$524 vs. $38

The official notebook of davemackey.com for several years has been my trusty Compaq Presario 700 series. Apparently, a common problem of this computer is cracks developing in the lid near the hinge mounts. Just before Christmas, the unit finally gave and the lid snapped in two at one of the hinges. I took the unit to an authorized Compaq service facility, where the quote to fix came back to a nifty total of $524 - which would entail replacing the entire lid, including the LCD screen. That's almost the cost of a new notebook, and I wasn't prepared to pay that cost.

Fortunately, I decided to scour around eBay for the lid bezel, and I found one at a reasonable price - $30. I gleefully clicked the Buy It Now button and the part arrived a few days ago. It only took a few minutes to get the old lid off and the new lid on; the only thing was I didn't have a Torx bit small enough (I think it's a T7) so I had to use a small jeweler's screwdriver. Plus shipping, the whole repair job cost me $38.

If there's one thing I learned from my father, who was really handy with tools and knew his way around a car forward and backwards, it was that if you have just a little know-how, you can save yourself big bucks if you do little fixes yourself. Leave the big jobs to the experts, but do what you can yourself. My little notebook is doing fine and I'm using it right now to post this, in fact.