thewalrusking

Distinguished
Oct 26, 2003
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18,630
The other day my moms laptop gave up some LED codes describing the CPU had failed. I triple checked with HP and they said yes, the CPU needed to be replaced. They gave me a total price of over $400. Ok I thought, ya right!

The pc itself is around 2 years old. (Funny note is my brother bought it for her at Walmart on blackfriday, they sold out of their $300 doorbusters, so the guy at the desk price matched this $900 one.) So its still a very nice laptop, ( I dont have it at my place so I cant give details.) Anyway Id figure the Intel/AMD chip inside could be purchased for around $100 or less today. So I let my mother decide what she wanted to do.

I looked up laptop teardowns for this model and it looked rather tedious, it involved taking a good chunk of it apart. I have taken apart another HP a few years ago, ironically for similar reasons, only to reapply thermal paste due to it getting way too hot. She somehow overheats these even though she keeps them on a desk type stand near the couch. Never on blankets etc. So maybe its an HP thing?

Ok to the point, if I replace the CPU and bolt it back together, will I need to reinstall Vista? Vista is on the pc now. Or can I get by with just loading the current install to get her My Documents off first?
 

ikhan209

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Nov 10, 2009
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18,530
You might have to reinstall Vista because it has the OEM version of the OS and OEMs don't support major hardware change. I remember upgrading the CPU on my uncles's desktop about three years back. When I started it up it wanted me to re-activate Windows, but it wouldn't make me a new Install ID so I ended up doing a clean install and removing the bloatware. Might as well upgrade to Windows 7.........