Laptop Question

[Holdfast]

I had to get a new one recently after about 5+yrs. The longest I've previously had a laptop has been something similar. Add it your example, and that's a sample size of 3 so far conking out at about the 5-ish year mark. A trend?

 

[Deks]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I too have a question about laptops. What's a useful life of a laptop. I ask because I've had mine (Toshiba Satellite) for a little over 5 years and I am in the market to get a new one for Christmas. I like the one I have, fine, but it can get real real hot, and the audio is not as good as it once was. Not to mention the bubbling sounds on the audio is here and if the computer get's really hot, it will turn off automatically. I figure since I probably need to upgrade Operating software to Windows 7, I might as well get a new Laptop but I'm not entirely sure yet.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Why don't you simply clean out your existing laptop of dust?
That will prevent the overheating.
Dust piles up over time inside the laptop.
What you need to do, is open up the laptop, and clean out the air vents, fan and the space between the two.

Before you do that though, turn your laptop off, plug it out, pull the battery out and press/hold the power button for roughly 10 seconds to get rid of any residual charge in the components.
Then you can proceed with the cleaning.

As for how long a laptop will be usable...
That depends on what you use it for.

A laptop can easily last you 5 to 6 years for example before you find the need to switch due to it being 'obsolete'.

Though, it's not really obsolete if it still does what you want.

My recommendation would be to look into 15.6" laptops.
They are the standard.
In regards to what components it should have...
Well, if you want it to last as long as possible, then I suppose a decent Sandy Bridge Quad Core would suffice with 12GB or 16GB RAM.

If you want to also play games on it ... a discreet gpu is recommended as integrated ones can be severely limiting for games.
No need to splurge on a high end gpu though... From Nvidia offering, a GTX 560M or GTX 570M would likely suffice.
And from AMD... meh might as well go for the 6970M or 6990M.

Though if you find that a Quad core might be an overkill for your needs... then find a nice i5 laptop with a decent dicreet gpu and fair amount of RAM (or even if they come with 8GB, upgrading to 12 or 16GB you can do on your own for a very low price).

 

[tomalak301]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I too have a question about laptops. What's a useful life of a laptop. I ask because I've had mine (Toshiba Satellite) for a little over 5 years and I am in the market to get a new one for Christmas. I like the one I have, fine, but it can get real real hot, and the audio is not as good as it once was. Not to mention the bubbling sounds on the audio is here and if the computer get's really hot, it will turn off automatically. I figure since I probably need to upgrade Operating software to Windows 7, I might as well get a new Laptop but I'm not entirely sure yet.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Why don't you simply clean out your existing laptop of dust?
That will prevent the overheating.
Dust piles up over time inside the laptop.
What you need to do, is open up the laptop, and clean out the air vents, fan and the space between the two.

Before you do that though, turn your laptop off, plug it out, pull the battery out and press/hold the power button for roughly 10 seconds to get rid of any residual charge in the components.
Then you can proceed with the cleaning.

Unfortunately I don't know how, and I'm afraid if I do do anything, It will make it worse than it was. Is this something I can take to a shop or something or try to make friends with someone who does this for a living?

 

[ares93]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I too have a question about laptops. What's a useful life of a laptop. I ask because I've had mine (Toshiba Satellite) for a little over 5 years and I am in the market to get a new one for Christmas. I like the one I have, fine, but it can get real real hot, and the audio is not as good as it once was. Not to mention the bubbling sounds on the audio is here and if the computer get's really hot, it will turn off automatically. I figure since I probably need to upgrade Operating software to Windows 7, I might as well get a new Laptop but I'm not entirely sure yet.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Why don't you simply clean out your existing laptop of dust?
That will prevent the overheating.
Dust piles up over time inside the laptop.
What you need to do, is open up the laptop, and clean out the air vents, fan and the space between the two.

Before you do that though, turn your laptop off, plug it out, pull the battery out and press/hold the power button for roughly 10 seconds to get rid of any residual charge in the components.
Then you can proceed with the cleaning.

Unfortunately I don't know how, and I'm afraid if I do do anything, It will make it worse than it was. Is this something I can take to a shop or something or try to make friends with someone who does this for a living?

Mate, its no rocket surgery (this was on purpose), just point and shoot. Even if you don't disassemble the computer, just blow the air into the vents, it'll make a big difference.

Laptops should be cleaned with compressed air every three months. Not many people know that though.

 

[Frontier]

Well I bought one. I think I paid a lil too much, even what with it being black friday. I dunno.

Someone more knowledgable wanna tell me if so or not? Haha.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/17218899?&findingMethod=ecircular

It's an advertised special.

"HP Black 17.3" g7-1219wm Laptop PC with AMD Dual-Core E-450 Processor and Windows 7 Home Premium"

$388

If the consensus is this isn't a great deal, I can cancel it. Opinions?

 

[ares93]

Its a good machine for a decent price. I wouldn't call it a good deal, but not a bad either.

 

[Count Zero]

Unfortunately I don't know how, and I'm afraid if I do do anything, It will make it worse than it was. Is this something I can take to a shop or something or try to make friends with someone who does this for a living?

Yes, you can have that done in a repair shop. It sounds very much like a dust problem to me and it would be a waste to buy a new laptop over that if it's still good otherwise.
Mine was also cleaned at a shop recently (it was there because one of the fans broke) and it's as cool and quiet now as it was when it was new (I got it in 2006). It shouldn't cost too much. Ask for the price before you hand it in.
Before that, I tried cleaning it by holding the vacuum cleaner to the cooling exhausts which resulted in temporary improvement. However, I also suspect the last time I did this of being the cause for the fan being broken.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I too have a question about laptops. What's a useful life of a laptop. I ask because I've had mine (Toshiba Satellite) for a little over 5 years and I am in the market to get a new one for Christmas. I like the one I have, fine, but it can get real real hot, and the audio is not as good as it once was. Not to mention the bubbling sounds on the audio is here and if the computer get's really hot, it will turn off automatically. I figure since I probably need to upgrade Operating software to Windows 7, I might as well get a new Laptop but I'm not entirely sure yet.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Why don't you simply clean out your existing laptop of dust?
That will prevent the overheating.
Dust piles up over time inside the laptop.
What you need to do, is open up the laptop, and clean out the air vents, fan and the space between the two.

Before you do that though, turn your laptop off, plug it out, pull the battery out and press/hold the power button for roughly 10 seconds to get rid of any residual charge in the components.
Then you can proceed with the cleaning.

Unfortunately I don't know how, and I'm afraid if I do do anything, It will make it worse than it was. Is this something I can take to a shop or something or try to make friends with someone who does this for a living?

Just buy one of those cans of compressed air at a store like Walmart and blow it into the vent area.

 

[Frontier]

Its a good machine for a decent price. I wouldn't call it a good deal, but not a bad either.

That's what I've been figuring.