Dell Inspiron 8500 - is it worth fixing the mother board?

Hello guys:

I have a Dell 8500 broken for about a year now. I was thinking to fix it a while back, but then I thought it wasnt worth spending 200 or something on it. I bought a toshiba - basic laptop for everyday tasks nothing high profile.
anyway, now, I am thinking of doing something with this Dell,
the motherboard need to be replaced, so it is worth doing that?

I dont really need it, but I am thinking to do something with it, maybe to have an extra laptop around ...
please advise ... i appreciate any feedback and any suggestions..
thanks all...

 

Considering how much laptop motherboards usually are, you might as well go buy another laptop, it'll probably cost less and be faster than the 8500.

 

I have a Dell Inspiron 8500, I gave it to my younger brother last year. He loves it. The go 4200 still beats out most laptop graphics cards, and the go 4200 is 6 years old.

What are the specs of your insprion 8500? I may just buy it broken from you for parts.

I have a 2Ghz P4m, 2Gb Pc3200 (running at 266mhz), 40gb 5400rpm, 64mb nVidia go 4200 overclocked, and a 15.4" 1680x 1050 res screen.
I love the i8500, I think it is the last good Dell laptop that they ever made. I remember buying that laptop when I was 12 years old. I spent $2600 and my parents thought i was crazy. I spent the first 3 years of my savings from my landscaping business on that laptop. I love that 8500, and it is hard for me to just give it to my younger brother. It served me well, and I am very happy that my purchase never failed me.

I think it is worth it to get it fixed, because I think it was an awesome laptop. I actually enjoy using it more than I enjoy using my Voodoo. Many would say it is not worth it because its old technology.

If you live in the US, PM me maybe I could buy it from you - just to have spare parts.

K-TRON

 

I bought it back in 2003 for 2000, back then it was a pretty good laptop. anyway, the main reason i didnt give it up and was thinking to fix it before I bought my new one because I thought it was pretty good one and felt bad to give it up that easy. I think though this model had problems with the motherboard! anyone knows if that was true?
anyway, I looked up motherboards for this model and it was about 180 plus shipping.

any suggestions?
do you know any cheaper motherboard?
I dont remember specfications really, but it was a pretty good one at that time, I think 60 gig, 64 mb, 2.4 Ghz p4m this is as far as i remmeber. 512 with one availivle slot still.

 

There are not that many options, other than Dell and Ebay. Finding a working motherboard is not going to be easy. There are no other motherboards other than the one designed for it, which will fit into the system. $180 is a bit much for shipping, you can probably call Dell and negotiate a little.

Are you sure that its the motherboard, because the graphics card could have melted on you. The graphics card can be replaced for much less than the motherboard. The 8500 has a VGA port, try using an external monitor, to see if anything works. If no image is displayed, than your gpu or motherboard is the issue.

I do not think that the 8500 had motherboard issues. The system did run hot, but that was because the fans did not kick in until 160F was met. I ran I8KFANGUi on my laptop for 5 of the 6.5 years I had the system. I never let the processor run above 140F, because I had the fans kick into full speed when 120F was met. After 6 years of using the system, I had put 2900 hours on it. Determined by the smart reading on the harddrive. I only used the system for typing and light gaming.

K-TRON

 

thanks K-TRON
I am pretty sure its the motherboard. I will take your advise and call or start with Dell and see what the say.

thanks man

 

A mobo swap will be pretty expensive for labor and the parts. I don't think it will be worth it to sink 4-500 bux on such an old machine. You can grab a much more powerful new laptop for that much.

 

Dell gave me an offer replacment of metherboard, with 3 months warranty and everything included for 299, how is that sound?
should I go for it or not?
if not,
what do you recommend guys?

 

You can practically buy a new laptop for $300, did you try to negotiate with them at all. any core 2 duo laptop will outpace the p4m, so I would say to save your money for another laptop.

If you are interesting in selling or parting it out, PM, maybe we could make some kindof deal. I have a laptop I could trade for your broken one. I only ship and trade within the USA.

Chris