Is it really worth it?

I've got an old Dell Inspiron 8000 notebook without a hard drive and the CD or DVD drive. I was pricing replacements from Dell and it's ridiculous.

1) Are there cheaper alternatives to Dell for this machine's HD and optical drive?

2) While I'm at it, how far can I stretch it as far as upgrades in any other dept? I read somewhere I can upgrade the CPU, the HD, the memory up to 512 I think but not the graphics card (an old nvidia GeForce w/32 mb).

I've also seen the whole notebook on ebay for $70 plus $27 shipping to Canada.

4) Hey, what about replacing the whole mobo and CPU with something modern and start from scratch ... is that feasible or recommended? I'd save, wouldn't I?

 

1. Newegg.com
4. Buy a new computer.

 

I agree with Lithus. It will be cheaper and easier for you to buy a new notebook instead of upgrading the older one. Unless you feel that you can't let go of it no matter what.

 

Old laptops make great home servers. They use very little power so it doesn't hurt as much leaving them running 24x7.

I have an old Toshiba with a 1GHz Celeron and the keyboard doesn't work properly, but I've installed Asterisk on it and it runs my home VoIP network 24x7.

I had another laptop that I used to use as a file server for a while until I got a dedicated NAS device.

Also, if the battery is still in decent shape, it comes with a built in UPS!!

 

Thanks. I have another question:
The 3D content-creation programs I need a new laptop for (since I travel) require 2-4G RAM, powerful processor and a high-pixel screen. I've looked at Dell (XPS gamer laptop), but I've read that I should look at some smaller companies for equal power at a lower price. Any advice about that?

 

What 3D package you looking at? Cinema 4D, Maya, 3d Studio Max, Softimage XSI, or Modo? I use pretty much every web/development/graphic/video/audio/3d package under the sun and they all run flawless on my machine - so well I don't even bother using the $8k desktops at the office.

My advice, 3D packages are heavy on the OpenGL - so they'd likely run better with a machine with the Quadro graphics, versus the slightly less OpenGL powered GeForce series. Both are good, but the GeForce lack some of the 'fancy' OpenGL features that may be required.

As far as you're original post, upgrading laptop mobos is nothing like a desktop. Theres no standard form factors. My hope is once laptops become even more of a demand, manufactures will have to lay down some standards. Then we'll be walking around with something comparable to desktop scalability. That'll be sweet.