Taking a look at this tomorrow PM. Hope it meets with your OK's

[yy4me]

I have spent the day trying to find a new computer for me that I felt I would be comfortable with and took a look at Craigslist. Passed lots but found this new listing. The seller is a professional in the business of repairing and selling computer systems. He took this from a customer who bought some fancy system from him. Says he cleaned it up to "like New" condition. To all of you who were involved and questioned what had happened with me the last few days, I'm sure you would be interested in knowing what he said. I went through what was wrong with my machine and what the tech did.

His first comment was that the tech didn't know what he was doing. He also questioned the DVD and CD drives going at once, the need to reinstall the operating system(why, what did he do?) and also the strange SP3 un-install. I am posting the CL listing for your perusal. I'd go see it tonight but the seller is going to the Paul McCartney concert. Lucky Duck!

He is guaranteeing the machine.
The listing as follows:

This is a perfectly working HP Pavilion 700 Desktop PC. It has been professionally cleaned and updated.
Specs:
Pentium IV 2.53 Ghz CPU
768 MB Ram, upgradeable to 2 GB
80 GB Hard Drive
Optical Drives: DVD & CD Burner and CD Rom
NVidia Gforce AGP Graphic Card
6 USB 2.0 plugs. 2 in front, 4 in rear
3 Firewire plugs, 1 in front, 2 in rear
Built in Nic
Modem
Parallel Port
Built in Audio
Windows XP Home SP3 fully upgraded
Avira Antivirus
Microsoft Office 2003

Of course I don't know what half of the stuff is but he and I chatted about my needs and lack of knowledge. He told me it is not much different from what I have and that I will not find stuff that I will mess up because I don't know what it is.


Forgot to add: $195.00

[canetoad]

1. Seems like a good deal yy4me

Some may say a little more RAM would be useful, but for net surfing, email, the odd letter on MS Word, it should do you just fine.

Do you have much stuff on the old computer that you need to keep/move over to the new one?

[yy4me]

2. Very little to be moved to new computer. Just a few Docs that are

still important, some pictures and not much else that I would need. I'd just put this old thing in the attic in case I ever had to retrieve something. I'm actually afraid to try and get this stuff onto a CD. The system is so messed up. All I can do is try.

I only have 512 MB RAM now so this one should not be a problem at all. I hope this works out. It will save me a big headache plus $$$. Wish the fellow wasn't going out tonight, I'd go right over to see it. He said he would give me a show and tell before I buy it just so I am pleased. That with his guarantee makes me feel better about buying a used machine.

[Why Syzygy]

4. Be sure to ask

if you would be getting the original installation disks for XP and Office.

[yy4me]

5. Good point, I'll add it to my list. I have my installation disk for XP.

for this machine. Transferable?

As for office, that's another story. This current model came with Word Perfect and I had to have Word installed. Have no disk for that. I'll try and charm him into at least a 30 day guarantee, with a little of the "can I call you if I need help" pleading. We'll see what happens tomorrow when I meet him.

[yy4me]

10. Morning, In answer to you question, the computer tech did not

have the installation disks for either Office or XP. He did tell me that if something ever happened, he would reinstall everything for me. He has quite an office set up. Not fancy but with more computer stuff than Good Buy. He also had the biggest monitor I have ever seen. I had to step back to see it as he was taking me through the paces. I know this computer is newer than mine but he was not sure of the exact age. Mine is 6 years old so I guess this is 4 or 5. Looks like new. Has things that I don't even know what they are.

He told me to copy my pictures and Doc's onto a flash drive in order to put them on my new computer. He also suggested I install Spybot S&D plus Malwarebytes, explaining the difference between active and passive protection.

Told me what to buy if I feel I need more memory. He took me through the computer and except for the extra programs that I don't have on this one, it is pretty much the same. Maybe I won't mess the new one up.

