Buying a Used System advice needed

[JohnHermes]

The last two used systems I bought I was lied to and found that both had
hardware problems that were not noticeable on running the machine and
only discovered later.

What can I do to comprehensively test a used machine I am looking at to
make sure it does not have some minor hardware problem that is not
immediately apparent? Already know about scandisk.

Is there a good free software utility that will run a comprehensive
check? Again I've used a couple of these and still found hardware
problems that did not show on these checks, but they were older
programs. Any helpful advice is most welcome.

[Chris Hill]

On Tue, 19 Apr 2005 19:12:56 -0700, JohnHermes
<JohnHermes_nomail@nospam.com> wrote:
The last two used systems I bought I was lied to and found that both hadhardware problems that were not noticeable on running the machine andonly discovered later.What can I do to comprehensively test a used machine I am looking at tomake sure it does not have some minor hardware problem that is notimmediately apparent? Already know about scandisk.Is there a good free software utility that will run a comprehensivecheck? Again I've used a couple of these and still found hardwareproblems that did not show on these checks, but they were olderprograms. Any helpful advice is most welcome.

Software is basically worthless for testing. Make sure the unit you
buy is made of quality parts from quality vendors, check the power
supply voltages using a monitor program or the bios to make sure they
are what they are supposed to be and use the manufacturer's diagnostic
to check the hard drive. Better yet, go to Sam's club and buy a new
system, they give six months exchange so if it screws up in a month
you can take it back.