Computer woes.

NiftyDigits

brenda50 wrote: »

I got the specs on the laptop:



I don't think that I should take a chance on it anyway - even if it was £50.

It's a four year old laptop....with no warranty. He sounds like a used car salesman.

Contrary to what he would have you believe, that machine has never met with a Dual Core Intel Processor with a base frequency of 2.4GHz.
The best it offered was :

Intel® Pentium® Processor T4500
(1M Cache, 2.30 GHz, 800 MHz FSB)

introduced at the beginning of 2010. Perhaps he is suggesting that it had a three year warranty.

Strider590

The damaged (if exists) to the soundcard was most likely done by plugging in something incorrectly or a damaged sound cable/device.

There's nothing else that could cause damage without damaging other parts in the machine.

Remove the sound card, it probably has on board sound that can be used instead.

brenda50

Thanks so much you guys for the information you are providing. You are really saving me from a fleecing. I told the guy that if he is thinking of selling his laptop, which I have decided against, that he is overpricing it and maybe the seller misled him (ha!). At least he knows that I do some research before accepting what he tells me.

Strider I don't think that he original soundcard was damaged as he took it away and is using it - otherwise he would have said it was damaged. It was black in some areas though. There were other areas of black when i saw inside the processor.

So the soundcard now in has no damage, it is just that he thinks that the motherboard cpu and power cable may have damage as well.

I did at one point try to plug headphones into the front so maybe this caused the damage?

Strider590

Ok, so this is difficult.... I'm struggling to understand what/where the damage is/was and what exactly it did look like. You know it'd be a simple job to unplug, take the side cover off and take a few photos.

brenda50

Hi Strider

There is no damage to be seen, just bits of black here and there. The main blackening was around the soundcard which of course is now gone. Taking everything apart is no easy task due to the way it is set up with a table in front of the processor. I am also not so great in downloading photos and am nearly bed bound sick. So it would be good if I did not need to do that.

NiftyDigits

If the CPU was damaged, the thing wouldn't work.
If he thinks there is a problem, why didn't he change the power supply?
He's quick enough to remove components. Did you ask him to change the soundcard? Was it not working for you?

Does this contraption have a brand name and model number?

brenda50

Apparently, it was after he got home and had a think about it that he decided that he had no idea how it is still working. It was recently that he said that there could be more damage not obvious and advised me to get another system asap. Then he said he had the lappie.

The soundcard was fine for me. He wrote one day and asked if he could change it as it was more suitable for his gaming than the one he had. He said that the one I had in was above my needs and a lesser one would use less power with the fan. I have had it for a year.

The processor was self built by him I think, he usually builds his own systems. He did a swap for the HP laptop he says as he wanted another screen for his music work.

NiftyDigits

brenda50 wrote: »

Apparently, it was after he got home and had a think about it that he decided that he had no idea how it is still working. It was recently that he said that there could be more damage not obvious and advised me to get another system asap. Then he said he had the lappie.

The soundcard was fine for me. He wrote one day and asked if he could change it as it was more suitable for his gaming than the one he had. He said that the one I had in was above my needs and a lesser one would use less power with the fan. I have had it for a year.

The processor was self built by him I think, he usually builds his own systems. He did a swap for the HP laptop he says as he wanted another screen for his music work.

Is he related to you??
Let's see the basic spec.
Click here to download CCleaner. Install and then open the program. Your machine's specification will be written across the top of the interface.
Post it here.

brenda50

Yep you are right, he is a relative.

The specs are:

MS Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SPI Dual Core AMD Opteron Processor 165 3.0GB RAM NVIDIA Quadro NUS 290.

NiftyDigits

brenda50 wrote: »

Yep you are right, he is a relative.

The specs are:

MS Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SPI Dual Core AMD Opteron Processor 165 3.0GB RAM NVIDIA Quadro NUS 290.

Not a terrible spec, if a little old. It's looks as if he pulled parts from an seven to eight year old business machine, if he claims to have built it himself.
I'm sure that he didn't pay for a licence for Windows 7 Ultimate.
You might want to ask him quite how he has activated Windows..... or more subtly, tell him that you cannot find the product key sticker for Windows 7.
Overall, the spec is fine for general usage if utilised efficiently.
Has he made a backup of your important data in the case of failure?