My hard disk died last night after the fan stopped working, and now I guess I gotta get a new laptop. I don’t know anything about computers, so I need some help finding something that can run Minecraft decently for $400 or less.
Also, might it be cheaper to just get it repaired? Is that a thing?
Yeah, wayyyy easier to replace the drive. Look up your laptop on ifixit. Drive bays tend to be easy to get to
Wasn’t able to find it there, but thanks for the suggestion! How about the fan? Is that hard to replace? I believe that was the reason for the drive failure in the first place.
It can depend on the fan a lot more. Sometimes they are accessible and standardized, other times not so much. And it is unlikely the fan is the reason for drive failures. If you had a spinning disk drive, heat might be a factor, but it would be minimal.
And you can also check youtube for videos on disassembly. 9 times out of 10, drive replacement is just removing the bottom casing and just taking the drive out. Super easy and hard to mess up
Update: took it apart, cleaned out dust from the inside, and then made a dumb mistake.
I wanted to test if it helped, so I tried unfolding it before putting the bottom cover back on it. The hinge assembly instantly cracked and fell apart.
Anyway, would love some suggestions for a new laptop, I don’t think this one is salvagable.
It wasn't a dumb mistake, those screw retainers are designed to dry up and crack after 2 years.
My suggestion is a used, office surplus T or X ThinkPad. They are extremely easy to find online, the keyboard is a dream, easy to repair (Lenovo publishes detailed repair manuals and sells spare parts with overnight shipping on their website) and they can withstand casual drops.
Hard drives are cheaper than they used to be. You can get a 2tb Western Digital Blue laptop drive on eBay for $70 right now. And replacing a laptop drive is pretty easy. There should be a cover with a small screw that you take off, and behind it will be the drive in a caddy that you can pull out.
After replacing the drive, you'd need installation media for your OS, probably a flash drive, to reinstall the OS on the new drive.
Reminder to ppl discussing laptops:
- Buying new from a shop full of salesman is gonna get your ripped off.
May make sense but for real, I've seen them try and sell my friend $100/year McAfee antivirus bullshit for a laptop. What made it hurt more was that the salesman claimed they used it themselves. On top of that they generally work to get you to spend more regardless of if that new laptop will be any better for your use cases. Avoid em.
- AMD Ryzen > Intel.
AMD chips have absolutely MASSIVE advantages over Intel in laptops now. Its actually stupid that AMD's lowest Ryzen models are faster than Intel's top laptop processors. Intel is just a rip-off now.
- SSD > HDD > 32GB EMMC
32GB isnt enough for anything beyond a mobile phone or a Nintendo Switch. You'll end up having to shell out for a fat SD card (which are also quite slow compared to other mediums) or another hard-drive.
HDDs are okay but its almost always worth to get an SSD even if its half the capacity for the same price. They'll last longer, work faster (and make your old laptops feel new again) and are suited for laptop uses whereas you can damage hard disk drives by dropping them or moving them about over time.
- Second hand isn't so bad.
The only real issue with second hand is the hard drive being used, but then again nowadays most drives are suited for literally 5+ years of use easily. SSDs are better again because they're less likely to get damaged if the old owner has been rough with their laptop.
If you have a reseller or 2nd hand shop like we have in the UK from CEX (uk.webuy.com) that offer free warranties and stuff then you're best off going there.
TLDR you can ignore this if u just wanna watch youtube
I used to work in a PC repair shop. From my experience, you'll get ridiculously overcharged if you take it in to repair. Most of the time, these things are pretty easy to fix, even with no experience. What's the make/model of your laptop? The model # should be on the underside somewhere, maybe underneath the battery.
It’s an Asus F510UA. I wasn’t able to find any information about it online other than stores selling it. It’s ok, though. Accidentally broke it more taking it apart.
Fair enough. Hinge assemblies can be replaced too, but it is a little more difficult. Pretty much the only repair I wouldn't be willing to do myself would be a busted touchscreen/lcd assembly.
I looked around and found this. I'm personally not a fan of HP, but it has some pretty good specs in your price range. I would immediately do a fresh install of Windows to remove all of the bloatware, regardless of the computer you end up going with.
i dont know if this is the advice you want. but my last last two cellphones and last two laptops were refurbished and worked great (changed both at 4 and 5 year mark, the cellphone had clearly reached its planned obsolescence, the laptop I changed just because i wanted more powah). refurbisheds are usually returns that were opened but not been used really (though it can be faulty hardware that was fixed). you get more bang for your buck (and i tell myself it's a bit better for the environment but who knows the thing gets shipped thrice). be sure to scrub hose harddisks clean before using them. those are me thoughts.
Yeah open it up and look, if it’s standard nvme or 2,5” drive it’s easy to replace. Also look at the fan model. Fans are usually dirt cheap, but likely will have to wait delivery from China, if eBay doesn’t come through.
If you’re not afraid to screw around, you can wiggle the fan up and down and rotate by hand to see if it comes alive.
