My Inspiron 6400 - Fix up / Upgrade advice

Hello everyone!

My name is Richard and I am from Scotland (we're cheap up here ), and this is my first post here, I hope you are all well and having a good day. I would like to ask you for advice on what to do about my dell Laptop! I will tell you a little of the background and then I will ask my real question - you can just skip to that if you don't want a story.

I want to spend as little as possible, I want to keep my old machine and make it better.

Background info!

A few years ago now I bought a dell laptop, I was very impressed with the spec at the time and I had spent so long looking for the best deal. It was at the time when Vista had been released, Dell (as far as I could tell) were getting shot of all the XP laptops by selling them through small retailers, I got my one from a guy in England somewhere through ebay. I opted for the XP version as I knew that Vista would be rubbish in its infancy. I opted for a Matt screen - like the xp version it was a lot cheaper and this allowed me a better spec elsewhere. Plus I was going to be using my laptop on the go (namely the back of a bus) and I wanted less reflections getting in the way.

So I ended up with a nice laptop, I will not tell you the exact spec right now suffice to say that it was good at the time of vista's launch and as far as I can tell the computer market has been slow to advance much since then so it is still pretty good.

Real Question!
My screen is smashed, my battery is deader than dead and my keyboard is missing the e, r, down key, and a few others have to be pushed back on mid sentence quite frequently. The sound has stopped working, I've got enough geek in me to do the usual searches and find out that my problem is unique and the only thing left to try is a complete new install of windows, which I am doing this evening.

What should I do? I want to keep my costs down and that means that I want it to be less than 100 quid to fix this machine up. I could buy a new screen, new keyboard and new battery from Dell but to me that seems like a cop-out.

Would my best shot at getting this to run smoothly be to buy a broken Dell inspiron with a nice shiny screen from somewhere and frankenstein it?

Would I be better to buy a fresh laptop case and take some of my components and build a new machine?

I don't want a bottom of the range toshiba laptop from pc world at 300 quid, if I had to i would rather spend 300 quid making this old beast better or building my own. I would rather spend nothing and get it all for free.

I am not in a rush to do this I am happy to take a month.

I have an old IBM laptop which has the best feel to any laptop i've ever used, it is just so well built. Unfortunately it is the wrong size and shape but I would most like to just drag-n-drop my dell into it. If anyone has experience of making a 6400 better I would love to hear it.

Thanks

Richard

P.S If you think this is a stupid thing to be talking about then fair enough

 

First, one benefit of buying Dell is that a fully detailed service manual is available. See here for the 6400.

Second, download and run a live Linux CD so you can check what works and what doesn't, without reinstalling Windows.

Third, work through ebay.co.uk for spare parts. Note that the Inspiron 6400 is very similar to the E1505 so it is worthwhile searching for parts for that as well. Some etailers seem to be able to get genuine Dell parts for less than Dell sells them for.

Fourth, the key upgrade options will be to make sure the RAM is 2GB or more and then a latest generation HDD. For example, the Fujitsu MJA2250BH packs 250GB on one platter to give the same performance as a 500GB HDD.

John

 

Thank you so much that is such a great thing to reply with I knew I made the right choice asking here!!! Cheers John.

 

It might be a better idea to get a new laptop... screen replacement even by yourself is complicated and expensive... and not to mention its not going to pefrom fast enough with all the hardware in it... instead of wasting your cash on upgrading it , get a new laptop.

 

The E1505 can be decked out with any socket M processor. Upgrading to a T7200 or T7400 will yield quite nice performance.
The system will see 3.1Gb or so of memory when a 32 bit operating system is installed.
The system can read any SATA 2.5" 9.5mm thick drive on the market, including the large 500gb drives
The system can run up to the ATi X1400 256mb graphics card

The screen is going to be a problem, the screen will cost about $120 to fix, if you buy a new one off ebay or so.
It is not hard to replace, it only took me 25 minutes to do.

The speakers most likely have become unplugged, the plug in right next to the touchpad connector on the motherboard. if your speakers are dead, I doubt they are going to cost more than $20 to fix.

The keyboard is not a problem, a new keyboard goes for about $10 on ebay.

The battery may be able to be repaired by taking it apart and replacing some cells, but if youre not fond of doing such, a new battery does cost about $50

The E1505 is a solid system, so I think youre better off fixing it. You will need to replace the screen, battery and keyboard, which would run you max $200.
If you tried selling your laptop in its current state, you wouldnt even get $100 for it, so youre better off fixing it.

K-TRON