Is it safe to buy used pc

[Jumas548]

So I got good offer by a guy I met yesterday in real life. Check out my newest topic on the specs and price. So its cheap pc for 550€ monitor included, and I told my friend about this and he told me I may get tricked. He told me that the pc would have ramsomware or spyware, or just broken components. What can I do to make sure that he is not tricking me? And I mentioned earlier, but check out that topic. I have heard that if some offer is too good to be true, its mostly scam.

[Jumas548]

And remember that I met this guy irl and he would sell the pc in real life

[Randolf]

Meet up in a used pc shop and pay em like 20$ to look it over. Or if you meet him at his house run some benchmarking tools. Ransomware or spyware ain't a problem just download a iso of whatever os is on the pc and make it bootable on a usb. Then just reinstall Windows for a fresh clean experience. 

[Jumas548]

5 minutes ago, Randolf said:

Meet up in a used pc shop and pay em like 20$ to look it over. Or if you meet him at his house run some benchmarking tools. Ransomware or spyware ain't a problem just download a iso of whatever os is on the pc and make it bootable on a usb. Then just reinstall Windows for a fresh clean experience. 

Yea but what if the spyware is integrated on the disk?

[dizmo]

It's perfectly safe, if you do it right. If you're meeting him in person, why not just test it out? Pretty simple there. Run some benchmarks, look for any physical damage, etc.

 

19 minutes ago, Randolf said:

Meet up in a used pc shop and pay em like 20$ to look it over. Or if you meet him at his house run some benchmarking tools. Ransomware or spyware ain't a problem just download a iso of whatever os is on the pc and make it bootable on a usb. Then just reinstall Windows for a fresh clean experience. 

Most sellers aren't going to go through the hassle of waiting to take it to a shop to have it looked over Especially if it's a good deal; I'd just sell it to someone else who isn't going to give the added work. I'm not even sure if most shops would offer that service.

13 minutes ago, Jumas548 said:

Yea but what if the spyware is integrated on the disk?

Don't use the included storage. Sell it and buy your own.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Like buying anything used, inspect before you buy. Some genuinely good sellers as shown in scrapyard wars will allow you to either see or try the item running in person to confirm it's in working order. The only thing you should really be warry about is HDDs as you don't know if the previous owner has ever dropped it (especially in laptops). All the other parts like board, CPU, RAM, and GPU should be fine as long as they haven't been abused; again, why an inspection is important. 

 

PSUs are also something to think about as they are often crappy cheap ones, so be prepared to replace it. 

[Jumas548]

1 minute ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Like buying anything used, inspect before you buy. Some genuinely good sellers as shown in scrapyard wars will allow you to either see or try the item running in person to confirm it's in working order. The only thing you should really be warry about is HDDs as you don't know if the previous owner has ever dropped it (especially in laptops). All the other parts like board, CPU, RAM, and GPU should be fine as long as they haven't been abused; again, why an inspection is important. 

 

PSUs are also something to think about as they are often crappy cheap ones, so be prepared to replace it. 

He had Evga G2 650w gold, isnt that good quality?

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

3 minutes ago, Jumas548 said:

He had Evga G2 650w gold, isnt that good quality?

Yep that's pretty much one of the top quality ones you can get. It's good to know the builder knows at least what he was doing. 

 

[Jumas548]

27 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Yep that's pretty much one of the top quality ones you can get. It's good to know the builder knows at least what he was doing. 

 

I havent got answer yet, but if he lets me try his pc, how can I test his pc parts compared to new ones?  And overall if there are any viruses?
 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

2 minutes ago, Jumas548 said:

I havent got answer yet, but if he lets me try his pc, how can I test his pc parts compared to new ones?  And overall if there are any viruses?
 

I would not worry about viruses as personally, the first thing I would do after buying a used system is format and reinstall the OS. In terms of testing the hardware, see if he has a few games that you can run on it just to see if it indeed is giving the sort of FPS the component should be.

[Jumas548]

2 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

I would not worry about viruses as personally, the first thing I would do after buying a used system is format and reinstall the OS. In terms of testing the hardware, see if he has a few games that you can run on it just to see if it indeed is giving the sort of FPS the component should be.

Are there any programs for testing the part compared to new one? Because if the fps is lower than it should be, I dont know which component makes the fps less...

[Jumas548]

So yesterday when I was in town, I met group of about 20-year old people and we started talking about pcs and one guy told me that he is selling one for 550€

 

Cpu: i7-4790k

Cpu cooler: Corsair Hydro H45

Graphics card: Matrix GTX 980 Ti Platinum 6gb

Motherboard: MSI PcMate Z97

Ram: HyperX 16gb ram DDR3-1333mhz

Storage: 128gb ssd and 1Tb Hdd ( No idea what brand, but it should not matter that much right?)

