Is an old laptop worth fixing?

Depends whats wrong with it far more than how old it is!!

Slow is usually the easy one. Had a laptop in from Baulkham Hills that was getting painfully slow and the owner decided to fix it rather than buy another one. I supplied and fitted a 500GB SSD and moved all the data across … $380 and it starts so much quicker now!! On most older laptops a new drive does more than anything else You could spend money on.

Then theres the ones that just stop turning on. One came in from Castle Hill that died for no apparent reason, the owner thought the board was fried and a new laptop was the only way out. I traced it to a shorted power rail and replaced the regulator on the board, $395 and it was working perfectly again!! A whole new board would have cost hundreds more …. most of the time it doesnt need to happen.

Where I’d stop and think is a laptop over 6 years old with a repair that costs more than half of a comparable new one. At that point Your money is usually better spent on a new machine … unless its a screen, battery or keyboard. Those wear out and are worth replacing at almost any age!!

The other catch with a really old laptop is Windows … support for Windows 10 ended in October 2025 and plenty of laptops from before about 2018 cant run Windows 11, so fixing the hardware wont fix that!!

If theres photos or work files on it You need, get them off first and decide after … the files are often worth more than the laptop!!

My starting prices are all on one page if you want a rough idea first. There’s also a short list of things to do before you drop a computer off, worth a read before bringing anything in.