[geeks] possible good laptop deal

[velociraptor]

On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com> wrote:
> On Mar 6, 2008, at 12:51 , velociraptor wrote:
>
>  > "Powersupply" is kind of a misnomer with a laptop, though.  If it's
>  > the A/C adapter, that's one thing--easy enough to buy/return or borrow
>  > one as a test case.
>
>  I was figuring he was being told it was the power supply portion of
>  the logic board and one thing I wondered was if that was a separate
>  part on an Apple laptop.

I guessed that was the case, but just wanted to be clear about my own
experience with Powerbooks.

>  Asus made their laptops until recently but they don't give out the
>  manuals for them.

I've looked for info on Toshiba, Compaq, and Fujitsu laptops, and it's
hit or miss based on what other people have posted up, in my
experience.  That's one of the other nice thing about Apple laptops,
as far as I am concerned (even though some are PITAes to get apart to
work on).

>  I wish I could get MacOS running on some other laptop... :)

You and a few million other people. :-)  There are some posts on
various levels of success at the Insanely Mac forums, for example this
thread <http://tinyurl.com/2m37ky> suggesting that the Cyberpowerpc
Xplorer X5-2800 @ around $550 is a good choice.

On the one hand it would be cool to have a hackintosh, but on the
other, having to fiddle with patching too much would kind of undermine
the whole point of the Mac, you know?

>  > If you find out the model (have them remove the battery and tell you
>  > the model #), and look here:
>  > <http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Take-Apart-Repair-Manuals-p-1-c-258.html
>  > >
>  > you can get a pdf of the  repair manual to see what's involved in
>  > replacing the power connector.
>
>  Thanks for the information.

You're welcome.  One thing I do suggest, if you decide to work on
laptops, get a couple of nylon "spudgers".  You can get them on eBay 2
for $10 or thereabouts.  They make taking things like iPods and iBooks
apart lots easier.

>  I'm thinking of buying a "dead" laptop to get a deal.  A friend of
>  mine has an Apple and two Thinkbooks he got for a grand total of $150
>  and they required about $50 in parts to become brand new again.

Craigslist is a decent place to look.  Lots of times, people just
really have no idea what the real problem with their computer might
be.  The downside is that there's a lot of competition, so you have to
keep looking to find the deals.  crazedlist.org makes it a little
easier.

=Nadine=