I brought a Dell Inspiron 7520, an 8-9 year old laptop with a new 1TB SSD, on repair because the keyboard was freezing sometimes and the wifi connection was loosing, after the laptop went to sleep. After more than a week of laptop just sitting there (I understand if they had a lot of work, but a heads up would have been nice), they called me and I came to pick it up. They said the problem is the mother board, plus I should get new wifi card. Considering the new mother board costs more than a good second hand laptop or even the same price as an average new laptop, they suggested to just buy another laptop and this one can go to garbage.
After bringing it home, it was working fine for few times and then after installing one music program on it, it started to crash and I couldn't access Windows anymore. I took it there again and after taking out the SSD and trying to connect it to another computer, they concluded the SSD works fine but there was nothing more they could do with the laptop. That visit was for free and they cleaned the SSD so that I can use it on another laptop that I have at home- Lenovo.
So I took it home, took the SSD and put it in Lenovo and installed Win10 on it and all worked ok.
When I wanted to see if I could put the HD from Lenovo to Dell and maybe to install Linux Lite, I realised that it is working fine and with a help from my friend who is a computer expert (I had a long video call with him where he was guiding me what to do with BIOS and the installation), we managed to put Win10 on my Dell, with the HD from Lenovo.
Conclusion: I didn't have to do anything with the hard discs, there was only a problem with the BIOS, which started to occur only after I have taken home my Dell because they did a reinstallation, which screwed up my laptop.
They also asked if I had UEFI, which I didn't know what was that at the time, so the guy checked and said I do not have it.
After video with my friend, I discovered that I did have UEFI, so I don't understand how he didn't find it.
But the question remains about the freezing of my keyboard. Probably I do need new wifi card, but time will tell.
According to my friend, the mother board was not the issue.
Maybe I will do a review update after a month if I see any changes on the Dell. read more
