Need some help.

[Ringel05]

I'm not that worried about it. I ordered 2GB (2x1GB) 667mhz memory sticks and soon afterwards found a INTEL CORE 2 DUO 2.2GHZ/4MB CACHE SLAF8 T7500 800 FSB for $85 shipped. This is the best one recommended for this machine. The one you recommended is a socket P and won't work on this machine.
(Note when you look up the machine online it will show you the newer version which comes standard with a duo core chip in a socket P. This is one of the older machines and had a core solo chip for the budget models and was a socket M.)
I also ran diagnostics from the boot menu. DST short test fail, looks like I need a new hard drive.

Good info. Thanks. Drives are dirt cheap right now.

Found a 320GB hard drive for $50 shipped and located a Windows 7 home premium full install retail version for $105 shipped, both on E-bay, yes, I checked the sellers ratings first. The friend who gave me a home premium edition actually gave me a rescue disc, obviously pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff. At least it had the basics and I was able to use it to diagnose the laptop problems.
Thanks again for your help, I'll let ya know how the rebuild goes.

 

[Ropey]

I'm not that worried about it. I ordered 2GB (2x1GB) 667mhz memory sticks and soon afterwards found a INTEL CORE 2 DUO 2.2GHZ/4MB CACHE SLAF8 T7500 800 FSB for $85 shipped. This is the best one recommended for this machine. The one you recommended is a socket P and won't work on this machine.
(Note when you look up the machine online it will show you the newer version which comes standard with a duo core chip in a socket P. This is one of the older machines and had a core solo chip for the budget models and was a socket M.)
I also ran diagnostics from the boot menu. DST short test fail, looks like I need a new hard drive.

Good info. Thanks. Drives are dirt cheap right now.

Found a 320GB hard drive for $50 shipped and located a Windows 7 home premium full install retail version for $105 shipped, both on E-bay, yes, I checked the sellers ratings first. The friend who gave me a home premium edition actually gave me a rescue disc, obviously pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff. At least it had the basics and I was able to use it to diagnose the laptop problems.
Thanks again for your help, I'll let ya know how the rebuild goes.

Sure thing. Win 7 is a great OS.

 

[Ringel05]

Good info. Thanks. Drives are dirt cheap right now.

Found a 320GB hard drive for $50 shipped and located a Windows 7 home premium full install retail version for $105 shipped, both on E-bay, yes, I checked the sellers ratings first. The friend who gave me a home premium edition actually gave me a rescue disc, obviously pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff. At least it had the basics and I was able to use it to diagnose the laptop problems.
Thanks again for your help, I'll let ya know how the rebuild goes.

Sure thing. Win 7 is a great OS.

Yup. The more I use it the less anti-Windows I become.

 

[Ringel05]

I switched out the two graphics cards, reloaded the bios on her machine and it's working like a charm. It's extremely fast and it recognizes the sleep function now. Mine on the other hand doesn't like the Radeon card. I forgot that Radeon and linux doesn't play well together which is why I had the Nvidia card in my machine in the first place. The kernel doesn't exist to run that specific card, the built in graphics works but not well because it also is a Radeon chip. When Win 7 arrives I'll switch out the operating systems on my machine and add the card I pulled from her machine, it has dual monitor capabilities.

 

[Ropey]

As long as she's happy, life is likely to be good.