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Need some help valuating an old laptop

hunterjwizzard

hunterjwizzard

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2020
Messages
2,772
Hi folks,

I'm cleaning up a Dell Inspirion 600m Series laptop for a friend who plans to sell it. I need some help working out what the unit should be worth(both base and +ePay markup) as well as figuring out which of the various broken parts really need to be replaced.

-the power supply is bad, fortunately I can get a new one for cheap
-the keyboard is missing the "E" key. One can still press down the nubbin underneath. Is this important enough to warrant replacing the keyboard before sale?
-the laptop only had 512mb RAM to begin with and one stick is dead. Will adding additional RAM improve the resale value enough to warrant the cost?

Service tag is GKYWS71

CPU is a 1.6ghz Pentium M, and a Radeon 9000 graphics card.

Any thoughts?
 
I received two for free some time ago, only one PSU. Gave one away because someone needed the keyboard, his had a French layout, and the memory. There is IMHO not enough interest for these type of laptops, they run XP for max. Worth: whatever one will offer you.
My personal interest: my Elnec LabProg+ universal programmer needs an hardware ECP LPT port. PCMIA or USB devices won't work. I have been given (!) two other brands with LPT ports in the mean time.
 
Nothing special about that laptop. Dell made millions of Pentium M laptops under various models, and plenty are still around. You didn't mention HD size or if one is included.

I would say with complete keyboard, power brick, and 1GB (I think max is 2GB) of RAM $20, more if it looked like new and battery held a charge. Plenty of sold units on eBay that went for best offer, so their final prices are not actual prices.

Like any other computer hold onto it another 20 years and if it still works you will get $100+
 
No PSU, an incomplete keyboard and the minimum ram, without a working install I wouldn't value it more than $40 + shipping.

You didn't mention HD size or if one is included.
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Knock the price down to $20 if the stupid HDD caddy adapter is missing.

If you want more than $100 you have to address all three issues. If you don't want to reload the hard drive, list it booting a live CD to prove that the ram, processor, video, optical drive and LCD are all good. As ruud said though there's no value in most mid-2000's laptops. I could barely sell them for $200 (including an okay battery!) and make my time back in 2010 and it still applies today.
 
The time you spend repairing it, listing it, packing it, and shipping it will be worth more than the laptop. If you can find someone local to give you $20 as-is I would take it.
 
NeXT said:
No PSU, an incomplete keyboard and the minimum ram, without a working install I wouldn't value it more than $40 + shipping.
Click to expand...

Plasma said:
The time you spend repairing it, listing it, packing it, and shipping it will be worth more than the laptop. If you can find someone local to give you $20 as-is I would take it.
Click to expand...

If I were being brutally honest I would say the FMV of this machine is zero dollars. Make that negative dollars if your community doesn't have free electronics recycling.

Before you say I'm being mean let me clarify one thing: from what I can tell the Inspiron 600m is the same laptop as the "business class" Latitude D600; I still have a D600 lying around somewhere (no idea if it still works at this point) and I very much like the D600, but... lets face it, they're not good for anything anymore. They're ooold, but not old enough to run Windows 9x well, and their CPU and video card, while *pretty decent* for a 2003 laptop, are way too anemic for XP gaming, so there's very little "retro value" here. And for practical use these fell off the end of the usability bathtub curve almost a decade ago. IE, there's no more mainstream support for 32 bit OSes and web browsers and they've been too slow for the modern internet (or even watching a Youtube video) since well before Covid. My D600 was my "networking troubleshooting dingus" for a long time but it lost that job to a Core2Duo Thinkpad T61 I found in a garbage heap for free.(*)

(* In one way the T61 feels like a bit of a downgrade, in that it has a 1280x800 screen instead of the sharp, if somewhat dim and washed out, 1400x1050 of the D600. But at least it runs modern software, if slowly.)

The one selling point it might have for someone is it does have legacy serial and parallel ports, but that's really about it. Editorially the thing I'll add about these laptops is mechanically they weren't... fantastic. The D600 had a notorious bug with the Bluetooth module failing over time because the case flexed enough the connector would break off the motherboard. (My D600 has the module ripped out in order to "resolve" the issue.) The keyboards for all Dells of that era are iffy, and the Inspiron spec models are usually worse than the Latitude ones. (I also noticed that the Inspiron ones didn't have the little trackpoint dingus the Latitudes have, and personally I *love* the trackpoint dingus, it's the only good thing about those keyboards.) The only other saving grace *could* be the screen; if it's the 1400x1050 it's at least a little bit of a shame to throw it in the garbage, but if it's the 1024x768 you should slam dunk that thing. Hard.
 