I was impressed with this man. He said he would not guarantee the machine except against obvious things that might be wrong. I laughed when he told me how people(novices like me) mess things up and then blame it on the machine or the seller made promises that were not true. Sounds logical.

I will not connect things until tomorrow, Staples is having a sale on the Flash Drives-or is it Target? I'll recheck that.


BTW, what is "built in Nic"? I asked and forget what he told me, even thought I took notes.

There it is in a nutshell. I feel comfortable in buying this machine, I'll see what happens tomorrow and keep you all posted.

[Why Syzygy]

11. Target has 2GB flash drives for about $12.00

Did you take a look at that emachine that pokerfan posted below? It is only $35 more! Brand new!
With disks! XP SP2 (I would upgrade to SP3)! (I see it has the same specs as the one you looked at for $300 at Walmart.)

Is that guy available for hire on machines other than the ones he sells?

A built in NIC is the network card. It should be pretty standard. btw, I was looking for an updated video driver a couple of days ago, and found out that Gateway has been "sold" and bankruptcies are involved, yada. Bottom line, I can't get the customized support from Gateway's site any more, and can't even recommend them x( .

[yy4me]

12. I looked at many new machines and did not want to stray from

something with which I was familiar.

I am comfortable with this purchase and If it messes up, it will be my fault, I'm sure. If it happens again, I will buy a new one, no questions asked(except to you all.)

The Tech works for both private accounts and for businesses, will work on site or you can bring him your machine.

www.totalpcsupport.net.

Whatever it means, I don't know but his card says CompTIA A+² Certified. I imagine that must be some sort of a credential.

His business is repair and installation but he sells a few good machines that he feels are not to be trashed. That makes me feel good for folks like me who really have to watch their dollars and adds nothing to landfill.

Perhaps if you give him a call or e-mail him, he will have a suggestion for you. Very professional.

I am off to Target this AM instead of waiting. Must do some outside work first. Thompsons Waterseal for my stairs. Way past due.

[Why Syzygy]

13. He sounds like a good man, yy4me....

Best wishes with it! Hopefully in him, you have a new tech that will do you right.

[yy4me]

15. Went to Target, bought Flash drive, had fun with that. I'm now on

new machine. Had a good time w/flash drive, deleted about a zillion pictures before installing on new machine. Seemed to go well except for my Doc's. I can reproduce them or hook up my old machine and try again. They should have been on the flash too but I didn't see them. My first time doing that so maybe I goofed. Nothing urgent that I can't reproduce. I have to start filling in e-mail addresses and favorites now. What a good way to clean house. Can't wait to get the old computer up to the attic.

To all of you, thanks. I appreciate all the help and hope this all goes well.

Quick note. The former owner of this machine must have been color blind. The desktop is lime green and the text for already read posts is pink. Going to fix that right now. Eyesore!

[canetoad]

16. Funny you should say that about the colours

as both my boss and one of the young guys in the office are colour-impaired and I've had some interesting talks with them about the difference in the way they see things.

With the flash drive, it is important to remove it properly, otherwise you may lose data. When you're done copying stuff to it, look at the extreme right side of your taskbar, where the clock is. That area is called the system tray. You should see an icon that has a green top, grey bottom and is slightly on an angle. Hover your mouse over it and you will see the message 'Safely remove hardware'.

Click once on this icon and it will show a list of drives. Select which drive letter is your Flash USB drive and click on it. This will stop any activity, then you can pull out the Flash drive.

[Why Syzygy]

17. I never knew that ..

re: flash drive removal. I always just plug it in and unplug it.
Do you do that for all USB devices?

[canetoad]

18. I do NOW lol

Last year, I'd got up early, worked for a couple of hours on an A1 size presentation in InDesign, packed the files and fonts and was transferring it to my stick to take to the office.

Without thinking, I pulled the stick out and lost the copy. I also lost the original from my computer. I cried tears of blood as it was meant to be in that day.

