Hello,
I have Dell D630 with the Nvidia overheating problem and the GPU is finally fried. Toast. Done. I was going to buy a new laptop, but I loathe the thought of having to reconfigure all the applications, files, configs, etc. Not to mention dropping the coinage on a new system and upgraded software apps to work on newer OS, etc.
Current system is Win XP Pro, 500gb HDD, 4 (3.5)gb RAM, DVD-RW, Office 2003 Pro, etc. It does all I need it to do for work.
So Dell sells off-lease refurbs for $150-$200 range. Can I just buy one of those and drop the old HDD into it? Would it be plug & play as long as it has the same chipset? Or will I get all sorts of error messages requiring a reload of XP? I want to avoid an OS reload - if i have to go to that trouble, then may as well purchase a new Win7 system (mfr'ed by anyone other than Dell). I'm just looking to save some $$ and headaches in the short-term and was wondering if I could simply cannibalize the old/dead D630 into a replacement D630 and have a "new" ca: 2008 WinXP Pro machine.
(Mods: feel free to move. Not sure if this is a WinXP question or a HDD or MB question.)
I have Dell D630 with the Nvidia overheating problem and the GPU is finally fried. Toast. Done. I was going to buy a new laptop, but I loathe the thought of having to reconfigure all the applications, files, configs, etc. Not to mention dropping the coinage on a new system and upgraded software apps to work on newer OS, etc.
Current system is Win XP Pro, 500gb HDD, 4 (3.5)gb RAM, DVD-RW, Office 2003 Pro, etc. It does all I need it to do for work.
So Dell sells off-lease refurbs for $150-$200 range. Can I just buy one of those and drop the old HDD into it? Would it be plug & play as long as it has the same chipset? Or will I get all sorts of error messages requiring a reload of XP? I want to avoid an OS reload - if i have to go to that trouble, then may as well purchase a new Win7 system (mfr'ed by anyone other than Dell). I'm just looking to save some $$ and headaches in the short-term and was wondering if I could simply cannibalize the old/dead D630 into a replacement D630 and have a "new" ca: 2008 WinXP Pro machine.
(Mods: feel free to move. Not sure if this is a WinXP question or a HDD or MB question.)