Would be if it was in the budget. I have two desk top units in various stages of construction and if I buy anything more new Mrs. NoC will probably assault me with the package when it arrives.. ;-)
I have three laptops of which the one under discussion was the newest both chronologically and as to op sys. I knew of the possible problem when I bought it (at a very good price) and until now it has been reliable. I looked into replacing it with a more up to date unit and did find some at good prices - and almost bought one thinking I would just swap the hard drive in and maintain all the programs and Win7 install. Then at some obscene hour last am (like about 24 hours ago) it dawned on me that the Win7 install on the troubled unit was a 32 bit install, and my 32 bit copy of MS Orifice Pro was on there and the way they have done MS orifice 13 retail is that it is tied to the machine and if it didn't like what I did I would need to procure (that$ $pelled "buy") another copy of M$ Orifice Pro - you know, the not-so-cheap version..
So I shelved the thought of upgrading to a newer bigger better laptop and started investigating what it would take to get this one back up and running for the least amount of hassle on my part and the least outlay of funds for parts.
In looking through the various rebuild options, most require that I dismantle the machine and ship them the mother board. Those are the least expensive options. Dismantling the machine has some risks on this end due to a mobile mass of white fur with no-tail-to-tell that could put the loose parts away into very far corners of the room for safe keeping - so safe that I would never find them.. My problem is not with the ability to dismantle the laptop, but in the possible consequences of it remaining dismantled for about two weeks while I herd cat(s).. For that reason, this approach is the least desirable although most cost effective (engineer speak for "cheaper"..)
The remaining 'repair the mobo' option involved me packing the unit off to the repair shop intact and they would disassemble the laptop (for a small additional fee - $60), repair the mobo, install the proper heat dissipating devices, reassemble the laptop, test, and return. That would remove the problem of needing to herd cat(s) away from the table, but I'm not all that comfortable with sending my laptop with a hard drive full of data off to someone I never met, no matter how good a positive rating he has on EBay.
The final option, buying the 'bottom' half of the laptop (with a tested mobo, already installed processor which is the same as what is in mine, heatsink and fan, and with the heat-fix applied to the chipset(s) and then swapping over my hard drive, DVD, battery, memory, and lid/display when it gets here (which won't have parts lying around for two or so weeks that I have to babysit to protect from a Catcritter) seems like the better deal. And cost wise, it comes in at $5 less than the ship-the-laptop-out repair option with less hassle on my part since I don't need to dig up bubble plastic, inedible plastic afterdinner mints, er, shipping chips, a box, and a trip to UPS/USPS..
But like I said, that seems to be the best option with all factors considered, but I'll sleep on it..
Now, after going through all of that, if I remember correctly, you are running Linux of some flavor. At this point, it seems that the fate of my oldest laptop is to become a Linux box. The hardware is too ancient for it to be of much use if I could get it to run on Win7 (which I'm sure I could do, but it wouldn't be practical.) I still have a couple of months before MS kills off WinXP so I figured I'd play with a distro of the penguin on it. But... when I put my Linux DVD into it and tried to boot to the 'live' version of Linux, it wouldn't go. I've never had a problem getting the 'live DVD' to boot on any other unit.
Do you have any experience with that end of Linux? Is there something else I should check (yes, I used the 32 bit version, this laptop is not a 64 bit processor) or am I destined to wade through a bunch of Lnx forums looking for a solution? Any ideas?
That is interesting that it wouldn’t boot from a CD/DVD. Almost all Linux distro’s will do that. Well, if your computer is old enough you might try a smaller distro first.
A few distro’s are too big to install into RAM if you don’t have a lot of RAM. If you have spare blank CD’s around burn some smaller ones like Puppy Linux or Tiny Core Linux www.tinycorelinux.net (latest version is 72MB)
They don’t come with a lot of add-on software. (You can always download LibreOffice and stuff later)
I run Ubuntu 12.04 (I see no good reason to install a newer version yet)