Old Laptop Needs Pressure, New Needs a Model Number

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Peanut Butter

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 17, 2008
Messages
364
Another topic that will mention that it's just another topic of another.

So apparently my 5-6 year old Fujitsu N3510 is starting to show it's age or something where the display would show all these lines after getting past the BIOS startup. I thought something blew up in the video card area so I handed it to my pop to open up and take a look. He figured out the only way the display works properly is to hold down on the heatsink on the GPU. So he figures he should just keep mine and fix it at work on Monday since he's using an even older Dell at home and I should look for another. I don't normally check within the laptop section of things so I've been outdated on common hardware and stuff. So here ya go :)

Some specs I'm lookin for:
- 14.1"-15.4" display
- Preferably Intel
- Not sure on what Intel GMA's (since it seems to be in every laptop I've looked at) are like nowadays and their comparison to nvidia mobile and ati mobile. I do plan on real seldom/light gaming while away from desktop (CS:S, TF2, L4D, doesn't have to be beautiful, I was okay with L4D at 1280 on an ati mobility x300 on mainly low settings but should be playable)
- cd/dvd drive
- the usual wireless, common ports, doesn't need card reader
- No real budget for now (but my checking account is asking me to not go over 900-1000)

That's all I could think of at the moment.

Shoot me some ideas folks and thanks in advance!
 
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If you want to play CS:S,TF2 or even L4D on low settings, avoid Intel integrated graphics. Terrible...was never made so it could play games.

Asus provides a fairly generous warranty (1 year accidental, 2 year general, with 30 days "perfect" screen warranty so to speak). Surprisingly, BB actually sells fairly competitive Asus laptops in comparison with offerings of Asus from newegg for the same $.

Well, there are many choices. For the $, I think the following is pretty good in terms of performance but lackluster in terms of looks. Display is 15.6" though but only $899.99 w/ 9800M and fits in with your needs.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9173262&st=asus&type=product&id=1218044029168

If you're really tight on a budget,
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...=asus&lp=7&type=product&cp=1&id=1218044029788 will do.
 
Thanks for suggestion. Both look pretty good on paper. Really liking the X83VM X2. The other may be too much overkill on the gaming side since I don't game that much with the laptop.

A shame Asus must get all tacky with their laptops :(
 
Well, there's always notebookreview.com for some more insight.

And Asus has more "normal" looking models but these two just happened to be cheaper with better or relatively similar performance for the $. Look into Dells as well although they're not necessarily the quickest but some coupons on the net could save you some serious cash.

I'm sure you can find a better deal if you do a search.
 
Been lookin at a few more Asus' and came across

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220506

and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220517

My brother has also told me about Dell Latitudes, may only 4500MHD but I've used some at the university library here and they seem alright for what they are. The touchpad is crazy small, though.

I may have set the bar pretty high for the graphics card. My old Fujitsu had an ati x300 mobility and I believe it's probably the lowest supported chip as of right now. I was able to play L4D on there with low settings (some medium) at some resolution (may or may not have been 1280x800) and I was actually pleased with the framerate and gameplay. So i guess i'll edit my OP to lower the bar :cool:
 
Do you plan on being portable at all? Those Asus laptops are great and all, but they have terrible battery life. Also, they're made out of cheap plastic. After owning two Thinkpads, I just think "yuck" when I pick up an Asus. It's so flimsy, it kinda scares me.

That's just me, though.
 
Yeah I plan on taking it around. I don't expect a normal battery to last me more than 3 hours, however. I carry around the charger regardless. (The Latitudes they let students check out have up to 6 hours battery life and I'll still check out a charger just in case). I've held some Asus laptops in person and they felt alright I guess. But coming from a Fujitsu that's almost made out of questionable plastic, I guess I'm not missing anything :p. My brother's Lenovo does feel solid, I admit. The trackpads on the Thinkpads are too small for my liking, and I can never get used to the trackpoint.
 
Peanut Butter said:
Another topic that will mention that it's just another topic of another.

So apparently my 5-6 year old Fujitsu N3510 is starting to show it's age or something where the display would show all these lines after getting past the BIOS startup. I thought something blew up in the video card area so I handed it to my pop to open up and take a look. He figured out the only way the display works properly is to hold down on the heatsink on the GPU. So he figures he should just keep mine and fix it at work on Monday since he's using an even older Dell at home and I should look for another. I don't normally check within the laptop section of things so I've been outdated on common hardware and stuff. So here ya go :)

Some specs I'm lookin for:
- 14.1"-15.4" display
- Preferably Intel
- Not sure on what Intel GMA's (since it seems to be in every laptop I've looked at) are like nowadays and their comparison to nvidia mobile and ati mobile. I do plan on real seldom/light gaming while away from desktop (CS:S, TF2, L4D, doesn't have to be beautiful, I was okay with L4D at 1280 on an ati mobility x300 on mainly low settings but should be playable)
- cd/dvd drive
- the usual wireless, common ports, doesn't need card reader
- No real budget for now (but my checking account is asking me to not go over 900-1000)

That's all I could think of at the moment.

