I got my two new (old) HP Compaq PCs today and, wouldn’t you know it, there were already problems. This is good, mind you. The whole idea of me buying $40 computers online is in hopes that they don’t work 100% and I’ll get some experience fixing them up.
The first computer booted up fine- except for the fact that it didn’t have a hard drive. I wasn’t given a manual, so I had to look up the PDF online. Low and behold the system required PATA hard drives. Sadly, all I had were IDE drives so I had to ordr a pair for the two HPs. The second computer proved to be a bit of a problem.
While the system powered on I didn’t get any output to the monitor. I’m guessing the onboard video card was bad. This leaves me with the option of trying a PCI video card in hopes that the problem just stems from a bad onboard video processor, but I’m a bit worried as to what that means for the motherboard. If an onboard component is bad, could that be a sign that the rest of the motherboard is FUBAR? If that’s the case, I’ve decided to buy another of the $40 HPs.
At this point, I really can’t do anything else besides wait for the hard drives to get here. I also have a friend who’s willing to give me some of his old parts that could be used to fix these PCs up.
A Journey Into The Tech Field 