dwivian | Quandry....

I have an older laptop computer, business grade, that I use at home. It gets kinda hot to use (I have a lapboard to protect me from the heat and to make sure it gets airflow), but otherwise is pretty okay. Good graphics adapter, good sound, reasonable disk, lots of battery. I bought extra memory, and integrated WiFi card, and a second battery for the media bay to be sure it can run for a while.

So, of course, the backlight and inverter have flaked on me. To replace the video elements (I'm not about to take this thing apart myself) will be $1000, about.

To replace the computer outright with something that will last another five years or so (I got this computer via a previous employer, and have since worked in banking, commercial construction, consulting, and at my current job. Yah, I buy stuff to last a while...), I will have to spend $2300 or so. This gets a solid computer, but is over double the cost of the repair.

I'm in a quandry....

What would YOU do?

(If I get a new computer, this one will be a head-less microserver for our pictures, to be stored in the basement with our router, so it's not about to go to waste either way....)