Laptop Replacement for My Son

[Jimbo]

My son has had his Lenovo 3000 C200 laptop for almost 3 years and I have replaced or upgraded almost everything in that laptop over that time.
It started out as a cheap Lenovo laptop from a Staples sale (all the money I had at the time) and over the next several months I upgraded the heck out of it (replaced the Celeron with a C2D 1.8 CPU, 7200 HDD, keyboard, cooler, DVD-RW, 4GB of RAM and now the thing really screams. He jokingly calls the fastest Lenovo 3000 in the world; he had done a really good job of taking care of it.

Well, three years later it looks like it's time for another laptop for him.

I'm still on a budget, but I found what I think is a pretty good deal over at Lenovo Outlet for a ThinkPad R500. It's normally about $1,100 but I was able to get it for $426.

here are the specs:

• Processor Intel® Core?2 Duo P8600 (2.40GHz, 3MB L2, 1066MHz FSB)
  Operating System Genuine Windows Vista Business 32
  Outlet Part Number CA2718XB6
  Condition Refurbished
  Display 15.4? WXGA (1280 X 800) TFT
  Total Memory 2GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory
  Hard Drive 80GB, 5400RPM Serial ATA 2.5" Drive
  Graphics Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
  Optical Device DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer
  Wireless Intel WiFi Link 5100 (1x2 AGN)
  Mobile Broadband None
  Battery 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (6.5 Hour Run Time)
  Limited Warranty 1 Year Standard
  Color Black
  Bluetooth Yes
  Integrated Camera No
  Fingerprint Reader No
  Keyboard/Pointing Device UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad)

Manufacturing part number 2718WA5[/list]


I'm going to immediately replace the hard drive with a 250GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (that I bought for his old laptop that I hadn't installed yet), and I also grabbed another 2GB of DDR3 SODIMM.
Soon it will be running a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate64 that MS is sending to me for free.

Is there anything else I should be thinking about replacing, or upgrading before I hand it off to my kid or is it good to go now?


Thanks

Moved at OP's request.
Sr Moderator allisolm

 

[corkyg]

Looks good to go to me. Let it evolve. Do you inherit the C200?

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Jimbo
Is there anything else I should be thinking about replacing, or upgrading before I hand it off to my kid or is it good to go now?

You 'done' good, Pops, but...

You didn't say how old your son is. Unless he's 12 years-old shouldn't he be buying/building his own machine?

"Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime."

Just saying...

 

[Rottie]

"He jokingly calls the fastest Lenovo 3000 in the world" I don't see why you need to buy a laptop

 

[Spikesoldier]

that wont be a significant upgrade for him

get him a new battery and a x25-m

 

[Jimbo]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: Jimbo
Is there anything else I should be thinking about replacing, or upgrading before I hand it off to my kid or is it good to go now?

You 'done' good, Pops, but...

You didn't say how old your son is. Unless he's 12 years-old shouldn't he be buying/building his own machine?

"Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime."

Just saying...

I made both my son and my daughter build their own computers from parts as part of their 9th birthday presents. It took them a couple of days, but they did it. Dad didn't touch a thing an I made them ask all the questions.
Yeah, I'm bad like that!

 

[Jimbo]

Originally posted by: corkyg
Looks good to go to me. Let it evolve. Do you inherit the C200?

Maybe. I'll see how bad off it is.

 

[Jimbo]

Originally posted by: Rottie
"He jokingly calls the fastest Lenovo 3000 in the world" I don't see why you need to buy a laptop

Sometimes it spontaneously dies and then when it comes back up almost all of the devices in device manager are FUBAR'd and I then have to use systems restore. The battery is also not holding a charge and the sound no longer reliably works.

 

[Rottie]

I suppose your son is a hardcore gamer?if so laptop is not for hardcore game but if he bugs yiu get one then I guess. Gateway latop is ok for games

 

[Jimbo]

Originally posted by: Rottie
I suppose your son is a hardcore gamer?if so laptop is not for hardcore game but if he bugs yiu get one then I guess. Gateway latop is ok for games

No, he's not a gamer at all.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Jimbo

Originally posted by: Rottie
"He jokingly calls the fastest Lenovo 3000 in the world" I don't see why you need to buy a laptop

Sometimes it spontaneously dies and then when it comes back up almost all of the devices in device manager are FUBAR'd and I then have to use systems restore. The battery is also not holding a charge and the sound no longer reliably works.

