[ElijahTW]

COMPAQ EVO N800c P4 2GHZ working for parts & or repair - eBay (item 150390714296 end time Nov-27-09 10:10:30 PST)

If I were to add, say 1GB of ram and a 80GB HDD, how much could a laptop like this be sold for? I've been thinking about picking up a few of those and trying to sell them.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

i don't think you'd get any more than 350 tops. Considering you can get a Core2 laptop for 600AUD these days.

 

[Phil]

Around 170 to 200.

The problem is the fees..

I suspect you are using Paypal. If you use paypal, you are charged a final value fee and a Paypal charge.

Now, on high risk items like laptops, Paypal places a 21 day freeze, (yes that's nearly a month) on the sale, UNTIL the buyer leaves you feedback, which ever comes first.

So if you sale those laptops for 200, you'll likely get back 140 in profit.

If you have the other parts already, i'd say go for it though. I sale laptops myself on ebay, what I do to get the money sooner is give free tech support....like answer ALL questions and download files for them if needed, so they will leave feedback on the customer service instead of the item....seriously, no buyer likes a cold seller

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

Phil provides excellent Client-Seller feedback and support

 

[ElijahTW]

Yeah, I have a load of available parts I can get from school. At least 30 working HDDs ranging from 40 - 160GB, and more laptop ram than I can count. (Though they are mostly 512MB sticks, but 2x512 would be fine)

 

[Phil]

Here's my feedback

The top one is a girl I literally had to handhold through a driver issue, but it was worth it.

Since you have the parts, Id go for it man. I usually have to buy the parts myself.

 

[ElijahTW]

I also forgot to mention, that these laptops would likely be sold locally most likely, so paypal/ebay is not as much as an issue.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

The top one is a girl I literally had to handhold through a driver issue, but it was worth it.

Ebay is not a dating site just so you know!

Part 2 of this issue, is that if you happen to purchase one with a faulty screen, how hard are replacements to obtain and what do they cost. So you better be totally sure of the product you are buying before hand. and keep screenshots handy if you need to prove the seller provided misinformation.

 

[Phil]

Craigslist? lol. But you can get more money for a given computer buy selling online from my experience. But you will be making a huge net profit if you are getting the parts for free either way.

Hey i met a hot Asian through Ebay once, I posted it in the bin. Hmm ill think i'll bump it

 

[ElijahTW]

I know a guy who owns a little flea market and he'd probably rent out a little spot to me for no more than $20 a weekend.

And considering I have the funds available (last check I have over $14,000 saved) it's worth a shot I suppose.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

You could look into selling custom pc's or something along those lines.

 

[ElijahTW]

Part 2 of this issue, is that if you happen to purchase one with a faulty screen, how hard are replacements to obtain and what do they cost. So you better be totally sure of the product you are buying before hand. and keep screenshots handy if you need to prove the seller provided misinformation.

The screen shouldn't be an issue since they're required to sell an item that fits the provided description. But they can be very expensive, because I wanted to replace a screen in my old Acer Aspire 5100 and it would have cost over $150.

Offtopic:
I have a HP Compaq 6710b sitting next to me with a cracked screen (and otherwise works fine). I need to look up how much it'd be to replace. It's a otherwise decent system. [email protected], 1GB RAM, Some intel graphics, 80GB HDD...

Back ontopic:
I also have a stack of Dell Optiplex 260s - 280s that were replaced with newer computers at school that I could sell. Most in perfect shape, just needing a OS reinstall, and some need a new PSU. How much could these go for?

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

which P4 chip is in it? says 2.4-2.6 but doesn't mention the revision/core name.

 

[ElijahTW]

I'm honestly not sure, I'm pretty sure they're northwood, but I'll have to check in a bit.

Yep..

 

[Princess Garnet]

I also have a stack of Dell Optiplex 260s - 280s that were replaced with newer computers at school that I could sell. Most in perfect shape, just needing a OS reinstall, and some need a new PSU. How much could these go for?

I'm not sure if you meant only GX260s and GX280s, or if the dash indicated some GX270s, because if it's the latter, make sure you give the motherboards a very good look. I can't remember the date range or service tag range offhand, but there's a range for both that pretty much 100% guaranteed that said GX270 was suspect to failing capacitors. Look it up online and I'm sure you'll find it. Even if it's not readily apparent, look at the ones hidden under the heatsink shroud, because I had a board (GX270 within the date range to fail) that had apparently already failed and had been "fixed" before I got it, and while it did "work", a few minor things (time, not detecting IDE drives once in a Blue moon, etc.) occurred because the few large capacitors under it were bulging a little, at least I suspect they were. Maybe they weren't, but even if it "worked", I'm sure something wonky was going on behind the scenes because those capacitors are probably needed, or they wouldn't be there. Even if there aren't any GX270s, both the GX260 and GX280 have also had the same problems, although a much lesser extent, so those should most likely be safe, but it's worth checking.

Edit: I found the date range in an article about it.

PCs plagued by bad capacitors - CNET News

Here's a forum thread that may prove helpful (shows the service tages that may be affected).

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=450

 

[ElijahTW]

Yes, there is some 270s in there, but only a small percentage of them are. (I have around 40 of them and only 2 or 3 are 270s).

Now that I think about it, I may have a few 240s.

The 240s are Olllddd.. they use SDRAM I believe. Many of them have only 256MB of ram and have 2000 installed.

I wonder why there were no 250s... our school skipped a generation, heh.

 

[Princess Garnet]

That's because there was no GX250. The GX2xx series was the GX200, the GX240, the GX260, the GX270, and the GX280.

The GX240s were really slow for the very reason of using SDRAM (oh, and Williamettes). The Pentium 4 was finally able to sell well to the mass market once OEMs started using SDRAM (RDRAM was expensive) with the 845 chipset, but it was barely faster than top end Pentium IIIs of the time. The Pentium 4 needed alot of bandwidth. It wasn't until DDR came around and Intel dropped RDRAM that the Pentium 4 got a boost.

The GX260s will probably be the better ones (Northwoods, DDR, AGP, etc.), unless the GX270s are fine from the issues I mentioned, then they'll be a bit better, but the differences between it and the GX260 weren't as big, if my memory serves me right. Those two models could be "solid" machines.

The GX280 made the switch to LGA775, PCI Express, and I think DDR2 as well, but the base of the platform was otherwise similar to the GX270 too (I think it had the 915 chipset, so no dual cores at all, just an otherwise similar Pentium 4 platform).

 

[ElijahTW]

The 280s use DDR2 ram.

That's because there was no GX250. The GX2xx series was the GX200, the GX240, the GX260, the GX270, and the GX280.

Odd number scheme. +40, +20, +10, +10.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

you should see their new machine names.