Losing the original could have been a glitch, but as I use the Adobe creative suite of programs, they always seem to have various processes running that you are not aware of. I've just forced myself to get into the habit of making sure it's ok to unplug the usb drive. And yep, since it became a habit, I do it for all usb stuff - ya sorta get used to it.

[Why Syzygy]

19. Glad to know that!

I've never had that extreme type of issue. There has been a time or two when it seemed my files didn't get copied.

http://www.technixupdate.com/how-to-safely-remove-your-usb-drive-when-safely-remove-hardware-icon-disappear-from-taskbar-in-win-xp/

[pokerfan]

3. Is he offering any kind of warranty term, 30 days at least?

Features look pretty standard for that era of machine. USB 1.0 (much slower than 2.0 and one of the things that drove me to upgrade).

What is the hard drive interface? I suspect some form of EIDE. Most every drive today is SATA which is also much faster and the other thing that drove me to upgrade.

The price seems about right for that era machine. I assume no monitor for that price.

[yy4me]

6. He stated he would guarantee the machine. Does not have a

monitor. I don't need one, this HP that I have now works just fine. I imagine his computer is 5 or 6 years old. Don't know. That really does not matter to me as long as he has updated it and cleaned up things so I will have a clean slate. Boy, I'm not going to touch a thing. As to the specs you mentioned, did I even mention to you that I know nothing about what any of that means?

This old timer can do a lot of things but understanding computers is not one of them.

What do you all think about the AntiVirus he has on the machine. BTW, he said he does not use AVG any longer.

[pokerfan]

7. What specifically does that mean?

Can you return it for any problem at any date?

The low end desktop market is pretty amazing these days. You can find brand new machines starting for not much more than $195 that will have faster hard drives, more memory, faster USB, faster graphics, etc. Just bigger and faster everything. And a manufacturer's warranty.

http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=EL1600-01

(Five years ago I would have never recommended an emachine but they've cleaned up their act as of late.)

I have no objects to the Avira Antivirus. It's a solid free antivirus program. AVG is getting a bit bloated these days. Avast is also good. I've used all three.

Don't get me wrong. You won't find a new machine for $195. I'm just thinking that even at $195 you might be overpaying a little for what you're getting. What's amazing is that six years ago when that machine was new, it probaby sold for $1200 at least. I would, at the very least negotiate some more memory. 768MB is not really adequate these days.

[Duer 157099]

8. Sounds good, and sounds like he knows what he's talking about

Find out if you can use the RAM that you have in your current machine, if it's compatible. If not, RAM is always showing up on CL anyway.

If your current machine only has one hard drive, use it as the secondary drive (slave) in the new system, so you can access your files etc. Since it's not the operating system, it's weird flaws shouldn't affect the new system, BUT do a thorough scan using the new operating system and whatever virus/spyware tools it has to make sure that 2nd drive is safe. Keep it as extra storage, as the slave.

If it were me, I'd also try to negotiate the price down too. Personally, I wouldn't pay more than $100 for that machine, but then I'm used to mostly just getting them for free and fixing them myself

If he won't budge on the price, at least ask him to max out the RAM for you at 2gigs.

imho
Good luck! Let us know how it goes, I think this is a good thing.

[yy4me]

9. He has an informative web site and I just went over it. I think I am

OK here. As to the $$$, if it does the job, it is half of the cost of a low end new computer. For me that part is very important. I just spent $$$ to fix(so to speak) this clunker so by the time it is done, I could have bought a new one but who knew?

http://www.totalpcsupport.net/

[Warpy]

14. It's a honey for the money

and sounds like it was up and running before someone traded it in for a techie game machine. It should certainly do whatever a normal user wants it to.

You might want to upgrade the RAM at some point, but it will work with what it has.

There is a slight risk with any used machine that there might be something on the HD that nobody would ever want the police to find. It's a very slight risk, though.

I'd grab it if I were you. Just get a 30 day waranty.