I'm working on a friend's lappy right now... and it was doing the (exact) same thing!

The (dual) CPU fans were pumping so hard, they made his lappy sound like a ShopVac - and it was spontaneously dieing and/or blue screening.

Turned out to be a combination of problems...

Primarily, his lappy was spontaneously dieing because the CPU heat sink was plugged solid with dust (on the fan side - not visible from the exhaust side) A blast of compressed air took care of that.

The other major problem was... the HDD was dieing... sounded like a bucket of bolts, and eventually committed suicide on my workbench. I'm looking for a suitable replacement. I'll probably go with a WD1200BEVE.

Anyway, I'd check the CPU cooler in your kids lappy, and make sure it isn't plugged with dirt...

 

[Jimbo]

The hard drive is fine, and I clean out his heat sink fan and blower every six months (I just did that a few weeks ago). I actually remove the assembly from the laptop and get everything out; by six months it almost looks like the lent filter in my dryer.

I really think it's the mobo on the laptop, but I'll know more when I can get my hands on it again.

Thanks for the tip on the HS fan, that was a good call as it's something almost everyone ignores.

 

[ecom]

For a 15" screen, the resolution is really low on that Thinkpad. If there is an upgraded screen available, I would definitely opt for that instead.

For the DDR3, it doesn't say whether there are one or two DIMMs already installed so it can become an replacement rather than just upgrading. While 3GB is better than 2GB, you will loose some speed because you won't have dual channel on certain portions.

 

[Jimbo]

Originally posted by: ecom
For a 15" screen, the resolution is really low on that Thinkpad. If there is an upgraded screen available, I would definitely opt for that instead.

For the DDR3, it doesn't say whether there are one or two DIMMs already installed so it can become an replacement rather than just upgrading. While 3GB is better than 2GB, you will loose some speed because you won't have dual channel on certain portions.

The DDR3 is one stick of 2G, I bought another 2G stick.

What's so horrible about the graphics resolution?

At this point the design is fixed because I already ordered the laptop.

 

[ecom]

The resolution is quite low for a screen of that size. I have a 13.3 with the same resolution and don't find it that great. Don't get me wrong, it's usable, but if there is something higher like 1440x900 or 1680x1050, I've seen both on laptops, it lets more information fit on the screen without getting fuzzy or harder to read. Since documents and web pages are vertically stacked, that extra resolution is useful to lessen scrolling.

For writing code, I find it quit annoying because the vertical resolution is low. Though since the previous laptop has a screen of similar size and resolution, he's probably not going to notice. Nothing particularly horrible about it, but if there's an option for higher resolution, it would definitely be worth it IMO - especially on a 15" screen.

 

[Jimbo]

Update:
I gave my son his new laptop after I added an extra 2GB of RAM (for a new total of 4GB) and I swapped out the existing 160GB 5400RPM drive (upgraded for free by Lenovo from 80GB) with a Seagate Momentus 250GB 7200.4 drive and loaded Windows Vista Ultimate (I had an extra license) and Office 2007 Ultimate (thanks again MS Technet), I then had to grab all the Lenono software and drivers and then it was all set.

I gift wrapped it and told him that since times were tight right now, his birthday gift was a new battery for his old laptop. I then went into a bunch of detail about how IBM/Lenovo overpacks their batteries, and how heavy the new battery was. I could tell he was kind of bummed that his birthday present was just a crummy laptop battery, but he acted grateful. He got really happy as he was unboxing it and realized that it was an entirely new laptop!
That part was great.

Anyways, as finally fitted out, the new R500 is astonishing fast and the resolution with a 15.4 inch screen is perfect. If it were any higher, the text would be too small to see, I think.

Finally, I think economically this has been one of the best IT purchases I have ever made. Just for kicks, I went to Lenovo's retail site and configured one just like my son finally received, and including the software bundle now on his new laptop, and the two upgrades I did for less than a $100, that total came out to $2,025 plus tax and shipping. So after all was said and done, I saved about $1,500 on the whole purchase.

Thanks again to everyone that participated and gave me advice!