Old laptop probs and advice

[mikesphat]

My friend is thinking about buying a old Compaq Presario. K6 or K6-2 333mhz. Like a 4.5gig hdd. Never heard of the vidcard. 32MB ram. CD-Rom and floppy. Bout a 15in. screen. How much should he give for it? Would he be able to run any car mechanic software on it? And is it upgradable at all? Or should he just not even bother buying the old thing?
The only thing I see wrong with it is that the screen is really red! Like a red tint completely but you can still see the desktop. Is there anyway to fix it? THe dude he wants to buy it from says he had left it in his car for months.

 

[MrYogi]

red screen? not good, man. search for a hotdeal in the forums.

 

[mikesphat]

Yeau it is a glaring red but you can still see the desktop very well though. So you think the screen is shot? Not a driver problem or something the tint/contrast/etc. adjust controls could fix? I couldnt find the controls though ...this was the first laptop I have ever toyed with and was expecting buttons close to the screen itself kind of like my desktop monitor.

 

[ProviaFan]

Normally you see the severe screen tint problem on CRTs due to bad solder connections or electron guns. I've never heard of such a thing happening on a LCD until now. Needless to say, fixing it would be extremely expensive, if not impossible (more likely the latter), so find a different laptop; that one's worthless.

And yes, the automotive software would probably run on that laptop (I'm assuming it connects to whatever external component it needs via a serial port; USB could be a problem on a laptop that old, not to mention the limited memory). You should really check the requirements on the software package to make sure the system is powerful enough, though.