Worth the punt?

Hi guys, I was browsing eBay and found this:

eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace

I wanted to see what everyone thinks. Vague description so I have asked for more info, just wandering whether you guys would think its worth the risk or whether you think it would be a rather expensive and complicated fix, new MB for example.

Tom.

Update: He replied with this:

"you are correct, when i got the machine it worked fine, and i went to upgrade ram, the machine did not boot but gave 4 beebs, the dell code for ram error, with out the ram you get 2 beebs saying ram error, i tryed to put the old ram back in and it did the same, i wiggled the ram a little and it was working, then it stopped working, the screen, gpu, and cpu all work fine, the issue is with the ram slots, the machine will come without hdd and battery and ram, everything else is there and working."

So sounds to me like the ram slot is damaged which would mean a new MB would it not? Bit highly priced without a HDD, battery or any memory.

 

Pass....
Between the ram, hdd, and battery your in for almost 200 eur
Then if the ram slots are dead, that means you need to get a new mobo, another 200-300 eur.

combined with the 295 he wants... well, your in for near a new one.

 

Yeah agreed. I was hoping it could possibly be something simple but he has now admitted to me that he has tried everything with the ram and ram slots to no evail and believes a new MB or a MB fix is the only way.

Cheers for your reply anyway.

Mods, you can archive or delete this thread as you see necessary.

 

no no no... best to leave here. Good info stays relevant for a while

 

i was bidding on this asked him to cancel the bid as he didnt provide all this info in the listing thanks

 

Yeah that's just it. I was tempted by a cheeky bid at asking but unless the seller had absolutely no sense then it was clearly going to be a case of a new MB. after some questions it turned out that is the case.

I'm surprised it's hit the price it has. As said before you're looking at another £400ish on top for everything.

 

"has an unknown fault and will beep when turned on, the beep might be an error saying no ram but i dont have the ddr3 it needs to test any further as i have sold it."
if the message he sent you is correct hes fully aware what the problem is and that line is inaccurate

 

Yeah he is fully aware. It's a rather cheeky listing, he's playing dumb effectively. The conversation went on to me asking whether he has tried other ram, swapping the ram in the slots, and making sure it is correctly seated and if he has then it is clearly either damaged slots or damaged MB. he replied and I quote with: "yeah i have tryed all of that,i concure that either the board needs to be replaced or the ram connectors need to connect more."

Anyway, I'm not here to slate his listing, although he isn't letting on all he knows and I don't condone that, if the buyer is stupid enough to pay over £300 without a little investigative work then they deserve it. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out!

 

well a lot of items slated "spare or repairs" go for a fair bit more than they're worth really... could be repair shops with a bunch of parts to whom repair costs wouldn't stretch as far as us retail bunch...

besides considering the power button plastic is loose and damages, would put me off the most, as it would imply it has been taken apart and reassembled few times, most likely quite poorly by someone who doesn't quite have an idea what they're doing.

lots of these sketchy auctions on ebay, no idea who pays over 2/3 of new item's price on one that is broken and will require nearly as much in parts to get to work...

 

Rule of thumb for broken m11xs

r1 150$ (more for lunar shadow)
r2 150$
r3 200$
(USD)

Thats the top price I pay for these things in not working conition. Most need more work than what the person is leading to, and they know it. But they play dumb... "it wont turn on, not sure whats wrong" they know, they know exactly whats wrong with it.

But at the prices I have listed, if there is some major unfixable issue, you can at least sell off some of the parts to make back the money.