Farewell Inspiron 8200

It's time to say goodbye to an old friend.

I ordered my Dell Inspiron 8200 in Jan 2003 (from Dell's Refurb Outlet) before a business trip to the UK and Netherlands. Since then, it's been a constant workhorse for graphics, video and my company's digital signage software where I worked on customer projects & taught training classes (sometimes both at the same time).

I've taken it on countless trips including cross country to Exton,PA, Japan, New Zealand and Chile. It's taken it's fair share of beatings, and has a few missing plastic bits to show for it.

Recently it started behaving strange. First there were sudden crashes and lockups. After checking every wiring connection inside and double-checking the CPU heat sink, I took out one of the RAM chips which seemed to settle things down. Then about 2 weeks later it showed it was running on battery even when plugged in. A day later... dead. No POST. Nothing.

I read a bunch of user forums and found similar issues, but no consistent causes. Some claim theirs was defective out of the box, some said a few weeks. I think after almost 3 years of constant use my reason is just wear and tear.

I'll still keep trying to figure it out, but not at the expense of mobile computing. I've already placed an order for a new (not refurbished) Inspiron 9300. I'll post an update on that after it arrives in the next couple weeks.

R.I.P. Inspiron 8200