Shoot me some ideas folks and thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Your laptop, does it have a Radeon 7500? This is a common issue on IBM laptops with the Radeon 7500 and the reason for it is because the GPU wasn't soldered to the board properly and so eventually desolders itself from the mainboard. What you basically need to do to this laptop is resolder the BGA GPU, there are some guides online for this. Is this the only reason why you need a new laptop? I think it'd be worth fixing if you could do it. Radeon 7500 runs hot enough to desolder itself so I wouldn't be surprised if this is an issue on other makes of systems.
 
It had an radeon x300. My dad took it to work to do some work on it and if it ends up fixing it which I think he already may have, he wanted to keep it to replaces his way older Dell. I was real happy with the laptop and wasn't planning on replacing it for at least another year and half.
 
^^

Are you sure your Fujitsu is made of questionable plastic or magnesium alloy?....I have one and it's magnesium alloy but feels slightly different than that of my old Lenovo.

If "feel" and quality matters, I'd like to also suggest looking at Lenovo (got to find coupons/sales and such) although many of them use Intel's integrated graphics though.
 
Dev1ant said:
^^

Are you sure your Fujitsu is made of questionable plastic or magnesium alloy?....I have one and it's magnesium alloy but feels slightly different than that of my old Lenovo.

If "feel" and quality matters, I'd like to also suggest looking at Lenovo (got to find coupons/sales and such) although many of them use Intel's integrated graphics though.
Click to expand...

Opps..When I meant "questionable", I was refering to it being cheap plastic. To me, however, it felt decent and never worried about it falling apart on me.

I do like the construction of Lenovos, but the only model I would get are the Thinkpads, and most of them have only integrated graphics unless you get a better model that's out of my budget even after discounts. The trackpad is really small for my liking and I've never been able to get used to my friend's trackpoint on her Lenovo tablet either.
 
Guess I'll give it a bump since I've kinda decided on a few finalists. Turns out my dad was not able to completely revive the laptop and the display will continue to crap out even after remounting the sink with fresh thermal pads and such. I suppose it will just sit on the project shelf for now.

Anyways, I somehow ended up in a fork in the road between a netbook and a notebook. Kinda wanna know what you guys think about them before I make any decisions.

The Asus N10J: Is this thing really able to play games at its native resolution well? I've watched videos and stuff and still feel like it's hard to believe. If it handles Source games well (CS:S, TF2, L4D) on decent/low settings then I may be sold. If I did pick it up, I would try and get the base N10J and upgrade the ram instead of apparently dishing out another $80-100 for another gb that I already have laying around. On another note, I'm sure this thing can handle all the other stuff I do on the go ie: word processing, Excel, web browsing, some video, usual student stuff.

Asus F81SE X1: Tax kinda killed the value for me otherwise I probably would have bit on it already. I've search everywhere and haven't been able to find a review for this thing. On paper, it looks like a decent laptop with everything I originally was looking for and maybe a little bit more.

What makes it hard is the price gap in between the two choices being so small. Is the difference large enough to save and just get the netbook which would more than fulfill my needs as a student? Or is the difference small enough to just step it up and get the actual laptop?

Sorry if this appears long (Quick Reply mode). Thanks
 
Maybe you could take your laptop to an electronics specialist (one who can handle surface mounted devices with lots of pins) and have him resolder the GPU. I personally would not do it not because it's a bad idea, but because I have this thing with fixing things myself and that happens to be one on my to-do list. Just ask the guy if he is capable of soldering a 400 pin BGA chip onto a motherboard and how much experience he has with electronics before having him actually touch your machine. I know it COULD be expensive to do ($20-$100?) but I think it'd be definitely worth it. You defintely need to know how to disassemble the machine in order to get the mobo separate so that the guy can work on the GPU resoldering, otherwise the majority of the money spent on the machine will be on the labor of disassembling it which is pretty mindless once you know how to do it.


BTW, THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION I FORGOT TO ASK YOU IS THIS:
Did you try hooking up your laptop to a desktop monitor and see if that corruption issue still comes up? If it still does, it's definitely related to the gpu. One thing you can do is nearly completely disassemble the laptop, just leave the major parts, and or get it so that the heatsink for the GPU is exposed, push down on the heatsink and then try booting and see if that fixes that issue, again another way of seeing if it's really the GPU not being soldered down. People have also found flexing the mobo, pushing on the case (which goes against the mobo) has also "fixed" (temporarily) the issues, another way of proving it's the gpu not being properly soldered to the board.

Also remember, he does not need to remove the GPU, all he needs to do is get it hot enough to resolder itself back to the board again, will probably use a heat gun that puts general heat in the direction of the gpu so that the pins are remelted again, making a firm contact.

BLEH
 
One of the first things we did was hook it up to my monitor to see and it was still showing problems. He took it to his work to work on it and I remember he resoldered it and remounted the heatsink with new thermal pads. It didn't really fix the issue but only delayed it a little bit until you actually booted into Windows where it would then blue screen (video drivers crashing) again. I'll ask him again later when I get a chance to know what he actually did.
 
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