Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Computer question...

For all you computer techies out there- I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop, and in taking the CPU out for cleaning, I managed to break off one of the pins, and of course, it won't boot up anymore. The original was a 2.4 Pentium 4, so is it worth it to move up to a 3.0 or 3.2 P4 while I'm spending the money, or just try to get by with a Celeron D (much cheaper)? Also, does anyone know of any laptop repair places that will fix motherboards? One of the RAM DIMMs has been out of comission for awhile now, and I'll like to get it to work. Additionally, I know it has an intergraded video card, is there any way to upgrade that w/o replacing the entire motherboard? Thanks!

Edit: The CPU wasn't sitting in properly, and after reseating it, it works and boots ok. Now what should I do about the broken pin. Anyone have a diagram of what it is?

Needs more CI.

you cannot move up to 3.0ghz or 3.2, nor can you move to and "d" type processor. The board in that ocmputer probably doesn't support dual core chips, and the speed is probably locked not much higher than 2.4. Maybe 2.6 or 2.8...

Matt,
The ram slot on your mobo is probably unfixable. By unfixable I mean cheaper to get a new board then to fix.

My guess is 2.8 is the highest it will go (non-hyperthreading / non-dualcore).

Your video card is not upgradeable at all, sorry.

I looked around for motherboard prices online and this place seems to have the specs listed for the board. Of course you'd want to check yours and see if its the same number.

http://www.laptopsetc.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=349

I would say your best route would be to backup all the data and just a new machine and sell the old one on ebay as is. Replacement laptop motherboards are so expensive it generally isn't worth it (unless you have an extended warranty or something). You might be able to find the same model on eBay with a good board (and say a bad LCD) and swap the board, if you are feeling like a real go getter. But my advice is to just ditch it, oh and ditch Dell too

Ok cool, I bid on a few cheap 2.4 P4s on ebay, and a broken laptop. I don't really have the money to buy a whole new one, and it isn't too important the DIMM is broken. I'll just see what happens with the broken pin.