Worth it to fix?

I have a Inspiron 9300 (Pentium M @ 2.0 GHz with 2 GB RAM, and a 100 GB HD) hacked to be a XPS. The machines runs pretty well, but unfortunately the HD has "Excessive Shock Warning" and the LCD has two lines - one pink, the other cyan running from top to bottom.

Fortunately the video card, a 7800 GTX, is running pretty well too.

Is it worth it to fix this machine up for say my Mom, or even a friend?

 

I mean if you can sort out the lines issue without replacing the panel and just replacing the drive then I think it is worth it. Better than all the cheap crap that is out there.

 

Well another line just appeared, so the LCD is going

The HD isn't easy to get since its PATA, not SATA.

 

I'd agree with Hime; if you can sort out the LCD stuff without replacing the panel, then the HDD replacement is worthwhile. PATA drives are more expensive per GB than SATA drives these days, but it's not THAT much.

If you're going to replace the panel, I don't think it's worthwhile... especially since the 7800GTX may be affected by the Nvidia BGA fiasco.

 

I can replace the HD, thats not a big deal like everyone stated. However I would have to replace the panel since I am getting more and more lines.

I found 2 on ebay, however they are both around $130+ each.

They don't make notebooks like this anymore unless I pay top dollar....sad but true.

 

Are you sure it's the LCD? If you pipe out the display to an external monitor do you still get lines/artifacts? If you do then you have a defective motherboard/GPU/RAM. If you don't then it is almost certain the LCD (inverters wouldn't do that).

I don't see that the 7800GTX was specifically affected but I wouldn't be surprised at all.

 

I am pretty sure. I did the test as you suggested before you suggested it to be sure. Hopefully it doesn't get worse, but if it does I would have no choice to either replace the LCD or get another laptop.