Mysterious computer fault

So I sold my old computer on trade me, $1 reserve, got $37 for it. She was up from Tauranga. Gave me $40. It was 7 years old. AMD Athlon XP 2400, and 512MB RAM.

Before sale computer was unused for 6 months stored in a safe/dry location inside. Less than a week before pick up I hooked it up to test, and going just fine. The following summarises a text message discussion about the computer a day after pick-up:

Her: It loads but comes up with a message saying self diagnosis pc display setting

Me: Adjust your monitor settings

Her (later the same day): Computer not working

Me: Any message?

Her: No message it goes to loading page then turns off

Me: Strange last time it did not turn off you only got the message about the monitor

Her: The message comes up then it turns off


Pretty annoying to have to deal with hassles like this. The computer worked fine when it was tested a few days before handover. Six months to that in normal use it would occasionally freeze up on the web from recollection and have to be crashed, but startup was normally reliable. Odd that her last two messages dont add up, ie she says there is no message then she says there is. Also, in the initial contact in the morning when i told her to adjust the monitor settings we exchanged several texts then a phone conversation during which time she said the computer was going it was not turning itself off.

Always demonstrate before you hand it over... which isn't much help...

Could be the screen isn't going to sleep when the computer turns off.

It may have been damaged while travelling.

She may just be an idiot.

This is why I seldom sell old computer stuff.

Personally I strongly suspect she is bullshitting, but i'm probably going to have to give her the benefit of the doubt.

... and give a live demo next time

That is my contribution to this thread. You're welcome

No that's great, no a really good contribution.

She's taken it to a computer guy now who wants to "wipe everything off" and start again (I did give her the microsoft office discs so that at least can be reloaded). Cost is $70. For a $40 computer.

Question is, seeing as i deleted all my files before handover, is this really going to make much difference?

It depends which files you deleted - hopefully you just deleted your user account not the windows folder :p

They will probably sift through your deleted-but-not-written over files and see what fetishes they can blackmail/extort you with.

For someone else I would just do a ram check then reinstall windows over the top and see if it fixes it. For myself I would reinstall from scratch.

Ask her to take a picture of the screen and pxt or email it to you from another computer.

Nah i didnt delete anything dumb, plus it started fine after the deletions as well

Probably user error. Not sure what's she's expecting for $40 though.

Tell her "sorry, I'm not tech support".

Her sisters boyfriend reinstalled everything is going ok now

heh, he is now responsible for any and all problems that computer develops through user or hardware fault...

A lucky break.