Comment by wharvle
2 years ago
Hand-me-down or used Windows laptops that were $300 to begin with [EDIT: when purchased new, I mean] don't tend to last a super long time. Maybe, if you're lucky.
[EDIT] What I've seen break on mine and my wife's, back when I used Windows/"PC" hardware on mobile computers, and these were all lot more than $300, even 15+ years ago:
- Display controller board just... dies, barely outside the very-short warranty period. (I repaired this one)
- Display cable frays at hinge.
- Thermal paste on insufficient-to-begin-with cooling for discrete video chip goes bad after a couple years (discrete video cards in laptops: just a bad idea, they're historically the source of a solid half of the problems on MacBooks, even)
- Something shakes loose inside. Several times. I've self-repaired (open, screw with anything that has a socket or port until it's good) but it's not worth taking it in to a shop on a very, very cheap machine, if you're not comfortable doing this yourself.
- Battery goes bad.
Ah. I buy bespoke machines put together by my business partner, who's into these things. Spend enough so it lasts essentially forever. So I'm not a good measure.