Finally Replaced My HP Laptop

The time had come for me to replace my trusty HP laptop. I had received the dv6000t (see picture) about five years ago from work. At the time it was close to the top of the line in laptops. It was running a 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 1 GB of DDR2 RAM and an 80 GB HDD. The laptop was screaming fast at the time and was a total departure from my other work issued laptop.

Over the years it had served me well both in the home and on the road. In fact, it was the last Windows based machine in my house since The Wife replaced her aged desktop with an Apple iMac.

Two years ago I upgraded the RAM to 2 GB of DDR2, the maximum it could hold. The performance increased and it was still serving me well. My phone was synchronized to it along with my original iTunes library. I was so happy!

One day last year I noticed a distinct pink hue to the LCD screen upon start up. It would last a few minutes and eventually give way to the normal color. I researched the issue and found that the issue happens when the CCFL bulb begins to reach end of life.

Then the unthinkable happened. Somehow a nasty computer Ebola virus struck. I was able to knock it out but severely killed a number of registry items. The issue was so severe I had to reinstall the XP OS after transferring all my pertinent files to an external drive. After a day or two of futzing with the reinstall the HP was resurrected. Again I was happy, pink colored LCD or not.

This summer two issues struck almost simultaneously. The sound card died on the machine without warning. Nothing I did in terms of drivers, downloads or canned air could solve the problem. Again I researched the issue and found this was another common occurrence as a laptop approaches end of life. Also, the laptop was having issues starting up when I pushed the power button. It would take three attempts, each more forceful than the other, to get the computer to realize I wanted to power on. More research revealed this was close to the last straw.

The Boss and another co-worker had the same laptops, all of which had these same issues and died horrible deaths within two years of ownership. It was time to find a replacement.

I looked and found an HP Pavilion dm4. It is smaller than the dv6000t which had a 15.4 inch screen. However, the dm4 is far superior in a number of ways. It is running Windows 7 which is nearly a direct copy of Apple OSX 10.6. The difference between the two is almost disappearing. It also has a 500 GB HDD, an Intel i5 2.27 GHz processor and 4 GB of DDR3 RAM. It is 4.4 pounds and light as a feather. It even looks like a MacBook from a distance.

It took a while to do a full file transfer over to the new machine from the dv6000t using my external HDD but now all pertinent information is in its new home. It was a sad day when I packed up my dv6000t for storage. It will become my backup laptop in the event something happens to the new one. Like an old horse, the dv6000t has been put out to pasture. I did not have the heart to send it to the glue factory so it will spend the rest of its days in a cyber field grazing on silicon grass.

I'm off to go find myself some lunch and enjoy the brief respite from the gloomy weather. Later...