I need a new computer.

[Mystic Muse]

Okay, my current one is acting funny. Even when I have it plugged in the battery doesn't seem to detect it sometimes and this has lead(led?) to several unwanted shutdowns. I can't really use a computer with a battery that won't work well so I kind of need a new one. My price range is rather small is the only problem. Anything more than $400 I won't be able to afford anytime soon. I'd prefer a good windows laptop. Screen size is irrelevant, I just want windows, the capability to play several games, able to watch movies/shows and the ability to draw comics on inkscape. The ability to read .ODT files would also be nice although irrelevant if I can run linux on the same computer.

Are refurbished laptops any good?

[shadow_archmagi]

It has been my experience that building your own can save you several hundred dollars; of course, that was the difference between 2k and 1.5k, so I can't say if it holds true for lower budget too.

[Mystic Muse]

That would also require knowledge of how to build a computer. Which I currently lack.

[Ashery]

That would also require knowledge of how to build a computer. Which I currently lack.

Only one way to learn.

Provided you double check the parts you're buying with someone who is knowledgeable, it's pretty difficult to screw up the construction.

[shadow_archmagi]

That would also require knowledge of how to build a computer. Which I currently lack.

have you ever put together an anything? Have you been to kindergarten? Remember the game where there was the toy with a green triangle and a green triangular hole and you had to put the block in the hole?

It's like that.

[Jack Squat]

What's your current computer? Since you mention a battery, I assume it's a laptop.

Have you considered replacing the battery?

[Mystic Muse]

What's your current computer? Since you mention a battery, I assume it's a laptop.

Have you considered replacing the battery?

It's a Toshiba. I've considered replacing the battery but the computer is about three years old and I don't think I could get one new at this point.



have you ever put together an anything? Have you been to kindergarten? Remember the game where there was the toy with a green triangle and a green triangular hole and you had to put the block in the hole?

It's like that.

Is it really that simple? And how much would I need to pull it off?

[IonDragon]

It's a Toshiba. I've considered replacing the battery but the computer is about three years old and I don't think I could get one new at this point.

You can, from eBay. It won't be factory, just make sure you get one that comes with a 6+ mo. warranty. Trust me, if you don't you'll regret it.

[tyckspoon]

Is it really that simple? And how much would I need to pull it off?

The pieces are smaller and the workspace is tighter, but pretty much, yeah.

[Jack Squat]

You can, from eBay. It won't be factory, just make sure you get one that comes with a 6+ mo. warranty. Trust me, if you don't you'll regret it.

There's a place out here called BatteriesPlus. I can pick up ones for my laptop, as well as a couple older ones we still have. They appear to be a chain, so check locally. Otherwise, you can probably find it on Amazon, which may be a little more reliable than eBay (or not, who knows).

[shadow_archmagi]

Is it really that simple? And how much would I need to pull it off?

Here's a step-by-step guide with soothing music. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQQ30QoF_-8)

I can't speak about budget though.

I do know a guy who buys piles of parts, assembles them, and then sells them for a profit. Three hundred dollar profit for two hours work, he says...

[kusje]

That's for building a PC; he wants a laptop. As far as I know, it's pretty much impossible for a beginner to build a laptop from scratch.

[Mystic Muse]

Well, if building a PC would be cheaper than buying new I guess I could do that instead. The only problem with a PC is it wouldn't be easy to carry around.:smallwink: (actually there are quite a few other things I can do with my laptop I couldn't do with a PC.)

Plus, I'd have to get all my D&D stuff printed out. Which I should probably do anyway.



I do know a guy who buys piles of parts, assembles them, and then sells them for a profit. Three hundred dollar profit for two hours work, he says...

Note to self. Get in on this.

[Erloas]

$400 doesn't give you enough to get much of a laptop. Any laptop you get at that price will have integrated graphics and the gaming experience that comes with it (ie very little). Thats pretty much at the netbook price range.

For building a desktop, $400 still isn't much to work with, however you would have the option of buying a a motherboard with integrated graphics and upgrade the video card at a later time. Of course at $400 you could fit the hardware in, you would have to add more to get a copy of Windows (if you don't have another copy to move over).

Though at that price range I would generally recommend just buying a per-built computer, which a bit of looking you can find something ok at that price and upgrade the video card later. Which might also require upgrading the power supply, so $140ish addition sometime in the future if you want to play many games. Of course if you had $550-600ish you could build a decent system from the start, but it works if you will have to build it in parts.

If the only real problem with your current laptop is the battery won't take a charge then you should just look at replacing the batteries. They are fairly standard and don't change all that much.

[Mystic Muse]

So, you don't think $400 is going to get me pretty much anything? This laptop didn't even cost that much and while I Had windows it could do pretty much everything I needed or wanted it to do.:smallconfused:

EDIT: for a PC I'd also have to buy a monitor. This also needs to be taken into consideration.

[Prodan]

Dell (http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/deals/popular_laptops?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&ST=sitelinks%20home%20laptop%20deals&dgc=ST&cid=16010&lid=1313227&acd=52191,79467,0,0,764624045,1275910185,dell,0,0)

They have a deal going on for this day and next that will get you a laptop for S379.99

[Ichneumon]

I just want windows.

Good of you to say so, you've prevented the inevitable OS war.:smalltongue:

[Prodan]

Protip: If you want to keep costs low, don't get MS Office, which costs around $100. Instead, try Openoffice.org, which is free to download from Sun Microsystems.

[Erloas]

The Dell Prodan linked to is decent for your price range. Compaq/HP has one at Staples (http://www.staples.com/Compaq-Presario-CQ61-420US-15.6-Laptop/product_848834) that is about the same for close to the same price. I'm sure there are some at Best Buy and Walmart that also fit the bill. They are all fairly comparable. The Compaq is a low end dual core (I think the Dell was only a single core, I would have to check closer to make sure) and has ATI integrated graphics instead of Intel's, neither are all that great but ATIs is generally better, though being integrated I don't know the model numbers that well. I know the Intel on the Dell is the newest Intel integrated but I'm not sure on the Compaq.

Your just not going to get anything very good at gaming for $400. If your already using a $400 laptop then it probably has integrated graphics as well so its not going to be any worse and it is probably going to be better, just not a huge amount. Outside of gaming they should handle everything you need to do so long as you aren't doing stuff like heavy video editing (as in more then just cutting and pasting videos together) or other computational intensive tasks.

[Yarram]

Good of you to say so, you've prevented the inevitable OS war.:smalltongue:

:smallfrown:
...
Linux is better.

[Mystic Muse]

:smallfrown:
...
Linux is better.

Not for the games I want to play.:smalltongue:

Also, I had a nightmare about windows last night. Is that a bad sign?

[monomer]

The Dell Prodan linked to is decent for your price range. Compaq/HP has one at Staples (http://www.staples.com/Compaq-Presario-CQ61-420US-15.6-Laptop/product_848834) that is about the same for close to the same price. .

I vote for the Compaq as well. At that price point, you have to go with integrated graphics, and the ATI HD4200 is much better than anything Intel offers.

[onthetown]

I don't put in a vote for Compaq.

This laptop and my last desktop were Compaq. The laptop is under a year old and has several repairs that it needs done already, none of which are covered by the warranty, and they're expensive ones that need to be done. I'm just using it at its bare minimum until I can get a new computer. The desktop lasted just over a year before it basically fell to pieces over a couple of months. A techie confirmed that it wasn't anything I had done and I was really good to the computer -- it was just a really bad computer. I can't even remember what was wrong with the stupid thing, there were so many things that died. The people at the store who sold me the both of them were uncooperative and actually scared to call the company to talk to them about it; apparently they hated dealing with them.

If you can find somebody reliable who can build you a computer for cheap (my stepfather usually builds mine to how I like them), it's worth it. The ones he's built me have almost never broken down or needed repairs and they lasted close to ten years each.

[Yarram]

Not for the games I want to play.:smalltongue:

Also, I had a nightmare about windows last night. Is that a bad sign?

It is a bad sign in some ways... But it is also an opportunity! The opportunity to try another operating system!

[Runestar]

Only one way to learn.

