Where to buy a dead Dell Inspiron 8600?

[Stereodude]

Does anyone have any ideas where I can buy a dead Dell Inspiron 8600? I see two of them on e-bay, and I'm watching them, but I wondered if you clever folk knew of another place I could maybe get one.

The short story is that my laptop had a run in with the ground, and it needs a new LCD, hinges, top and bottom plastic housing, CPU fan, and the magnesium chassis that everything fastens to.

Now, I can get all the parts seperately from e-bay (or other places) and be out ~$300, but no one sells just the magnesium frame. It comes with the mobo and other suff, and they go for ~$400.

I'm not going to put $700 into fixing this notebook, and I really don't like new notebookes with their super crappy high glare screens, so I'd like to return the one I have to operating condition.

Any ideas.

 

[Mercutio]

Here around Chicago, the easiest way to get dead laptops is to hit local computer shows. I HATE computer shows, simply because I don't like paying for the privilege of buying broken, stolen or grey-market merchandise, but for your needs it's probably the right way to go. There's always some joker who has a collection of whatever has been lease-returned in the last three or four years. I don't know that an Inspiron would be something that would be available, but I'm told that broken Thinkpads, Latitudes and Satellites are pretty common.

Don't know where you are in Michigan, but I'd imagine there's probably some kind of show somewhere in the Detroit area every weekend or every other weekend.

 

[Stereodude]

I might have to do that. It looks like people are getting stupid on "dead" 8600's on e-bay. A dead one without a HD went for $450 shipped today. Oddly enough (or maybe not), you can get a working used one for ~$50 more.

 

[Stereodude]

I gave up and bought a new Inspiron E1505. With the 40% coupon today, and the 12% off EPP discount (through work) and a $50 coupon I had, I just couldn't say no.

 

[mubs]

Made a killing, eh? Good for ya.

 

[Stereodude]

Made a killing, eh? Good for ya.

I think I did.

- Inspiron E1505, Intel Core Duoprocessor T2400 (2MB/1.83GHz/667MHz)
- 15.4 Inch UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-screen WSXGA+
- 512MB, DDR2, 533MHz 1 Dimm
- 128MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1300 HyperMemory
- 80GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
- Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
- Integrated 10/100 Network Cardand Modem
- 24X Combo CD-RW/DVD
- Dell Wireless 1390 802.11b/g Mini Card (54Mbps)
- 53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
- 4 Year Limited Warranty Onsite Service
- CompleteCare Accidental DamageProtection 4 Years
- 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Additional Battery

Got it for $979.20 from a regular price of $2109.40

I already have a NEC ND-6750A (8x DVD+/-R/RW) drive to put in it, and I'm going to get an extra 512MB SO-DIMM from Newegg (or someone else) because it's cheaper than Dell's upgrade to 1gig.

 

[Stereodude]

On another note, it looks like I was able to scavenge all the parts I need to fix my 8600 for less than $100 (assuming nothing gets damaged in shipping). I think the soon to be working perfectly screen for $1 has to be my crowning accomplishment.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=6872094857

 

[Stereodude]

On another note, it looks like I was able to scavenge all the parts I need to fix my 8600 for less than $100 (assuming nothing gets damaged in shipping). I think the soon to be working perfectly screen for $1 has to be my crowning accomplishment.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=6872094857

Well, I was able to get it back together and working as good as before it was dropped for $98.15 in parts. The LCD was a bigger pain than I thought it would be. From the description in the auction I thought the display had a bad inverter, but it turned out that it had a bad CCFL tube in the backlight (it would glow red rather than white and would only stay lit for a few minutes). So, I took the LCD Module apart and swapped the working LCD glass from the $1 LCD onto the working backlight from my old LCD Module.

Taking an LCD Module apart and putting it back together without damaging something isn't for the faint of heart, but I've had a bit of experience doing it work already, so I was able to do it without incident.

 

[time]

Taking an LCD Module apart and putting it back together without damaging something isn't for the faint of heart ...

Very, very cool, Stereodude.

 

[Stereodude]

Very, very cool, Stereodude.

I've taken apart quite a few laptop LCD modules at work to use the LCD glass in a custom bezel with our own backlight, so I'm fairly comfortable with having them open. Some of the size of the electronics and the flat cables they're using in them makes them look quite fragile and it can be a little frightening poking around in them.

However, they seem to actually be fairly robust given what we've done to some of them at work and that they still work.

 

[paugie]

Hello Stereodude,
The small NGO I part-time with is looking for a laptop and has a budget of P60,000 which translates to USD1,100. That machine you just bought is fantastic. Is there any way we could get something like that from here (Philippines) in say 2 weeks' time?

For our money what I can get here is a brand new but 2year old model, maybe a 60gigger on 256mb, 1.4ghz mobile P4.

 

[Stereodude]

Hello Stereodude,
The small NGO I part-time with is looking for a laptop and has a budget of P60,000 which translates to USD1,100. That machine you just bought is fantastic. Is there any way we could get something like that from here (Philippines) in say 2 weeks' time?

For our money what I can get here is a brand new but 2year old model, maybe a 60gigger on 256mb, 1.4ghz mobile P4.

Dell US won't ship internationally. However, you could probably find someone on e-bay selling a new E1505 with a similar configuration for similar prices who will ship internationally.

 

[paugie]

hmmmmm. have to do some research then. thanks.

 

[LiamC]

:cheers: Impressive SD