What to do, what to do...

So my T60 has been acting up ever since I first got it 2.5 years ago (granted, it was partly due to my abuse) so I decided to go with a new laptop. I just got the Dell E6400 yesterday. So now being a cheap college student, I am having second thoughts and wondering whether I should return the E6400 (on grounds that it overheats, which it does, to avoid the 15% restocking fee) and stick with the T60 until it absolutely fails me. I figure if I update my T60 I can probably use it until I graduate (in 2 years).

T60
Intel T7200
15.4 WXGA TFT
ATI X1400
80GB 5400RPM
2GB PC2-5300 667MHZ
Fingerprint Reader
Pros: nice screen, nice touchpad, sturdy, could run better w/ cheap upgrades
Cons: old, broken down non-replaceable hardware.

E6400
Intel P9600
14.1 WXGA LED
Nvidia Quadro 160M
80GB 7200RPM
4GB PC2-6400
~700 Refurbished from Dell Outlet
Pros: basically new, great deal from Outlet, nice keyboard, great battery life
Cons: runs hot, screen is not as nice as T60, touchpad is mediocre, vista (W7 is coming out soon)

In order to fire up my T60 again, I will need:
1. New charger ~$30 from ebay
2. New battery ~$90 from ebay
3. Recovery DVDs (where do I get this?)
4. Extra 2GB RAM ~$25 from newegg
5. Possible a new 80gb 7200rpm HD ~$50 from newegg.

So say it comes out to be ~$250. Is this worth it? Sorry for the long post. Any suggestion would be much appreciated.

 

this is the first time i hear about the E6400 having overheating issues...check out the vents. run antivirus. clean up the laptop. maybe you where stressing the components, or was the overheating with regular use?

check out the running processes and see if they are too many, maybe thats stressing your cpu. well, you do have a very powerful P9600 CPU inside, which runs very fast and might get hot after some use...

 

Don't ask if it's worth it, without taking your happiness into account.

All right for the DVD, I'd recommend that you make them from your disk after you get vista or Windows 7 on your system. You need the ram you planned on. Get a fairly larger disk than 80 mb. A good update requires some planning.
-Renee

 

The P9600 is a P-series processor which has a 25W TDP. It is one of the cooler processors of the Montevina generation. I doubt that is causing your overheating. It's more likely the discrete graphics chipset.

Thinkpads are one of the coolest-running laptops, so maybe it just seems like it is overheating compared to your T60. I don't think it will be worth $250 to resurrect your T60, but that's just my opinion. If you really like your T60, it may be worth it for you.

 

your right MidnightSun, i do know that P series are the coolest CPUs, but stressing any CPU will cause heat. Perhaps the Quadro NVS 160M with GDDR2 memory is causing the problem as MidnightSun suggested and the high revolution HDD could have something to do as well, but i dont think, if it did, they would not even offer it...

 

Two things,
1. Why exactly does your T60 need so much replacement hardware? Normally when things break its one at a time, not all at once.
2. What exactly is the issue with the T60? Is start-up slow, web broswing, a specific app, doing anything, what about it do you dislike?

If your T60 is in good physical condition then you might just want to do a clean install and go from there (perhaps buying the charger if you need it). You can probably get XP and Vista for $20-40. If you've been using Vista consider getting XP, it will use less resources and be faster for whatever hardware you use.

If you do keep the T60 the only upgrade you might really want to consiter would be a 320GB or 500GB drive. Get a 5400RPM version. It won't be much over $50 and it will go a long way in getting rid of your biggest bottleneck.

 

Fix the T60. I thought you meant it was broken, the motherboard was gone and it overheats. But all you need is a charger, battery, etc.? Fix the T60. I fixed up an old laptop and had great satisfaction in using an old product. Buy a new battery for the T60.. I thought the whole point of thinkpads were to use them for a long time! I see many people using T42's around campus, T61, X61s. Good.

 

i second the suggestion to fix the t60, and start with the hard drive. as mentioned by auroraalpha, this is the biggest bottleneck. ie, i just bought a x41 tablet with just a single core 1,5ghz off ebay together with a 64gb ssd for it. it makes a difference in magnitutedes of light years and is faster for day to day applications than my decent desktop machine (granted for some things i could use a more powerful cpu, but that's not what i personally use the small notebook for)