[dba-Tech] 911 -- Laptop issues, cannibalization, and one Tower issue

[Arthur Fuller]

I recently bought a used Dell 7130 laptop with 8 GB of RAM and a 250 GB
hard disk and Win 10 and Office pre-installed and licensed.

Since it was used, the guarantee was for 30 days, and unfortunately medical
issues intervened, and I never got around to seriously using it during the
30 days. I did start it up and everything worked, but I didn't run it long
enough to see the real problem.

After a few minutes' use, something weird happens. The mouse no longer
behaves, and perhaps also the keyboard. The mouse cursor jumps wildly
across the screen, with no relationship to the way I move my finger on the
built-in mousepad. The keyboard occasionally goes on vacation and does not
reply to input.

Have you ever seen this kind of behaviour? Do you have any idea what may be
wrong, and what sort of financial damage a fix might entail?

On the same day I bought this one, I also bought another laptop, also used;
an HP ProBook with a 250GB SSD in place of a hard disk. Love the speed!

These purchases were prompted by the death of my previous laptop, a Dell
Inspiron. I contacted Dell and reported the error codes (at bootup, 7
beeps, pause, 7 beeps, pause, etc.). The Dell technician told me that the
motherboard and perhaps also CPU were fried; this occurred during a
neighbourhood-wide power outage, from which my surge protectors apparently
failed to protect me. I'm assuming that the organs from said dead beast
could be harvested. Those organs include a 1TB hard disk and 8GB of RAM.

1. Both new-to-me laptops contain 4GB of RAM. Is it possible to harvest the
8GB of RAM from the dead laptop and replace the RAM in the newish laptop
with these chips?
2. Previously I asked whether I might harvest the dead laptop's hard disk
and, perhaps using an external case and some sort of connector, employ it
for use on one of the newish laptops. I need a reminder as to the steps
involved in accomplishing this.
3. My ancient HP tower, which has proven the most trustworthy of all (call
her the Maytag of computers!) has two problems. The first is noise. I think
this is due to a noisy fan. Is it simple to purchase a quiet fan and
replace the existing one? Second, its DVD burner/player appears not to
work, although Computer/Manage reports that the device is working properly.
That system won't boot from a CD or DVD, and beyond that point, it is
unaware that I've inserted a disk in either format. That's easy;
replacement CD/DVDs are cheap. But I'm wondering why Windows thinks the
device reports OK and then is unable to use it.

All this said, assuming I can rescue the newish Dell laptop from its errant
ways with the mousepad and keyboard, I must say that I love the new setup:
two laptops, a Nexus tablet and My Ever Faithful Wife (the ancient but
trustworthy HP tower). Given such a setup, who needs Virtual Machines? I
have an expansive desk and everything fits comfortably.

(I have still not quite got my head around how to set up my printers to use
wi-fi rather than cables, but since I so seldom print anything, that's a
problem to be solved another month.)

Another problem awaiting a solution is combining WIn 10 boxes with Win 7
boxes, in such a way as to create shared stuff. But that can wait, as well.
Meanwhile I can use what us old-timers used to call SneakerNet, except that
since everything sits on a single desk, no sneakers are involved, just USB
thumb drives. But of course the ultimate goal is that all the boxes can see
all the documents and other significant data. In practice, the only devices
I ever take with me are either the tablet or perhaps one of the laptops,
though the latter is rare.

Finally, I know that I could research all of these questions and ultimately
discover some solutions, but my mind has been elsewhere; specifically, my
current focus is on a return to my roots as a Philosophy student, and most
of my waking hours of late have been devoted to the arguments between
Searle and Dennett about the nature of consciousness, leaving little time
to invest in hardware issues. This is neither to say nor expect that any of
you techxperts care about Searle vs. Dennett; I just wish to explain why
I'm sidetracked.

The most puzzling problem presented is the first -- the wonky behaviour of
the mouse and keyboard on the Dell 7130. Its screen is small but it can
double as a tablet, and reviving it would be cool.

Suggestions to any or all these problems are invited, with gratitude in
advance.

-- Arthur the Incompetent, son of Uther the Drunkard, Lord over all this
living-room/office, and cuckcolded by Lancelot. Alack and alas! When all
else fails, my trusty HP Millenium tower never fails (although she's a tad
noisy),