A client approached me with two desktop PCs and a laptop. Both desktops were Windows XP and the laptop was running Windows Vista. Upon investigation I discovered that the power supply unit had failed on the newer of the two desktops, and that the fault with the laptop was on the motherboard not in the power adaptor.
Through the purchase of additional memory, and an IDE and SATA PCI expansion card, I was able to consolidate the desktops and the laptop's SATA hard-drive into a single system. I used the recovery partition to reinstall windows on the newer desktop, then upgraded it from XP Home SP1 to SP3.
The graphics card began reporting a 'out of resources' error immediately after the recovery process, and would not start the driver. This eventually turned out to be due to the dial-up modem card. As the client was using a LAN cable to her router, I removed the old modem expansion card from the machine, which freed up the resources and fixed the graphics.
I ensured all drivers and windows were fully upgraded, and installed a few freeware packages that I thought the customer would find useful - primarily LibreOffice, PDF Creator and Irfanview.
I delivered the PC to the clients home and set it up and configured it, ensuring they were happy with the situation before I left.
Through the purchase of additional memory, and an IDE and SATA PCI expansion card, I was able to consolidate the desktops and the laptop's SATA hard-drive into a single system. I used the recovery partition to reinstall windows on the newer desktop, then upgraded it from XP Home SP1 to SP3.
The graphics card began reporting a 'out of resources' error immediately after the recovery process, and would not start the driver. This eventually turned out to be due to the dial-up modem card. As the client was using a LAN cable to her router, I removed the old modem expansion card from the machine, which freed up the resources and fixed the graphics.
I ensured all drivers and windows were fully upgraded, and installed a few freeware packages that I thought the customer would find useful - primarily LibreOffice, PDF Creator and Irfanview.
I delivered the PC to the clients home and set it up and configured it, ensuring they were happy with the situation before I left.