Can old laptops be saved?

[abice]

My first laptop has been sitting in my old laptop bag for the last couple years. Since I started getting into computers and learning more about them, I think I have decided to dissect this one, just to explore it. I'm not sure what happened, but the screen went blank, it wouldn't turn on anymore and after removing the hard drive and hearing some lose parts inside the hard drive moving around I determined it was broken. So It's been sitting since and I pulled it out of the closet and determined that this will be my little test project or lab experiment.

I purchased it in 2007 it is a HP dv6000 special edition. Can I dissect this and upgrade some of the parts or maybe just buy replacement parts?

I would think that the hard drive could be changed, I would think I would be able to purchase a 2.5inch internal hard drive and as long as it is SATA it should work.

I'm not sure what part of the laptop is actually broke, but lets say it needs a new motherboard. are replacement laptop component available like on amazon or newegg? I'm assuming it's not like a PC where you can swap out components for other components, but in theory I think it would be nice to rip the old laptop apart and purchase a new motherboard, ram, processor, and hard drive. Not go crazy with pricing just enough to get it working again and put a little bit of modern technology inside it.

 

[paradigm]

Well, for starters, 2.5" HDDs do rattle when you shake them, so determining that it's faulty from that is probably a red herring

 

[tom_e]

The only easily upgradable parts on most laptops are the RAM, HDD and possibly wireless card, after that it's probably the CPU and sometimes the GPU although you need to be careful as the cooling system within the laptop might not be able to handle the extra power.
Then things like motherboards are rarely worth replacing due to the cost and hassle in sourcing replacements as they aren't readily available.
For the most part it's rarely worth fixing a laptop if it's something like the motherboard that's gone.

 

[drakioned]

A broken hard disk wouldn't typically stop a computer from starting up at least as far as boot screen (usually some logo from the laptop maker).

I would salvage it for parts like hard disk/RAM/wireless card (assuming you have some use for these) and consider the rest of the laptop scrap.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

Generally spare parts are insanely expensive and difficult to source. And then you'd just have a six year-old laptop with no warranty. What would be the point?

 

[Voodle]

The HP laptops of that era are notorious for bad BGA solder issues causing them to die. It's a waste of time trying to get it working imo, take out the valuable parts, flog them on auction site and get a new one.

 

[abice]

I actually already have a laptop, I was just thinking of playing around with it to see if I could fix it, but from some videos I have seen they have to reflow it in order to get it to work, and this isn't a newer laptop, using the model number and part numbers I haven't been able to find replacement parts, The laptop parts look a little different than PC components, plus I can't figure out the chipset and finding a processor or Video component for it

 

[eugenerudenko]

If you need a laptop, then it'll be easier to buy a new one Still as a part of an experiment you may try to re-animate it, though the problem is that it's much harder to find parts that will suit your device than that of a PC.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

I actually already have a laptop, I was just thinking of playing around with it to see if I could fix it, but from some videos I have seen they have to reflow it in order to get it to work, and this isn't a newer laptop, using the model number and part numbers I haven't been able to find replacement parts, The laptop parts look a little different than PC components, plus I can't figure out the chipset and finding a processor or Video component for it

There are no processor or video "components" for laptops -- they are soldered onto the motherboard.

 

[tom_e]

There are no processor or video "components" for laptops -- they are soldered onto the motherboard.

Not true for all laptops, many these days have replaceable CPUs and a few also have the ability to upgrade the GFX card.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

Not true for all laptops, many these days have replaceable CPUs and a few also have the ability to upgrade the GFX card.

That's nit-picking at best. I agree that not EVERY laptop EVER made on the surface of the planet does not have a removable CPU or GPU. But the proportion of laptops with removable components has got to be well under 5%, if that.

 

[tom_e]

It's not nip picking it's correcting a false statement, as there are indeed CPU and GFX components available for an increasing number of laptops.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

It's only false if you have evidence to back up what you're saying. "Increasing number of laptops" are in fact Ultrabooks, which are going in the opposite direction (not even the battery in some cases is replaceable). Just not sure which laptops you're referring to, would be nice to see a link to at least a few.

 

[tom_e]

http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/Table.html There's a link that shows at least some of the laptops you can upgrade the gfx card on.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

That's a tiny list considering how many laptop models are out there.

Anyhoo, it's semantics at this point. My statement was sort of along the lines of "mammals have live babies" even though the platypus lays eggs and is still classified as a mammal. I was generalising.

 

[Sprite]

There should be a specific model number for your laptop, e.g. DV6119US, which might make it a bit easier to find a replacement motherboard. For those DV6000 range they're a bit of a pig to take apart, although you would learn a lot I guess.

As Voodle mentioned those HP laptops are well known for having poor soldering on the graphics chip causing it to fail. However it should still boot up. Have you tried a different PSU? It may also be the DC socket on the laptop, but I can't remember if this was soldered onto the motherboard or came as a separate circuit board.

 

[tres_kun]

HP DV2000 to DV9000 are all junk
They break easily
The graphic chip or the chipset is the problem
And if you do a reball on the board the board itself is weak and swells up
It is extremely hard to fix and no point in doing it
It will brake again fast

Dismantle it is is dead
Turning on and no display the GPU is coming off the motherboard

 

[Rroff]

That's a tiny list considering how many laptop models are out there.

Anyhoo, it's semantics at this point. My statement was sort of along the lines of "mammals have live babies" even though the platypus lays eggs and is still classified as a mammal. I was generalising.

Vast majority of high end/gaming laptops and upper mid-range have socketed or glued CPUs and MXM slot GPUs these days and even a good number of mid-range laptops have MXM slots even if the rest of the components are soldered. Post the fiasco with G84/86 GPUs a lot of manufacturers have moved away from soldered on GPUs.

 

[Rambaud]

I increased the RAM to 2Gb (the maximum) and put a 64Gb SSD into the g/f's 7 year old Dell laptop which improved it significantly - took less than 10 minutes, IIRC.

Of course 64Gb is a bit limiting - but fine for web browsing, email.