Fixing/upgrading my Dell Inspiron 5050

[Robles4242]

I want to repair my laptop which hot abused by kids. All 3 of my USB ports are loose. After looking online iIsaw they sell the two on a board with a ribbon. I see the have two different part numbers, 50.4IP01.202 and 48.4IP20.011 and I'm not sure which one I use. Also the 3rd USB port on the left, I cannot find that one for sale..


Also my right click mouse button is broken. The left click works perfectly fine. I see I can swap the buttons themselves, or the whole touchpad plate.

Also, I was looking at a RAM upgrade and maybe a processor down the road. I was not sure what's the best thing to upgrade on a laptop. I cannot afford a brand new laptop so for a fraction of the price I can bring mine back to health.

Do you guys know anything or have any suggestions what I should replace or upgrade and where'sthe cheapest place to find them at? Anything to hhelp me identify specificationsof what it has oon and what I want would be great. The website for Dell keeps failing to download the one PDF file. Thank you everyone.

 

[Clayto1332]

Ebay is real good about having odds and ends for laptops that are specific to model (touchpad plate, usb port boards). The memory can be ordered from pretty much anywhere. Newegg will have several different brands for as cheap as you can get.

You aren't going to have a cost effective upgrade for your processor

You might have to take the laptop apart to compare the broken parts with pictures you find of items on sale.

 

[Robles4242]

I fixed my touchpad keys by tearing it apart and putting it back together! I'll order USB board here soon. Is RAM worth it? I'll only need one 4gb stick to max it out.

What else is good to update in a laptop?

 

[Clayto1332]

RAM is a pretty cost effective upgrade. Another good upgrade is an SSD to put your OS, programs and whatever games you have on it. If you have an extra PCIe slot on your laptop motherboard, you can buy an SSD for it and keep your HDD for storage only. Will significantly decrease boot time and the performance of any program running off of your C drive. Even if you don't have an extra slot you can replace your Hard drive with an SSD by using an imaging program like Acronis True Image or Paragon Hard Disk Manager. The only drawback to an SSD is data recovery is more difficult so make sure you have a backup of anything important on it.