My beloved Vaio SZ640 from 2007 died on me yesterday. Display started going nuts a few days ago and yesterday it started up with strange lines on the screen, then didn't start but had some beeps, and then didn't start with no beeps at all. So I opened it all up, cleaned vents, applied new thermal compounds on the video and intel chip and it still doesn't start. Fan doesn't spin which leads me to think that the motherboard is dead (I had installed new fan about a year ago).
Long story short, can I simply buy an identical (or almost identical model) from ebay and simply drop in the hard drive to get back to business? I have tons of business files and software on the hard drive and it will take me days to set up a new machine. Besides I am out of the authorization limits with some of the software and might have to buy new. I am assuming that I can't drop in the hard drive into just any other laptop and expect it work, but if I get the identical laptop, it should work right? Please help before I waste a couple of hundred bucks on this. What would you do?
Thanks in advance.
Long story short, can I simply buy an identical (or almost identical model) from ebay and simply drop in the hard drive to get back to business? I have tons of business files and software on the hard drive and it will take me days to set up a new machine. Besides I am out of the authorization limits with some of the software and might have to buy new. I am assuming that I can't drop in the hard drive into just any other laptop and expect it work, but if I get the identical laptop, it should work right? Please help before I waste a couple of hundred bucks on this. What would you do?
Thanks in advance.