thank you for your help. i have offically traded the car for the lap top and it dosent seem like a bd trade because of your help. thank you.

Just make sure you got all the manuals and CDs that came with the laptop.

No one has commented on this as yet. Any takers?

e-bay sells allot of cheap ones. They seem perfect for home use.

There are pro-looking analyzers available.

I still prefer beep-codes and screwdrivers. They won't become obsolete ever. Unlike these cards.

i have 2 different ones,a pci/isa one about 5yrs old now .and the pro looking one ,bought it on e-bay for about 30.00$ for laptop and pc .it seems to work ok,the manual with codes is a poor translation to English though

I see... the pro ones seem to be considerably more expensive. Not sure that's worth it atm to be honest. I agree tho Chaky, beep codes and screwdrivers will never go obsolete. Might still consider a cheap ebay one tho, just to see for myself how that's different to doing things manually, so basically to see the benefits of it. Caperjack has already pointed out an important downside.

Thanks all.

thank you for your help the laptop is botting smoothly and beautifuly. i need to replace the cmos batt(?) its the watch batt i know that. and i am hoping that the ac power light that flasses green/roange is related to the problem. considering i just got this laptop with a hundred dollars for a 84bmw with frame damage and no tires. thank you for your help.

A good deal. You got rid of the junk AND got yourself a laptop. Well done.

Mind you say what did you that made it boot again? Is it a RAM thing, or did it just boot by itself?

There is one sure way to test the CMOS battery. Simply unplug the AC cable and remove the main battery. If the date and time is reseted, then you know that you need new CMOS battery. It doesn't necessarily have to be coin-shaped one. Sometimes they are soldered.

the ram was the problem, and now its running beautifuly.

the cmos batt was the issue with the green flashing on the fron cover. to fix that problem i let ti do something it hasnt done in a long time........boot up . its a rechargeable cmos that require a legenthy on period. i didnt guess that it was rechargeable so i am going to defrag tonight. this is the first defrag in how long? haha!

and the laptop did not come with any software at all.

i am in a tedious job of cleaning the keyboard.

Do you mean no operating system (such as Windows or Linux) or no applications/programs? If you're looking for relatively easily obtainable, "light", dependable OS, go for Ubuntu or Debian. Takes time to learn, but it is almost a guarantee that you won't be sorry!