Vostro 1400.

I'm thinking of buying a Vostro 1400 off of my buddy. I am not sure on all the specs but I am pretty sure it has a faster then stock CPU and an 8400gs. He wants about $325 for it. The laptop is pretty much unused.

This sounds like a good deal to me. Anyone agree?

Also, I did a little research about upgrading the 8400gs to a better GPU... I got a lot of conflicting threads on multiple forums. Some say its impossible because it is soldered to the mobo, others say there is simply no option, and some say you can upgrade it to some GPU. I haven't seen any success stories though.

I am just curious at this point. It would be cool if I could search around for a cheap GPU to replace the 8400gs and maybe boost it's gaming capabilities to be able to play ALL modern PC games on low settings.

 

You cannot upgrade the GPU in a Vostro 1400 past an 8400M. Not only is the GPU soldered to the motherboard, the Vostro 1400 (or Inspiron 1420) never shipped with a faster part.

I personally would not buy a Vostro 1400 (or an Inspiron 1420) with Nvidia graphics simply because these graphics chips are known to head to an early grave.

 

I have purchased 3-4 outlet systems from Dell with 1 year warranty for less than 325 over the last 10 months and they will all outperm the 1400 with the exception of the GPU. With that said I would save up a little more money, watch for a Dell 20-25% coupon in the outlet and you should be able to get a decent system that would outperform the 1400.

 

Hmm, I was confident on this purchase until I posted here. I didn't want to spend over $350 and I wanted a laptop with a dedicated gpu.

Is there really any other 14" laptop with these specs for $325?
I forgot to mention that this laptop doesn't come stock:
T7300
3GB of RAM
200gb HDD
2x9cell batteries
Does it seem like a slightly better deal now?

(And I might be throwing in an SSD but that doesn't come with it)

 

I would not buy any used system with one of these NVIDIA GPU's. Do a google search and you will find plenty of data regarding the problems these GPU's had/have.

 

I know the guy though and the laptop has very little use.

 

I think that has little bearing on this issue. These cards can (and will) fail at anytime. There are even threads dedicated to swapping out the NVIDIA boards for Intel boards just to fix this issue.

 

:/
I know someone who has the same exact laptop for the past 2 years and they haven't had any issues.
If it is a matter of heat, isn't there a copper mod for that?

Can you suggest any other $325 laptop that is below 15" and has a dedicated gpu? It just seems like a good deal.

 

This doesnt help much at the moment but last week the Dell outlet had Inspiron 1545's for ~350 after coupon with a dedicated GPU. I had one like this in my cart for ~$350 with a 1 year warranty.

•Inspiron 15 (1545) Laptop: Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 (2.00GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
•Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
•320 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
•3 GB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz (2 DIMMs)
•8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
•256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330

 

I hate to be an , but it seems like me getting this laptop for $325 is the better deal considering I don't have to pay taxes and shipping as well.

About the NVIDIA cards failing... I thought I saw a copper mod on this site. Would that reduce the risk enough? Or is it not just overheating, and an actual design flaw within the cards that make them die?