I meant my laptop is physically about to fall apart - the screen doesn't stand up on its own any more, and needs to be propped up with some hefty tomes from my undergraduate days. I'm not able to upgrade it, really, either. I stuck an extra Gig of RAM in it, but the HD interface is an IDE, and there really aren't many non-SATA SSDs available.

Might look at a refurb as you suggest - thanks for the heads-up!