Dell Laptop MOBO replacement.

[hockey man]

I have a friend who's MOBO is dead on his Inspiron 6000. It is so old :eek: ! Anyway. . .if I replace the MOBO do you think that I will need a new OS copy?

[mjc]

Well since this is a laptop and the only place to get a compatible motherboard is going to be from the same make/model...probably not. Dell and most of the other manufacturers use the same image for all the machine of a particular model (some even use a more generic image...) so the install is going to 'work'. The only problem will be whether or not there have been enough hardware changes to trigger a 'reactivation' if it is running XP.

if it does require reactivation...it shouldn't be a problem.

[Paul Komski]

A thought. A basic modern dell laptop (http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&m_29=S1YOSMI&oc=bqcwi1s&s=bsd) has come down so much in price that obtaining and installing a replacement mobo could work out little cheaper unless you count labour as nothing and can get the part cheap off eBay or similar. No potential problems with reactivation either.

How to disassemble the Inspiron 6000 laptop video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcPiZPfL1UM). Less than 2 minutes! ;) ;)

[jlreich]

No problems with windows. If your windows installation is intact you won't even have to reinstall. It will boot right up with no issues. :)

If for some reason windows got hosed it will reinstall no problems. You won't even have to activate it.

[hockey man]

Sweet- thank for the help. I am trying to talk him into not fixing it because a "new" MOBO on Ebay is about $190 with shipping. Plus he got the really basic 6000 - with the celeron and 256 megs of RAM!!!!! AGGGGGGGGGGG I hate cheap get-ups! So I don't think it's worth fixing.

Anyway. . .the bottom dollar is huge for him as he is a college student and money is really hard for him to come by. I'll see what he says.

Thanks again everyone!

[Lostatsea3]

uh... for $190 you could buy that whole laptop. That is crap.... 256 megs? wtf...

[hockey man]

I know, I know . . .can you tell he knows nothing about PCs? Lol, you guys are all going to love this. . .he works at BB! He isn't in the pc dept, but he thinks he knows techy stuff. . . .lol I just laugh at him!