Ok i have had it with this pos laptop.It is slower tha a 12 year old shoveling snow,freezes up like an insulted wife and the word and several other programs just quit working and ,the wireless feature wont work and i am tired of losing my temper and cursing til the dog goes and hides in another room.There will be some sales on after Christmas,(NOT "the holiday season") i am sure. All i need is a basic laptop i can surf the net on that is reliable and reasonably priced. Any suggestions about makes and models would be appreciated......:rant:
I have been very happy with my $550 HP brand laptop from Futureshop: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/class.asp?logon=&langid=EN&catid=1002
Do you do regular maintenance like cleaning cookies, deleting browsing history, clean out mailbox and empty trash? Mine slows if I don't.
If ALL you do is word and e-mail - you could probably survive with a netbook - the newer - slightly smaller screens. The problem with going on the cheep ($250 netbooks are all over. Jan 1 expect $199, Jan 15 leftovers at $150 will finish the "seasonal cycle") is that you still need security stuff (Norton, McAfee) and those chinese, african, and russian hackers still get by the security somehow. However, the suggestion for a monthly (15th - NOT on the 1st of a month) maintenance to get rid of "clogging junque" is well worth the effort. It isn't hard, you just give up one evening a month - two hours ? Might work for your current clogging ? You may NOT have to buy a new one if you are willing to learn some cleanup routines ? You got a computer ex-spurt you can ask for assistance in cleaning out the junque ? You might have to pay for some consulting time, but not buying another POS might be worth it ? Rip Rohring :Comp: o No: o No: o No:
It probably isn't the computers fault. If you still have whatever OS it came with, (i.e. you haven't tried to put Windows 7 on a laptop that came with XP: it almost surely isn't enough machine) you can clean it out as described in the prev. post and make sure you don't have a worm, virus or trojan horse. Even if you take it to someone, it should cost 50-75 $ and will be good as new.
unless you have more money than brains, try some fixes before you just scrap it. Find all the software that came with it, and the manual. Then look up how to format the hard drive. This will effectively ERASE EVERYTHING in your computer (save photos and documents to a flash drive for reloading later) including the stuff that is fighting each other. Like two different virus softwares, adware, stuff that you no longer use, etc. Once the formatting is done, load the software you need to live life, and you should be set. It may take an hour, but last I checked, most people dont make $400 per hour (approximate cost of a cheap laptop) so it is worth a try. Even if you had to install a NEW hard drive for $80, it would be better than adding to the landfill. You will be proud you fixed it and saved the money so you can make someone's Christmas nice, including your own. You can do it. Give it a try.
My cats walk all over my comp when I'm not looking, and then jump off and their claws got caught in the crack and tore it off, breaking the little brackets that keeps the key on the board. I've gotten used to pressing the little rubber button though.
Thanks for the responses guys.After reading them i felt like a moron so spent the afternoon trying to solve this puzzle.while i am fairly intelligent i just cant get this computer stuff, however after following a lot of the help stuff and expermenting i think i have it down to a faulty wireless card which has caused in excess of 3000 errors to be logged which have in turn used up all my ram causing it to to do something else that i cant remember the name of .So i am going to borrow a laptop from my daughter while she is off to Cozumel for Christmas and take this one in to see how much it will cost to repair.If its too much i will take it out back with the 12 gauge and put it out of its misery which will make me feel better and then use the pension cheque fo a new one.....:laugh:
That's funny. I am writing this on a netbook I just bought because my kitten killed my old, relegated to the kitchen, laptop. She would lie on it b/c it was warm, and she would press all kinds of weird combinations of buttons, displaying functions I know nothing about. I thought it was funny until she killed the wireless somehow. One time she opened like 225 new spreadsheet windows.
I have been very happy with newegg as a reseller www.newegg.com. As for laptops I have liked the performance value of ASUS brand. They are a little heavy but they oerforn well. How old is your current laptop? Unless it is over three years old it still should do what you want. It sounds like some maintanenace may be in order. start with a clean OS install and Avast anti virus. ANYTHING SYMANTEC IS GURANTEED to make your computer a plugin brick.
Kitteh wants to budget her finances! I try to keep the laptop closed now, although my one cat loves to lay on my lap right behind the computer, blocking off the fan. She's gonna make this thing overheat one day.
It is a dell inspiron 6400 about 5-6 years old and worked fine until about a year ago and has been downhill since then. We will see what the computer repair guy says but i cant help but think that it is all tied to the wireless card as all the problems started after the wireless quit working
i have a dell that i purchased (ordered) new in 1997. it has windows 95 an still functions fine. i have not used it in a year. i use a notebook from work. i am about to order a new pc, another dell, very shorty and it will be a desktop unit. it will cost about $1500 +/-.
I had an Inspiron 6100 that fell apart under me. I hated it. Now I have a Dell Vostro 1510 and it seems OK even with Vista. But I know several people who have ACER laptops and they love them. They claim to be reliable, simple, well-built machines without a lot of the extra crap you see preloaded on things like Dell and HP machines.
Do you have to have a laptop? You could build your own PC for pretty cheap. I rebuilt mine back in May for around $270.00. Of course, I already had the case, keyboard, mouse, and monitor. But, just an idea. It's easier than you think.
Those netbooks are nice for surfing, email, homework, etc... They dont come with a lot of memory but for the :dollar: its not a bad deal. They also have lots of extras you can buy like longer life battery, wireless mouse and a bunch of other stuff my daughter tells me she needs now. I spent 200bucks on hers.(so far)
It sounds like you upgraded to service pack 3 xp service pack 3 can blow out the internet connection. http://forums.techarena.in/windows-update/963816.htm I'd check that first. (you could try to uninstall service pack 3 as well)
