Snap, Crackle, Pop…

August 13, 2005 By Jonathan Ping 6 Comments
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lcd.jpg …is the sound my hard drive made yesterday. Well, more of a clicking, but either way I think it’s dead. Warranty expired too. I’m glad I still have my laptop. At least I backed up everything recently. Should I get a new hard drive, or a whole new computer? They are so cheap these days, you can get a new Dell computer with a 17″ flat panel LCD for under $500. But my Pentium 3 seems just fine for everything I do, I don’t know what I need an extra 2,000 MHz for. I guess it helps out people who like to play video games, but those LCDs are calling out to me…

Filed Under: General
Last updated: August 4, 2006
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Comments

  1. nickel says
    August 13, 2005 at 3:11 pm

    If you do get a new computer, I’d go ahead and pop a replacement drive in your old computer and sell it on eBay. But if your old one works for everything you do, then why replace it? You should be able to get it back up and running for well under a hundred bucks.

    Reply
  2. jp says
    August 13, 2005 at 5:29 pm

    Good advice – I actually have an old 5gb hard drive I might stick in there and see if it fires up. I need to find my Windows XP CD though. Ugh. I like fixing computers, but it just takes so much time with all the troubleshooting.

    I’ve been eyeing those flat panel LCD monitors for some time now. They are finally getting into a price range I can deal with. My 17″ fishbowl CRT monitor is probably going to die someday too. Is it wrong it hope it’s soon? 😉

    Reply
  3. Dan says
    August 13, 2005 at 9:52 pm

    The price of LCD monitors is probably going to keep falling for a while. If you are after one, you might want to wait until after christmas time – you may be able to pick up something new or nearly new for a fair bit less than you’ll get it just now.

    Of course if your CRT should meet with an untimely (and perhaps not entirely accidental) demise, then enjoy your new LCD screen!

    Reply
  4. Hazzard says
    August 13, 2005 at 10:01 pm

    Here’s what I would do:

    Buy a new hard drive for less than 50 bucks. That will get you upwards of 80GB of storage. If you really want to get sexy, buy two and install them both. Then copy all your important files to both drives occasionally in case you have another hard drive disaster.

    Then spend less than $200 on a new DELL 17″ LCD. Don’t buy their cheap 17″. Buy the 1704FP model. You can get that for less than $200 when you buy it through fatwallet.com. I bought the very best Dell 19″ model (1905fp) for $250.

    You’ll have a great new reliable hard drive and a great new monitor which will get you another couple years. Just my opinion. Let me know if you want some help finding the deal.

    Hazzard

    Reply
  5. Cap says
    August 14, 2005 at 2:22 pm

    hmm would be a tough choice for me if i was in your position. but simply slapping in a $50-60 80gb harddrive (thats most likely faster too), won’t hurt.

    you can get a fairly good machine these days for $600 or so.

    $600 is the new $1000 in the PC market, I guess.

    Reply
  6. JB says
    August 15, 2005 at 9:21 am

    If it were a relatively modern PC, I might just fix it.

    However, it sounds like your system is pretty old. I’m assuming you have an older and smaller monitor as well.

    With the Dell, you can get a new system and a major monitor upgrade for well under $500.

    I’d probably buy the Dell and sell the old PC AS IS on ebay for whatever you can get (remove the bad HD first, though, just in case).

    jb

    Reply

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