I used to take the battery out of my old toshiba and it lasted at least 4 yrs before I broke the laptop. I'd store it at slightly less than full charge when removed from the computer. New toshiba I replaced that broken laptop with the instructions say leave the battery inplace all the time as it only charges when its capacity is something like below 94% of charge. Its really rare that I see its charging light glowing. It's a year and a half old and still always shows and acts like it has full capacity as when new. I don't often use it on battery but when I do I try to let it run untill it warns me its low. The battery placement in the new laptop is located in a very cool to touch section of the laptop so heat certainly shouldn't be an issue degrading it by leaving it plugged in & the lith-ion type batteries do not self discharge and leak down as quickly as some types will. eBay usually has some new replacements at auction that if you inquire, usually they will have a date code that's about a year old but certainly less moneys.

If this laptop were a patient in the hospital, there would be a discrete little sign up saying DNR (Do Not Resuscitate). Ha ha, I love it. I agree, spending money on either is a total waste. However if you wish to play around that is different. Look at both machines to see if the 25 digit COA is readable. If so you can use any XP CD to reinstall Windows but DO NOT use the COA that comes with the CD, use the one on the computer itself because that is tied to the motherboard. This is totally legal. Obviously you could use the COA from the CD but that would be a waste of a licence, or it might be dedicated to another computer already. Before doing this I strongly suggest you get the drivers from Dell for the motherboard, LAN, sound etcetera

zep et. al.: Sorry I didn't get back sooner but with my limited experience, I was a little leary of doing the uninstall of network adapter. However I finally realized that at worst it would only mess up the laptop and not the other devices that are connected and working on the secured network. So: I just uninstalled and rebooted. The adapter did reinstall but I am still not getting a proper connection although things have slightly changed. The secured network got connected, but did not even ask for the security password and simply went to 'validating identity' and simply hung. It didn't even time out. I checked firefox to see if it was expecting a password there, as was the initial case to get connected to the Guest Network (where I am again now), but it couldn't find the server. You may recall, that previously the issue was that the secured net would ask for the password, but find it unacceptable and give 'limited or no connectivity. Is there a way to force the network to ask for the password?? Any other ideas? Eventually, I will probably find a way to get a knowledgeable person out to my house where they could diagnose this. FYI, I am creating another post about security updates that may tangentially be connected to this thread. I apparently successfully installed sp3 but 'security update' keeps wanting to install it AGAIN! I was worried I might not be able to shut down to reload the adapter, but I was able to cancel the update.

It's looking like a hardware problem then. The usual suspects are bad cable connection (internal), bad power inverter or bad lcd screen. ( in order of expense and somewhat in order of likelihood). It's very possible with the white screen that it's just a cable connection problem. It could also be a bad motherboard, and usually you connect an external monitor to rule that out but in this case you can't do that. Usually when this kind of thing happens, the screen goes black, but you can see the screen using a flashlight. But you're saying it goes from black to white. This still indicates one of the above four suspected hardware issues. Some links : LCD screen turned completely white http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop-lcd-screen-turned-white/ Fixing Common Laptop Problems (middle of page) http://www.pbcomp.com.au/laptop-notebook-troubleshoot.html There is an online service manual available if you want to have a couple of beers and start taking it apart - check those cable connections - but it sounds like you're not comfortable with that. That's where the beers come in. ;-)