3yr old Dell laptop broken down....should I repair it ?

Dell has told me it will cost me about £350-400 to repair it..........It is a Dell Inspiron 8600 and has broken down just after its warranty of 3yrs. It cost alot to repair and for an additional £300, I can get a brand new one. Should I go for the repair or just get a new one...?

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In most cases it's much better economy to buy a new one, which will come with a new warranty and hopefully be more powerful. It'd be helpful to know what's actually broken though as it may be something you can do yourself, even if it's a big part you could purchase a failed laptop on ebay (with a different fail ) for very little and switch the parts over.

Reply to BushLin

What's broken on it?

Reply to PCcashCow

Quote :

Dell has told me it will cost me about £350-400 to repair it..........It is a Dell Inspiron 8600 and has broken down just after its warranty of 3yrs. It cost alot to repair and for an additional £300, I can get a brand new one. Should I go for the repair or just get a new one...?

I own an 8600. What is wrong with yours?

Can probably give you some workarounds or other information.

Reply to shadowduck

They seem to suggest that something is wrong with the graphics card which is a Mobility 9600. The computer is booting from the noise of the harddisk but there is no image both on the laptop screen and external monitor. They also suggest something is wrong with my touchpad which I never use.

Reply to mogpie

Quote :

They seem to suggest that something is wrong with the graphics card which is a Mobility 9600. The computer is booting from the noise of the harddisk but there is no image both on the laptop screen and external monitor. They also suggest something is wrong with my touchpad which I never use.

TUrn it on and press Fn-F5 ( think thats the one, the key with the monitor icon on it) and see if you can get a display on the external screen. If that works you know its the LCD thats gone to crap, otherwise it very well could be the video card.

Reply to shadowduck

Do you ever get a display on the monitor, showing the DELL Bios screen or anything like that. If you do press F12, and go to utility partition, then do extended test. that will test every piece of hardware on the system. If you cant get any display, try this.

The Inspiron 8600 supports the On Board Diagnostics (OBD). The OBD consist of two systems tests, the PSA and the 32-bit Dell Diagnostics.

There are two methods to start the OBD:

Hold the Mute button while powering on the system
Choose "Diagnostics" from the F12 one time boot menu.

Follow the instructions on the page.

If anything fails and its the video card or the mobo, or you still dont get any display at all, then i would buy a new one. Cause you have to pay what you listed to sent to the depot and cost for repair and reshipment.

Reply to Narutofan

A friend of mine had a Dell of about the same vintage as yours. His LCD fell off after a couple of years of normal usage. Before that he was having video issues as well, but only on the built it LCD and not an external. You'd probably be better off replacing the laptop than repairing it if it is 3 years old. I'd also suggest looking into a brand other than Dell, but thats just my opinion.

-mcg

Reply to MrCommunistGen

The graphics was flickering a bit before the screen went blank. I managed to turn the computer off and shake it a bit and turn it upside down hoping its just a connection problem. The screen came back on for a while but the window icons are distorted (everything else is the same). Then after backing up some important documents I turned it off and the screen never came back on...... . I read the booklet on using the external monitor but no matter what I press nothing shows up. The computer is booting because after a while the windows music start playing. Looks like its more economical to get a new one but what shall I do with the old one....? It hurts to just throw it away...

Reply to mogpie

Quote :

The graphics was flickering a bit before the screen went blank. I managed to turn the computer off and shake it a bit and turn it upside down hoping its just a connection problem. The screen came back on for a while but the window icons are distorted (everything else is the same). Then after backing up some important documents I turned it off and the screen never came back on...... . I read the booklet on using the external monitor but no matter what I press nothing shows up. The computer is booting because after a while the windows music start playing. Looks like its more economical to get a new one but what shall I do with the old one....? It hurts to just throw it away...

Since it sounds like the video card or the screen you can probably get the data off of the hard drive either via network or by taking out the hard drive. Other than that, you can sell it on eBay for parts.

If you need help buying a new laptop PM me. Dell is my former workplace.

Reply to shadowduck

I never expect my first dell laptop to break apart so soon . This is the second time it broke, the first time was the harddisk which got replaced quite quickly. Are all laptops so fragile these days or is it just me ?? My 7 year old compaq laptop is still running fine....

Reply to mogpie

Quote :

I never expect my first dell laptop to break apart so soon . This is the second time it broke, the first time was the harddisk which got replaced quite quickly. Are all laptops so fragile these days or is it just me ?? My 7 year old compaq laptop is still running fine....

Welcome to the new era.. built it in China for as cheap as possible and sell it for max profit.

Reply to shadowduck

Hey, i have an Inspiron 8600 and i turned it on today after a 2 hour break to find my screen suddenly go black after 2 minutes of working...when i connected it to an external monitor everything is fine...do you guys think it's worth fixing or shall i dump it out? DELL has been horrible in helping me find out the problem as i bought it from Europe and i have to fill out some paperwork before i can even talk to anyone in technical support...any ideas? ive had it for around 6 years but im a med student and its just so hard to let things go!!

Reply to Tania_33

:hello: HELLO EVERYONE!
from: (Brother Larry) baton rouge, la

IF YOUR SCREEN IS DIM, AND YOU CAN STILL SEE AN IMAGE :

1. FROM A CERTAIN ANGLE
2. (or) WITH A FLASH LIGHT
________________________________________________________
YOU "MIGHT" ONLY NEED TO BUY A NEW :

1. INVERTER BOARD - eBay
starting at - $8.49
(US Sellers - Link)
http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?LH_Pre [...] 86.c0.m283

2. (or) BACKLIGHT
starting at - $13.38
(US Sellers - Link)
http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=I [...] &_osacat=0

________________________________________________________
1. Download (instruction manual) .pdf file :
"Replacing LCD Inverter on a Dell Inspiron 8600 to fix the backlight problem" http://www.google.com/search?hl=en [...] f&oq=&aqi=

2. "How to" Replace laptop backlight :
http://www.laptoprepair101.com/lap [...] ccfl-lamp/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Ho [...] Backlight/

3. How to Upgrade, Repair, Disassemble a DELL Laptop or Notebook :
http://repair4laptop.org/disassembly_dell.html

4. Dell™ Inspiron™ 8600 Service Manual Website :
http://support.dell.com/support/ed [...] /index.htm
________________________________________________________
Dell Inspiron 8600 Issues:

http://geekswithblogs.net/jjulian/ [...] 17171.aspx
________________________________________________________
"HAVE A BLESSED DAY - MY FRIENDS"
:hello:

Message edited by GoodAddvice on 09-12-2009 at 06:49:06 AM

Reply to GoodAddvice

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