Provided you double check the parts you're buying with someone who is knowledgeable, it's pretty difficult to screw up the construction.

There is the issue that you won't be covered by warranty if someone crops up. In which case you better hope your friend is just as knowledgeable and helpful when it comes to repairing PCs, or a pricey trip to the repair shop.

To me, building your own PC is like playing a fighter - everything is fine so long as you know exactly what you are doing. Screw up one bit and well...:smallamused:

[Mystic Muse]

It is a bad sign in some ways... But it is also an opportunity! The opportunity to try another operating system!

Okay, considering I can't afford a Mac what is there besides Windows and Linux?

[kusje]

There is the issue that you won't be covered by warranty if someone crops up. In which case you better hope your friend is just as knowledgeable and helpful when it comes to repairing PCs, or a pricey trip to the repair shop.

To me, building your own PC is like playing a fighter - everything is fine so long as you know exactly what you are doing. Screw up one bit and well...:smallamused:

Oh, you'll still have warranty for the individual parts. The problem is that you'll need to be able to diagnose the problem on your own - that can be tricky sometimes depending on the nature of the problem.

[lesser_minion]

Okay, considering I can't afford a Mac what is there besides Windows and Linux?

There's always BSD as well.

FreeBSD is the most common and most popular variant, but there are four other common variants, which focus on different things.

Darwin is the foundation for OS X. Apple do at least have the decency to contribute to open source projects that help them out, even if the project in question is happy to let other people use their code.
NetBSD concentrates on compatibility.
OpenBSD concentrates on security, and has a hardline stance on software freedom.
DragonflyBSD concentrates on multitasking and stability.

Bear in mind that all of these are fairly tricky to set up - in particular, you usually have to manually configure X.Org and your window manager.

I recommend going with either xfce or kde as a window manager. KDE because Dolphin is teh awesome, and XFCE because it's generally a bit nicer.

Opera is the only decent BSD-native web browser, but the Linux version of Firefox works through a compatibility layer.

All versions of BSD are binary-compatible with Linux, and can run Linux applications through a compatibility layer - however, this only works for apps that are compatible with Linux 2.4.x or earlier.

[amuletts]

Protip: If you want to keep costs low, don't get MS Office, which costs around $100. Instead, try Openoffice.org, which is free to download from Sun Microsystems.

I concur, got OpenOffice, never looked back.

If you are happy with your lappy other than the battery problem replacing the battery is probably the best bet, although 3 years is getting pretty old for a compy anyway. Any chance a Birthday is coming up soon?

I think you need to up your budget to get anything decent. You could get something off ebay, I know someone who gets parts this way and finds them reliable.

[Mystic Muse]

Any chance a Birthday is coming up soon?
.

Yes. A birthday is coming up soon. Just not mine.:smalltongue:

My birthday actually isn't until February >_>

[ZeltArruin]

My advice: try reinstalling windows. If that doesn't work, if you are still under warranty, see if the people you got it from can fix it for you. If that doesn't work, try a new battery. Still not working? I dunno what else you could do.

[Mystic Muse]

Well, we don't actually have a windows OS disc. The computer came with it pre-installed and so did the new laptop. I'm also not sure of the legality of making a copy of the windows 7 OS that's on My family's laptop or even how I would go about doing that.

[lesser_minion]

Well, we don't actually have a windows OS disc. The computer came with it pre-installed and so did the new laptop. I'm also not sure of the legality of making a copy of the windows 7 OS that's on My family's laptop or even how I would go about doing that.

Wasn't it distributed with a recovery disk? Or a recovery environment preinstalled in a partition of the hard disk?

[Mystic Muse]

Wasn't it distributed with a recovery disk? Or a recovery environment preinstalled in a partition of the hard disk?

The second I believe. Although I'm not positive.

[KoboldRevenge]

go to a public libary got computers there

[Mystic Muse]

go to a public libary got computers there

I'm aware of this. However, they don't have laptops there that you can just buy. And the computers there have a time limit too which is annoying. Plus I can't look at anything that could be considered NSFW so no more cracked.com or "That guy with the glass" most likely. there are also a few comics I couldn't read and I can't play any games on there. The library computer has even more limitations than this one.