T61's with 15.4" screens came in 1680x1050 (have that) or 1080P (wish I had that), the 1280x 800 one's suck. ThinkPads' seem to hold onto some value more than Dells do, probably because they are easy to work on (and nicer keyboards).

One thing I hate about even newer dells is having a big LCD panel stuck at 1280x800. The only saving grace is you can do 1024x768 retro gaming without losing too much of the screen. SVGA was king for a very long time.
 
Unknown_K said:
T61's with 15.4" screens came in 1680x1050 (have that) or 1080P (wish I had that), the 1280x 800 one's suck. ThinkPads' seem to hold onto some value more than Dells do, probably because they are easy to work on (and nicer keyboards).
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The same trash pile that had the T61 in it also had a T43 with the same 1400x1050 4x3 as the D600, and for a brief period I tried to make that the new utility machine because of just how nice it was. It had a Pentium M at 2.something ghz instead of the 1.6 of the D600, twice as much RAM, and the build quality of those machines is just heartbreakingly beautiful... but it was just too painfully clear that 32 bit-edness is too big of an albatross to have hanging around your neck anymore.

They had a 1440x900 screen option for the 14" T61s (that's what I have), I really wish it at least had that instead of the 1280. (The last gen PowerBook G4s and first-gen MacBook Pros had 1440 screens, and those extra 160 pixels make a real difference.)
 
hunterjwizzard said:
Service tag is GKYWS71
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… fwiw, I pasted that into Dell’s service tag lookup and it said it belonged to a Inspiron 6000, not a 600m. Which is it? Not that it changes much, they’re both doorstops. The specs you said (1.6ghz + Radeon 9000) sound like a 600m, maybe Dell reuses service tags?
 
Eudimorphodon said:
The same trash pile that had the T61 in it also had a T43 with the same 1400x1050 4x3 as the D600, and for a brief period I tried to make that the new utility machine because of just how nice it was. It had a Pentium M at 2.something ghz instead of the 1.6 of the D600, twice as much RAM, and the build quality of those machines is just heartbreakingly beautiful... but it was just too painfully clear that 32 bit-edness is too big of an albatross to have hanging around your neck anymore.

They had a 1440x900 screen option for the 14" T61s (that's what I have), I really wish it at least had that instead of the 1280. (The last gen PowerBook G4s and first-gen MacBook Pros had 1440 screens, and those extra 160 pixels make a real difference.)
Click to expand...
I have a bunch of laptops for utility work (browsing the web looking for info or files when I am fixing something). Windows 10 and 16GB of RAM is useful for that so that leaves out a bunch of older gear.

I like the T43's have a few including a T43P which is 1600x1200. Also have some A2x/A3x P models that are 1600x1200. Inspiron 8000's also had the 1600x1200 screens. Sometimes I think they are too high resolution for 15" screens and I think back on some Gateway laptops with huge 15" 1280x1024 screens which were nice.

I have too many laptops. :)
 
Unknown_K said:
I have a bunch of laptops for utility work (browsing the web looking for info or files when I am fixing something).
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My idea of “utility work” is doing tcpdumps, communicating with serial management ports, acting as temporary NetBoot servers, whatever… but even in that role having a web browser that works well enough to download a firmware bundle or something is still a thing you want. A Core2Duo laptop barely clears that bar, a Pentium M doesn’t anymore and hasn’t for a long while. Sad but true.
 
Eudimorphodon said:
… fwiw, I pasted that into Dell’s service tag lookup and it said it belonged to a Inspiron 6000, not a 600m. Which is it? Not that it changes much, they’re both doorstops. The specs you said (1.6ghz + Radeon 9000) sound like a 600m, maybe Dell reuses service tags?
Click to expand...
Yeah its a 600m. When said friend described the computer I thought it was a T43. This is disappointing.
 
hunterjwizzard said:
Yeah its a 600m. When said friend described the computer I thought it was a T43. This is disappointing.
Click to expand...

To be fair, even if it was a T43 it wouldn’t be usable for much, it would just be a lot prettier/sturdier.

Again, for real, it kind of pains me to slag on the Dell Latitude D600/Inspiron 600m, they were *amazing* when they came out; they were thinner, ran cooler than, and could run rings around those horrible Pentium 4 based laptops, and they also completely embarrassed Apple PowerBook G4s. (The Pentium M, in its upcoming Super-Saiyan evolution to the Core Duo, is the reason Apple dumped PowerPC.) They just didn’t age well.
 
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