Is My Laptop Dying?

[bigvern]

Currently running a Dell Inspiron 1520 which is just over 3 years old and on which I do all my development work.

This morning I was putting down some markers in Google Earth when it emitted a "beep beep beep" and dropped to a black screen with a message the hard drive wasn't mounted. Pressed F5 to run a troubleshooter and that couldn't see the HD. Rebooted and everything came back normal. So now between a rock and a hard place in that I'm reluctant to carry on doing any development in case I lose it all, or finding the £500+ to replace with a decent laptop that has a proper graphics card installed.

Any advice appreciated.

[phill70]

Sounds like the hard drive is on its way out Vern.
A friend had the same problem a couple of months ago, I got it up and running for her, and told her that the hard disk would die at some stage.
She brought it around yesterday, hard disk dead.

Glyn

[bigvern]

Thanks, I kind of figured that it's near the end then, Glyn. Guess I could replace the HD but with it being an (old) Dell and no separate Windows install disc - just the backup partion on the hard drive (surely an oxymoron!) might be more trouble than it's worth.

Looks like it's time to go shopping...

[mforeman04]

Vern, Have you considered using a tool similar to Norton Ghost where you can take an exact image of the HDD and then use that on the new HDD?

[alexnick]

I had similar experiences with a laptop. It could be a worn-out motherboard (this caused me to loose the screen eventually). Unfortunately a new motherboard was nearly as expensive as a new laptop, so I replaced it in the end.

Best advice is to back up and replace when it starts showing signs of wearing out, not after you've lost it. If you have an external hard drive, it could be worth copying key things which you want onto it.

AN

[bigvern]

This one looks a good compromise between price and spec...

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/p ... 083864.htm

or this one, which another site does show as having a separate Nvidia graphics card.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-Satelli ... =de_a_smtd

Obviously needs to be able to run Railworks and Trainz 2009/2010!

[terrycunliffe]

Try these guys Vern,
'Build' it to your own specification on line... Leave out the items you don't need to keep the costs down
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/
I've found their after sales service pretty good too.

[mijemcc]

Vern, There is a site called "Software4Students" that has copies of Windows 7 plus other software at excellent prices. Much cheaper than the shops. They are genuine versions for students AND their families. No verification is required so you can order with confidence.
Regards, Michael

[bigvern]

Hey that's pretty good Terry. Put in a spec which beats either of the two machines I looked at and came out at £618, just inside the budget.

I assume the build quality is okay and you don't get all the pre-installed crud that comes on a brand name laptop either.

[terrycunliffe]

Hey that's pretty good Terry. Put in a spec which beats either of the two machines I looked at and came out at £618, just inside the budget.

I assume the build quality is okay and you don't get all the pre-installed crud that comes on a brand name laptop either.

You get, and pay for, exactly what you want... That's what I like about them. You can even opt out of paying for a new OS if you want to transfer the old one from your duff PC
I've not used them for laptops, but I got my current PC from them about 3 years ago. The HDD developed a fault after a few weeks... they collected, fixed and returned the system promptly and efficiently.

[BrianB]

G'day Vern,

Just a comment about laptop screen resolutions - when you are looking around, note that many widescreen laptops have a peak vertical resolution of around 900 or pixels - the better ones have around 1080 pixels. My (4 year old) Acer Ferrari laptop has only 1280 x 800 resolution, so I am limited to running MSTS only in 1024x768 resolution maximum - I had the opportunity to pay a little extra to get a screen at 1680 x 1080 - if I had have bought that, I would have been able to run MSTS at the higher 1280x1024 resolution. Remembering that MSTS will only run in a set range of 4:3 screen ratios, buying a laptop without adequate vertical resolution will restrict your enjoyment.

My desktop PC has a larger screen and runs MSTS in 1280x1024, when I drop back to my laptop, the reduction in MSTS resolution is quite notably visible - in hindsight, I wish that I'd have bought the laptop with the better screen - I've found that going back to only 1024x768 on the laptop really hinders my extensive Australian content development work in MSTS, and causes so much frustration that I now limit development work to the desktop PC only, the laptop is used only when away from the home desktop PC.

Just a few comments that may have an ongoing bearing on your future satisfaction with your new laptop.

Regards, Brian

[bigvern]

Order placed, only slight sting in the tale was a 2% surcharge for using Mastercard but I guess at the price I'm getting the machine, it's still excellent value.

[bigvern]

Forgot to mention, here is the spec:

Chassis & Display Enigma II: 15.6" Full HD LED Backlit Widescreen (1920x1080) Super Clear Glossy
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i3 Dual Core Mobile Processor i3-390M (2.67GHz) 3MB Cache
Memory (RAM) 4GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 2GB)
Graphics Card ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 - 1GB GDDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 250GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader Integrated 3 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC, MS)
Network Facilities ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD (AS STANDARD)
USB Options 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Bluetooth & Infrared Options NONE
Battery Enigma Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (4,800/5,200 mAh)
Power Lead & Adaptor 1 x UK Power Lead & 90W AC Adaptor
TV Card NONE
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Speakers NONE
Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Pricing Information
Price (excluding VAT)
£521.05
Price
£625.26

So not too bad. Only downside is their production seems quite slow at present as the order has only just moved from processing to pre-production. Guess at those prices they are swamped with work. I'll post an update once the machine is here - I'm hopinfg it will cut through TS2009/2010 and RW like a hot knife through butter, compared to the old Dell.

[bigvern]

Finally arrived this morning courtesy of DHL (and SWMBO for answering the door as I was in bed off nights!). First impressions very nice build and excellent value for money. Spent most of the afternoon after getting up transferring files etc. from the old machines and installing RW and TS2010 plus utilities. Got a bit bogged down with the latter though, as the various patches to bring it up to date took around 4 hours in total to complete the install and Auran/N3V recommend you don't do anything else while the patcher is running.

TS2010 looks very impressive at 1920 x 1080, I haven't loaded up Railworks yet other than the menus to adjust settings etc. The proof of the pudding will be how the new machine performs in Surveyor and the RW Editor.

I'm hoping the new laptop will be the incentive to finally get some routes finished and released for both sims.

[terrycunliffe]

How's it going Vern?
I've just ordered a new laptop from them (similar spec to yours) It should arrive next week sometime.