real/non-internet computer auctions/swapmeet, tips, strategy, inspections etc.

[holden j caufield]

yesterday during lunch my friend was telling me about a computer auction nearby so we grabbed another coworker and some sandwiches and headed down there. Well we got there with about 5 min left of inspection so I went around looking for wireless pcmcia cards but they just had one big box of pcmcia cards and wouldn't let me dig through (about 25 cards altogether that went for like $45). Anyways I moved on and since I'm giving my Latitude to my cousin I checked out and saw two laptops a Dell Latitude and Hp pavilion. Both nice laptops with bags and I think all the cables, albeit a little on the slow side ~700 mhz and I couldn't figure if the battery held a full charge or what size disk it was. Anyways I could only boot it up before I ran into the password prompt although I think a simple reset of the cmos would fix it. It also had some part of a security thingy majorly glued to the top (not the auctions security device) and although I tried pulling it might damage the LCD on the other side. Well the Dell went for like $345 which I thought was a really good deal. I wrote down the service tag number and checked it on their website. Looks like the warranty runs until 02/2004. Would dell honor their warranty? I got my Latitude from my mom's work place when they upgraded and Dell honored the warranty for me. Are these things worth bidding on or are laptops just to iffy for these kinds of auctions. I'll be headed to this big local ACP superstore swapmeet next weekend so I'll be dealing with the same type of uncertainties

 

[Freejack2]

Actually you probably would have needed to send it to Dell to get the password reset. Most notebooks made in the past few years are designed to make it VERY difficult to get past the password. This probably isn't true with all notebooks but it is with a lot of them. :/