Laptop Advice

[Carl Martin]

As some of you may now from previous posts, I hate my laptop. I've put off a adding much needed memory upgrade which may turn out to be a good thing. Just when I was getting ready for a major upgrade on my desktop, this thing starts acting up. The touch pad is dying and now I've lost my sound. (Very faint; nearly inaudible.) Can this be repaired? (I tried updating the audio driver, but no difference.)

I'm not sure if a three year old machine is worth spending any money on. What do you think?

Carl

Laptop: Toshiba Satellite A75
3.06 Ghz mobile Pentium4
60 Gb HD
512 Mb Ram
ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 graphics
Windows XP Home SP2

[Stormcrow]

Touch pads are known to give out after a few years, or act wonky or unresponsive. The best thing to do with those is to just get a small laptop mouse with a wireless USB receiver. You can probably get one for around $20 or so.
For the sound, have you tried headphones? Could be the speakers in the laptop, which can usually be replaced by stripping them off a similar model and having a go with a soldering iron. If the headphones sound fine, I'd stick with those. If not, you can pick up a cheap USB based sound card for laptops at around 20-40 bucks. Not too bad if you want to keep the laptop in service, considering the price of quick fixes as opposed to professional repair or a new system.

[Carl Martin]

Can't get to my headphones until tomorrow. Will check. Already have a mouse but seldom use it since I almost always use this on my lap while sitting on the couch.

Carl

[Capper]

Theres nothing at all wrong with that notebook as far as a work system or internet browser goes. you might consider adding another 512MB of RAM, but other than that, as long as it runs XP without any issues, you should be fine.

I've been working on a notebook upgrade article, centered around memory and the HDD.....upgrading those two items alone can make for a signifigant performance improvement.

[Carl Martin]

I feel stupid. When I went to plug in the headphones this morning, I discovered a volume dial on the side that I never knew was there! Guess it makes a difference to be wearing glasses in a lighted room...) One of my nieces was using it last week and she must have turned it down.

Anyway, I'm still a bit hesitant about spending the money for a new touchpad and more memory. It only takes a single stick so that will be a bit expensive. With my luck I'll do it and the motherboard will fry!

Thanks.

Carl

[simple_inhibition]

lol nice! my buddy bought a toshiba a while back and couldnt figure out why his wireless didnt work. turns out there was a little switch on the front to enable/disable it.

[Carl Martin]

Yeah, I've bumped that one enough times that I know to check it out right away. When the eyes start getting a bit weak (as happens to those of us over the age of 25), black-on-black can be difficult to see.

Carl

BTW, E6750 @ 3.6ghz? Wow!!!