Looking for old desktop/laptop PC (2013 or later)

[Jason]

One of my friends has a sick PC. I'm trying to revive it but in case I can't, I wanted to put feelers out to see if anyone has an old one sitting around.

This PC is from 2013 so it wouldn't have to be that new and it'd probably be better than what she has. It's just for light desktop use, mainly using the web. She's on disability so can't even afford $100 but if you want something, I'll see what she could do.

[fox]

I don't have a PC desktop, but I was wondering if you were able to fix her machine?

[Jason]

Not yet. But I haven't been there since Sunday. I'm going to look at it again today. It takes ages to start up, if it does. It can take so long you're not sure if it will startup. Thought maybe Windows was seriously corrupted and tried running various fix options. Finally went with a refresh which also took a few hours (it shouldn't) and she said it worked, at first. And then it was back to previous behaviour. I think it's possible that the hard drive in it is sick. I'm going to try a spare I just had sitting around. The drive inside is an ATA drive and that's all I have for spares.

She just wants a working PC until she gets her tax return next year. She wants to buy a new one and I'm trying to convince her that's it a waste of money to get a new computer. For what she does, a new PC, even a budget one isn't necessary. The last time I bought a new computer was in 1996. Usually, the ones I buy for my wife and me are 6-8 years old but they're business-class machines, too. She prefers a desktop but I'm not sure why. I don't think she gets that you can plug a mouse and keyboard in it and her external monitor. That's what I do with mine. I only open the laptop when I need a second screen. I think she just mainly uses Facebook.

A friend gifted her a laptop. I'm even going to put Linux on it because it will likely run faster and she's willing to give it a shot. I'm going to try Ubuntu MATE which would probably be the easiest for her but will still run on an old machine. MX Linux, Linux Lite or Xubuntu would run even faster but unless you're used to it, I find that Xfce isn't as well integrated. I won't know how old and functional the laptop is until I look at it this afternoon.

Do you have an old Mac? That would likely work for her, too. I'm guessing anything decent you have is either in production or going to be sold but I thought I'd ask since you said, "I don't have a PC Desktop..." I thought maybe you were emphasizing the PC part of that comment.

[fox]

I'm pretty sure I have some unused internal drives lying around, including, I think, a 120 or 128 GB SSD. Let me know if that would help because I would give it away to her if I have one. (After wiping it of course.)

As far as old Macs go, I recently sold a 2009 Mac mini on Kijiji for $100 that I would have donated for a good cause. I presently have a 2011 MacBook Pro (my daughter's old laptop) up for sale on Kijiji. I'm asking $225. It has only been up for 1 1/2 days and has a lot of views, so I suspect that I will sell it. However, if it doesn't sell soon for close to that price, I might be willing to donate it. Keep me informed of her situation.

[Jason]

Wow. Thank you, Fox!

It looks like it was the hard drive. I put my SATA drive in it (I think I accidentally wrote ATA before) and I was able to install Ubuntu MATE on it and it seems to run fine now although I haven't checked with her yet this morning. She was using Windows 8 or maybe 8.1 but I don't have copies of that or Windows 10. I know I can download Windows 10 but I'm not sure if I can do a fresh install on it for free.

Turns out the laptop her friend gifted her is a lot better than that desktop. She didn't like the laptop all that much because of trying to figure out the touchpad but she's going to try my suggestion of plugging her peripherals into it. If she still wants to go with her desktop, I'd probably take you up on that offer of the SDD drive. I know that would improve the computer's performance a lot.

So, I suspect she'll choose between the newly working but very old machine or more recent laptop but the SDD drive would be good. I'll let her know about that as an option if she still doesn't like the laptop after a few days. Thanks again for the offers!