Cheap as chips?
Buttocks.
After about four years of faithful service my laptop's graphics chip is finally giving up the ghost, displaying graphical corruption all over the place, blinking the screen on and off, randomly crashing the computer with Blue Screens Of Death in graphics drivers, and generally being a total pain in the arse.
I just phoned Dell to see how much it would cost me to send an out-of-warranty replacement chip, and once the guy on the phone had done all his checks and searches and things he actually said "Wow..." before telling me the price. Yeah, over $600 for a replacement graphics chip for a four year old machine. Thanks and all, but I could buy a whole new laptop for that price. Still, the guy was nice, and he was fairly surprised too as to why it would cost so much. The part wasn't even new, it was refurbished.
My theory is that they're out of stock and it's actually a full refurbished laptop that they would be cannibalizing for that one part. That would definitely explain the price tag.
So I have two choices; there's a chip currently available on eBay in the UK for £65 which I could try and bid on, or I could just say screw it and buy a new computer. Or I suppose I could do both and at least keep the old machine as a spare. Not sure it's worth the hassle though, I'm currently writing this on an even older machine that has been happily functioning as a spare for years.
This episode prompted a conversation with Kelvin about computers and things, which got especially interesting when I worked-out that the spare computer I'm using right now is about as old as he is. I mentioned floppy disks at one point, saying I hadn't seen or used any in years, my last two computers haven't even had a floppy drive included in them.
Kelvin pointed out that they still use them at his school sometimes "...like USB keys, you know, putting files onto them and reading them off again." Oh bless, that's like saying vinyl records are still used sometimes a bit like CDs. It makes me wonder though, why do we bother with the 3.5" floppy disk as a universal icon for "Save" any more? They've been out of general use for years, I bet half the kids using computers nowadays don't even know what relevance the icon has.
After about four years of faithful service my laptop's graphics chip is finally giving up the ghost, displaying graphical corruption all over the place, blinking the screen on and off, randomly crashing the computer with Blue Screens Of Death in graphics drivers, and generally being a total pain in the arse.
I just phoned Dell to see how much it would cost me to send an out-of-warranty replacement chip, and once the guy on the phone had done all his checks and searches and things he actually said "Wow..." before telling me the price. Yeah, over $600 for a replacement graphics chip for a four year old machine. Thanks and all, but I could buy a whole new laptop for that price. Still, the guy was nice, and he was fairly surprised too as to why it would cost so much. The part wasn't even new, it was refurbished.
My theory is that they're out of stock and it's actually a full refurbished laptop that they would be cannibalizing for that one part. That would definitely explain the price tag.
So I have two choices; there's a chip currently available on eBay in the UK for £65 which I could try and bid on, or I could just say screw it and buy a new computer. Or I suppose I could do both and at least keep the old machine as a spare. Not sure it's worth the hassle though, I'm currently writing this on an even older machine that has been happily functioning as a spare for years.
This episode prompted a conversation with Kelvin about computers and things, which got especially interesting when I worked-out that the spare computer I'm using right now is about as old as he is. I mentioned floppy disks at one point, saying I hadn't seen or used any in years, my last two computers haven't even had a floppy drive included in them.
Kelvin pointed out that they still use them at his school sometimes "...like USB keys, you know, putting files onto them and reading them off again." Oh bless, that's like saying vinyl records are still used sometimes a bit like CDs. It makes me wonder though, why do we bother with the 3.5" floppy disk as a universal icon for "Save" any more? They've been out of general use for years, I bet half the kids using computers nowadays don't even know what relevance the icon has.