The Graybandit

I like rebuilding laptops. The first one I actually rebuilt was a Dell XPS-M170. When I was in highschool, my youth group leader (a fellow nerd and local IT manager) had gotten one brand-spanking-new for playing WoW when he traveled to Canada to visit his girlfriend. I remember being blown away in 2005, and deciding then and there that someday I'd own one. In 2008 or so, I found a dead one for sale for parts on eBay, and found some parts for sale, and eventually a video card. I followed some video guides on YouTube at the office after-hours one summer, and stripped it down to the motherboard, then built it back up with the new parts. It was a nerve-wracking experience, but also quite rewarding to learn the ins and outs of laptop repair. Over the years I ended up working on dozens of laptops (for friends, relatives, and myself), but something about rebuilding the gaming dinosaurs of recent history intrigued me. In 2014 or so, I got to do my second big rebuild: an XPS M1710. I&