Computer Failure! New One Coming

My NEW Dell Vostro 3500
in Lucerne RED!!!

Well, my trusty old Dell Vostro laptop finally gave out after four years. I could replace the motherboard, but the cost is about $175-$200 for the motherboard, assuming free labor. I've got my Baby, the MSI Wind U230 to tide me over, but while it's great for its intended purpose, coffee shop writing, it's hard on my  eyes for other things. So it's time to move up.

Only Dell offers the anti-glare screen I must have in a wide variety of models. I also really want a backlit keyboard for durability and the visibility- important for my screwball eyes. But finding my right combo at a good price was hard. I'm having to downgrade on hard drive size, but I work off back-up drives a lot anyway. I could replace it with my new 500 gb drive from the defunct machine, but there's that pesky warranty problem. And, silly thing that I am sometimes, I am actually paying extra for RED. But  you know how I love color.

If anyone I actually know who is close by wants a free motherboardless laptop, it's theirs. I loved this little workhorse and put a lot of money into upgrading and otherwise spoiling it so I'd love to see it get a new home. Possibly even talk son into doing an install for the nice person who will buy the motherboard. And no I will not guarantee anything. Not labor, not parts, not even whether this will continue to operate. It might not even be the motherboard that's at fault- could be the CPU or something else, even though it's most likely that. I'm simply not taking that responsibility.

I'll keep the new 500 gb hard drive as a backup drive, and re-install the original 120 gb, which had relatively little use. There's 4 gb of DDR2 memory, two batteries- a 9 cell in good shape and a 6 cell almost new. A new AC power cord and adapter, even a new keyboard and touchpad because I'm so hard on those. An anti-glare screen, of course. And Windows 7, recently installed, but I won't need. No Word, WordPerfect, Photoshop or that kind of stuff.