would you recommend? I do work with video, audio and photos which would require a fair sized hard drive and a reasonable processor. I'd be looking to spend about £400 - £450 as I can't really afford more than that

Gets you entry level - loads of HDD space, plenty of RAM but a poor processor for doing AV work however it'll be faster than your current one. Quite how you've lived with 1GB RAM on Vista for this long I don't know.

Richie-from-the-Boro

fredsnail, " " Question is do I pay for it to be repaired - or buy a new pc? " "

if you take a bent curtain rail, or a dead hamster or a puter to PC World they will tell you :

- the curtain rail was bent because motherboard problem, £229 incl parts and labour.
- the hamster died because of a motherboard problem, £229 incl parts and labour.
- the puter died because of a motherboard problem, £229 incl parts and labour

NOTE

When you get you kit back from PCWorld the puter will still be broken the curtain rail will still be bent and the hamster will as sure as hell still be dead !

And you will be £229 incl parts and labour lighter

macman

I've noticed a definite pattern of word association recently when observing the diagnostic abilities of the big companies on these boards.
With British Gas its' always 'power flush'.
And with PCW it's invariably 'motherboard failure'.
Start by changing the CMOS battery as already advised.

tomsolomon

Sound like overheating to me, how long is the computer on before it cuts out?

You will usually find with older laptops, a build up of fluff in the cooling fan, not dissimilar to felt, and often up to 1" thick...
The result of this fluff can cause the symptoms you are describing. you are lucky not to have totally fried your laptop...

If you are lucky their will be a large plastic cover on the underside of your laptop, that can be removed with the aid of a cross head screw driver.

Look for a copper coloured piece of metal with a fan attached to it, remove this "carefully," clean, then replace....
If you are unlucky you will have to completely disassemble the laptop to achieve the desired result.

Most small computer shops will do this for you for a much less money than a new laptop, or PC World for that matter.

PS. I charge £65 for a service........

missile

I have an Aspire 9301AWSMi 120GB HDD, 1GB DDR2 it is almost 4 years old and when I bought it they'd upgraded the XP to Vista.

I don't know how you can run Vista or do the following on such a low spec laptop?

I do work with video, audio and photos which would require a fair sized hard drive and a reasonable processor

I would suggest your Aspire is under powered and over worked

fredsnail

tomsolomon wrote: »

Sound like overheating to me, how long is the computer on before it cuts out?

It seems to be completely random.

Yesterday I booted it up and browsed the internet for 10 mins before it cut out.

Today I've been using it for about 4 hours and other days like when I was backing it up to an external hard drive it was on for over 8 hours there have been no problems.

jcb208

Had laptop which blue screened and re booted at random times and that turned out to be the hard drive failing,Dont know if yours will have a SMART drive but if so would proberly pre warn you if this was failing.So might be worth throwing in a replacement drive to see If it cures it

tomsolomon

jcb208 wrote: »

Had laptop which blue screened and re booted at random times and that turned out to be the hard drive failing,Dont know if yours will have a SMART drive but if so would proberly pre warn you if this was failing.So might be worth throwing in a replacement drive to see If it cures it

Either way, now would be a good time to get it sorted out before catastrophic failure occurs....
Like I said, most local repair shops will charge a fraction of the price you would expect to pay at PC World......