How to Find Computer System Specs

Video Transcript

On behalf of expertvillage.com my name is Don with Friendly Computer's and I'm here to talk today about buying a used computer. Now whether it's a laptop or a desktop as we said in the several of the previous segments, you have to be able to turn the machine on to see how it works and to see what's on it. We've mentioned several times that there's important features that you need to decide on, but now most users might say, how do I find out if the machine has those things? I know I need a certain amount of memory, I know I need a certain CPU, I know I need certain things, but how do I find out if those things are there and functional? Start with where there's a place where there's power, where there's a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse available. Hopefully the owner of the machine that's selling it for you will have it all available for you to be able to do that. Turn it on, make sure it comes up without any errors. Once you've got the machine turned on assuming it's Windows XP, simply find my computer in the start menu, right click on that icon and choose properties. The first screen that comes up shows you what the system has as far as memory, what level of XP is on it, as well as what CPU it has. Then if you click on the hardware tab and choose the vice manager, it will now open up an entire screen that shows all of the recognize and unrecognized devices on that computer. Other than that you can check the hard disk size and you can check the speed of that it boots up and how it seems to run. Does it seem to run at an acceptable speed to you? Now, once you've found all those things out and it runs fairly decently and seems okay, now you've made the first step towards deciding to purchase it. How much is it worth? That's different in every market and that's anybody's guess. So if I were to say with new computers starting in the $500 range, unless it's a real high end machine you should be looking considerably less than that. Now, another thing to keep in mind is does the place you're buying it going to give to back it or give warranty, that's worth a little extra too, because any used computer is just waiting for an opportunity to fail. So just be careful as anything when you're buying something used, check it out, kick the tire sort of speak, make sure it turns on okay and then verify that it has those things that you need to see.

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