THINGS TO CHECK BEFORE BUYING OLD LAPTOPS/PC
Okay, so I put together a little guy with some tips on buying a used computer, particularly a laptop from another individual. Let's get right to it. Okay so here are some serious red flags that should have you walking away from any transaction if they want you to wire the money by Western Union or pay by PayPal and have them ship it to you shipping is fine if you're buying on eBay but never pay by Western Union a missing power adapter is a big red flag this usually means one of three things.
The most likely case is the computer was stolen, and they simply never got the power adapter with it another possibility is that they actually do have the power cord, but they pretend they lost it because the computer just doesn't work or there's something they don't want you to see .so it's easier for them to just say hey man you can just buy a new power cord on eBay for $15 don't fall for this if you can't power it on don't buy it.
Here's another problem if you turn the computer on, and it has a password then you ask the seller what the password is, and he doesn't know this also likely means the computer is stolen he'll try to convince you that you can send it back to the manufacturer and have the password cleared but as soon as they run the serial number, and see that it's stolen they'll ship it back to the original owner so don't fall for this either and I guess I'll throw this in to anything that sounds too good to be true probably is especially if the seller seems in a hurry to sell it so if you're buying locally, and you can inspect the computer then you should take a few minutes to test it out you do the same thing if you're buying a used car bring a CD or DVD with you make sure it's one that you don't care about stick it to the computer and make sure it can read it.
I know it isn't always possible but see if you can connect to something with wireless, typically if the computer can actually see some wireless stations even if you don't know the password this generally means the Wi-Fi is working. Try turning up the volume and make sure the speakers work and while you're at it connect some headphones to the computer and make sure that you can hear through both speakers also try jiggling and round a bit often these jacks get broken when somebody trips on the cable and as a result the jack will work intermittently you should test the webcam on a MacBook just open up apps for a quick test the power connector if you have a MacBook with a MagSafe power connector you can probably skip this but if it's a Windows PC with a jack like this. These get damaged all the time by people tripping over the cables, so make sure it works and try jiggling around a bit to see if it has a good connection.
Check the USB ports mostly what you're looking for ones that are broken from somebody yanking a cable out sideways check the screen hinges the screen should stay open on its own at any angle without falling it should be very sturdy if it seems loose it's probably because the hinges are damaged also make sure the screen doesn't flicker when moving the screen back and forth this could be a sign of a damaged cable internally you should check the battery on Apple products you can go to the system profiler and see how many cycles the battery's been through if it's more than 400 you know the batteries at the end of its life if it's 600 or more it's probably just about dead.
one last thing, check the keyboard open something like notepad and just try out every key see if any of them feel sticky or fail to type the correct character I'm not saying you shouldn't buy a computer if one or more of these things turns out to be broken just make sure you know what you're getting, so then you ask is it a good deal well in order to determine its value you really need to get the exact model number then you should be able to determine its age which is very important.
Once you get around seven to eight years old the computer is totally obsolete, and you should probably be avoided unless you know exactly what you're dealing with you can also check a base completed listings I don't mean live listings but once that have actually already sold this way you can see not what people are asking for the computer but what they've actually sold for also factor in any warranty if the seller is backing it with a full money-back guarantee then it's always worth.
Something you should also investigate what a brand-new computer costs pawnshops are notorious about overpricing used equipment knowing that the buyer will automatically assume it's a good deal just because it's used in many cases you can buy a brand new one for the same price or even cheaper I'd also like to point out that after you buy a used computer you should probably consider wiping the hard drive and completely reinstalling all the software. It could contain pirated software or movies or music which might get you into trouble and last but not least it will probably just run a lot better with the fresh clean software load well. I hope you found that this article is useful.
I want to throw in one other little tip especially if you're buying a Mac there is a great website it's been around for years, and it's called WW every mat com if you go to this website you can pretty much find the detailed specifications of any Apple computer all the way back into the 1980s and up to what the current versions are now they do have estimated straight price on there but, I wouldn't go buy that from what I can see their street prices are always out of date they're usually a bit high in many cases that are double what an actual computer is selling for but if you just for the specifications you want to find out what a particular model has it's a great resource it's also useful if somebody says well I've got you know a MacBook, and it's this processor speed well in many cases you can still use that information to go through there and find out what the model number is and also find out how old the computer is. Thanks for reading.
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