What do i look for?

Biz.Kid09

Biz.Kid09

Biz.Kid09

Soldato
Joined
14 Oct 2009
Posts
9,657
Location
UK
Hi guys,
Just bought a laptop off the auction site and i am going to pick it up soon.
Apart from cosmetics what do i look for? any quick tests i can stick on a usb and run to check it 'mechanically'?
Thanks guys
 
Prime to check full load temps and for stability - but probably need to a quick test.

CPU-Z & GPU-Z to confirm specs and the cpu speed does increase when stressed.
 
If it boots and doesn't make any horrible grinding noises it'll probably be alright. The battery may be worthless, but that's difficult to check quickly. If prime doesn't make it switch off then it probably isn't full of dust.

It doesn't have a nvidia gpu built in does it?
 
Screens are usually the most expensive to replace on cheap laptops followed by motherboards, disk and memory is pretty cheap. Check keyboard for operability. Get an ubuntu live disk on CD and USB, practise with it on your PC. Type the alphabet and 0-9 in open office or windows notepad. Play a music CD, copy it to disk.

Just a few tests for normal usage
 
Does it have windows 7? If it does then you can use this to check the status of the battery.

It will produce a report that lets you know the designed capacity of the battery and how much of that designed capacity it is managing to charge to now.

My 5 year old laptop only charges to about 25% of its designed capacity :D
 
Last edited:
Redmint said:
Could run LinX to stress test it to check it doesn't overheat I suppose.
Click to expand...
Did a quick google and Linx doesn't show anything?
iDroid84 said:
How much for? What are the specs? Check the cosmetics. If it's slow e.t.c. Personally I would never use eBay for buying hardware or software from. People bang on loads of stolen stuff on it.
Click to expand...
Not a lot, AMD NEO 1.6ghz,2gb ram,320gb hdd and ATI X1250.
I have bought a few times off there and never had problems :)
RJC said:
Prime to check full load temps and for stability - but probably need to a quick test.

CPU-Z & GPU-Z to confirm specs and the cpu speed does increase when stressed.
Click to expand...
Ok, prime can run off a usb yeh?
CPU-Z etc run off usb?
JonJ678 said:
If it boots and doesn't make any horrible grinding noises it'll probably be alright. The battery may be worthless, but that's difficult to check quickly. If prime doesn't make it switch off then it probably isn't full of dust.

It doesn't have a nvidia gpu built in does it?
Click to expand...
Ok,
Nah...ATI.
eddyc said:
Does it have windows 7? If it does then you can use this to check the status of the battery.

It will produce a report that lets you know the designed capacity of the battery and how much of that designed capacity it is managing to charge to now.
Click to expand...
Thanks mate, i have just wrote that down :)
 
Last edited:
That's a fairly low wattage laptop, hence a cool one and probably not a dead one.

Prime, cpuz, intel burn test ( = LinX = linpack), hw monitor can all run from a usb stick with no problems.
 
JonJ678 said:
That's a fairly low wattage laptop, hence a cool one and probably not a dead one.

Prime, cpuz, intel burn test ( = LinX = linpack), hw monitor can all run from a usb stick with no problems.
Click to expand...
:)
Thanks mate i will get some of them stuck on a usb :)
What is the latest IBT?
I am not entirely sure if laptop is 32bit or 64bit..does it matter which version i download?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom