Too good to be true? Yeah, probably...

"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
02/22/2017 at 19:17 • Filed to: None

Broken Toshiba Core i7 4700MQ notebook with 1TB HD, 8GB RAM. Doesn’t work, either a bad internal power supply or dead motherboard. Only $60. Listing has been up since 22 January.

Considering the prices of memory, hard drives and CPUs, shouldn’t someone have snapped this up by now if just for the parts?

DISCUSSION (17)

Rico > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
02/22/2017 at 19:24

Could be a motherboard issue which complicates things. Toshiba laptops have always been crap. I’d rather spend $60 on two 8ths.

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
02/22/2017 at 19:28

I would assume that the CPU is soldered on so there’s no real chance of salvaging that. Hard drives aren’t really worth anything anymore. DDR3 is now obsolete and most systems with SODIMM slots have a base spec of 8gb. I would say you maybe have $60 in salvageable parts there.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > TheTurbochargedSquirrel
02/22/2017 at 19:35

I was recently given a Toshiba i3 notebook with a bad display and was thinking of doing a CPU upgrade like I did to my Acer. Lots of people have done it, but apparently Toshiba does something funky with the BIOS that shuts down the system after 30 minutes if it’s not equipped with the CPU it shipped with, and this tells me that the CPU can be swapped.

The CPU alone is selling for about $150 on eBay. DDR3 may be older, but those of us using older computers still need it, and it hasn’t really dropped in price at the retail level. And for those of us that haven’t gone completely SSD, hard drives, especially 1TB and above, are still handy and not free (unless you’re tearing apart $5 DVRs like I do). This has to be $250-$280 worth of components, so why is he selling it so cheap and why hasn’t it sold in a month? These are the things that raise red flags.

facw > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
02/22/2017 at 19:42

Because a broken laptop is useless to most people. The RAM (if not soldered on) and the HD are about the only easily usable components. I don’t know how easy that CPU replacement you mention is, but socketed laptop CPUs are very rare, and I don’t think very many people are interested in desoldering a CPU (especially one with as dense contacts as modern ones have) and then trying to solder it to something else.

$60 feels like a fair price for the RAM the HD together, and the rest is basically scrap unless you have some very specific skills and interests. New laptops are pretty cheap. And paying $150 for a used laptop CPU seems a bit nuts (and for this machine, keep in mind you have no way of knowing if it is actually still functional).

404 - User No Longer Available > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
02/22/2017 at 20:13

Intel hasn’t made socketed laptop processor for quite a few years actually, let alone they never made a socketed i3, nor an i7.

Patrick Nichols > Rico
02/22/2017 at 20:19

Fuck weed is cheap these days

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > 404 - User No Longer Available
02/22/2017 at 20:21

Well, the CPU in this particular computer uses a rather unusual socket (FCPGA946), so using it outside of another notebook of some sort would be a challenge and not worth the expense; microATX boards exist, but I can’t find prices without requesting a quote.

I don’t know what they’re putting in notebooks built in the last two or three years, but I have upgraded various Lenovo Edge machines from i3 to i5 and i7 processors as well as replacing the Pentium in my Acer with an i5. Yes, these machines are a few years old, but to say that there haven’t been socketed i3, i5 or i7 laptop processors is inaccurate based on my own first-hand experience.

Nibby > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
02/22/2017 at 20:46

4700MQ is socketed so yes you can sell that

Nibby > TheTurbochargedSquirrel
02/22/2017 at 20:47

4700MQ is socketed

Nibby > 404 - User No Longer Available
02/22/2017 at 20:47

lies

4700MQ is socketed

404 - User No Longer Available > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
02/22/2017 at 20:50

Actually this is the last one, by the time it hit 5xxx (Broadwell), there are no more M/MQ socketed parts.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > 404 - User No Longer Available
02/22/2017 at 20:57

Given how thin computers are getting today, for better or for worse, I can understand why they stopped making socketed notebook CPUs and RAM. It’s kind of a sad day for those of us that like to get under the hood and tweak and upgrade, but I realize that I am in the minority. Desktops still have a few more years with separate CPUs, RAM and expansion cards, but I fear that those days are numbered as well.

404 - User No Longer Available > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
02/22/2017 at 21:01

I kinda doubt it for desktops, as there’s little need. Many have predicted the death of the socket on desktops all the way back in 2012, citing Skylake or Broadwell would have been the move, but we’re now at Kaby Lake and we still have socketed parts.

Besides, there are new smaller form factors WITH socketed processors:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3021836/hardware/the-first-pc-hardware-based-on-intels-itty-bitty-new-mini-stx-motherboards-appear.html

If they really wanted to get rid of sockets, they wouldn’t have bothered with this.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
02/22/2017 at 21:25

I’m on my widescreen Toshiba Satellite now, it has an i7, had 8GB of ram but I threw some more in the empty slots, from my older Toshiba. I always buy these, they never die.

TheBimmerGuyWhoNowOwnsAChevy > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
02/22/2017 at 22:35

I was about to say, 8gb desktop ram is usually about $50. The hdd is probably physical so at 1tb that’s another $50, I can’t say anything about the cpu, mini cpus that are used in laptops, well I know almost nothing other than they usually aren’t any good. Also an i7 isn’t always better than an i5, fun fact for those that don’t know.

TheBimmerGuyWhoNowOwnsAChevy > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
02/22/2017 at 22:38

Doubt it, people like designers, animators, and gamers will keep upgradable desktops alive for almost ever, also companies like AMD and Nvidia wouldn’t let desktops die, it’s literally their business.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
02/23/2017 at 15:39

What notebooks is that for? I have a Qosmio that I upgraded from a low end i5 to a mid range i7 (didn’t need the full power of the i7 but the 7 wasn’t much more than the 5 I wanted so what the hell) and it works perfectly. I game on it pretty hard.