software guy needs help with hardware

[unlovedwarrior]

ok my friends mom brought me two old computers

[highlight]one with win me is labeled shawn and the one with old xp home is emily[/highlight]

ill describe whats up with both of them and you guys can chose which one to work on first

i cant really give great detail about them cuz they dont work right..

they both were sitting forever and they both were cover in dust it took me a little while to clean them both out and i think i sacraficed parts of both my lungs and i looked like a miner when i went to class

shawn(winme) might have a mix of both hardware and software problems. first once i cleaned it and got it running a box poped up and said updating hardware databasebut it stopped at 66% and wouldnt move. after that i busted out the restore cds and restored it and it looked like it was going to work but the magic windows error came up and said files were missing, so when i get home im going to reformat the bugger and see what that does.

ok now for emily(xp home) ok hers just wont show video when i hooked up my monitor and turned her computer on the monitor just continued to do the self check thing, it has an onboard video card so yea and i dont know what kind of slots its has cuz i have a vid card i could put in it to check.

there is no rush on this emily's mom told me to get it done when i want but i love a challenge

thanks for the help

unlovedwarrior

[Calum]

A reformat for the ME machine seems best.
As for the XP one, does it show video with another monitor?
Try your video card if not, you won't be able to insert the wrong video card so that's safe.
Make sure the PSU has enough juice to handle it first.
Does the PC run and not show video, or just not start?

[unlovedwarrior]

ok ill actually reformat the win me computer

the xp one seems like it will start but just no video, they tried all of their monitors already so ill try my vid card today

[Calum]

Yeah, try that and see how it goes.