Power supply: EVGA 650W SuperNOVA G2 Full modular Gold certified

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro

Monitor: BenQ Zowie XL 144hz 24"

 

He said that I can come visit him someday and try some games on it. What things I should do when visiting? Benchmark? But how, and what program I should use? And if I try some game, and it has less fps than it should, how can I know that what components makes the fps less, is it gpu, cpu or ram? How can I know which components makes lack of the fps? 

[WickedStarfish]

the cpu should not be a bottleneck for most games that will be played, the ram not so much either, but the GPU is the main thing that will limit FPS, also online benchmarks (you tube) are not always correct, basically if he has a 1080p display the fps should not be below 50 fps on ultra, unless playing some stupid frame crunching game like rise of the tomb raider on ultra. 

 

what display will you be running with it

[JeJaRaLa]

5 minutes ago, Jumas548 said:

So yesterday when I was in town, I met group of about 20-year old people and we started talking about pcs and one guy told me that he is selling one for 550€

 

Cpu: i7-4790k

Cpu cooler: Corsair Hydro H45

Graphics card: Matrix GTX 980 Ti Platinum 6gb

Motherboard: MSI PcMate Z97

Ram: HyperX 16gb ram DDR3-1333mhz

Storage: 128gb ssd and 1Tb Hdd ( No idea what brand, but it should not matter that much right?)

Power supply: EVGA 650W SuperNOVA G2 Full modular Gold certified

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro

Monitor: BenQ Zowie XL 144hz 24"

 

He said that I can come visit him someday and try some games on it. What things I should do when visiting? Benchmark? But how, and what program I should use? And if I try some game, and it has less fps than it should, how can I know that what components makes the fps less, is it gpu, cpu or ram? How can I know which components makes lack of the fps? 

you should play some games or running benchmark firestrike ,Unigine Heaven Benchmark, test the ram for error  memtest but it take some time to  do thist test.

the only thing is the cpu cooler  the cpu could be running more hotter than normal but  you can change that if you buy the pc

is  i nice pc  the i7 4790k is strong enoug to run games .

[JeJaRaLa]

2 minutes ago, WickedStarfish said:

the cpu should not be a bottleneck for most games that will be played, the ram not so much either, but the GPU is the main thing that will limit FPS, also online benchmarks (you tube) are not always correct, basically if he has a 1080p display the fps should not be below 50 fps on ultra, unless playing some stupid frame crunching game like rise of the tomb raider on ultra. 

 

what display will you be running with it

he say its a Monitor: BenQ Zowie XL 144hz 24" 1080p

[WickedStarfish]

Just now, JeJaRaLa said:

he say its a Monitor: BenQ Zowie XL 144hz 24"

i totally missed that haha. 

[DimasRMDO]

I'd ask about the history of the PC...

What have been the owner doing to it? Has he overclocked anything? Has he messed something up but fixed (or not)? Basically any incident that's occured. Also ask why he's selling his PC.

The specs is already wicked, you can always try to benchmark his PC (might not have enough time to actually stress test).

[WickedStarfish]

for a quick analysis of the system run user benchmark. - http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/ the test takes about 3 minutes

running this program will also tell you how the physical hardware compares to others of the same hardware. 

here is mine, don't have to great of a laugh haha - http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/10085625

the gpu should preform better than this, as this is my GTX 1060 6GB which is less powerful than the GTX 980 Ti

DX9                      DX10

Lighting 231 Reflection 195 Parallax 209                    69% 212 fps

MRender 146 Gravity 206 Splatting 166   74% 173 fps

[SolarNova]

Stress test it, CPU and GPU. just to ensure there is nothing failing.

 

Beyond that check the physical state of the hardware, open up the case, make sure everything looks good.

 

Specs wise thats a capable system, and as far as i can see its not overpriced.

 

A 980ti is roughly a 1070 performance wise.

CPU wise anything 2nd gen or newer is fine for gaming, ofc the newer the better.

It has an SSD which is good.

With the monitor aswell i'd say thats a good price. but always a good idea to haggle.

 

[Jumas548]

33 minutes ago, WickedStarfish said:

the cpu should not be a bottleneck for most games that will be played, the ram not so much either, but the GPU is the main thing that will limit FPS, also online benchmarks (you tube) are not always correct, basically if he has a 1080p display the fps should not be below 50 fps on ultra, unless playing some stupid frame crunching game like rise of the tomb raider on ultra. 

 

what display will you be running with it

I said it already in first post, benq zowie xl 144hz

[WickedStarfish]

32 minutes ago, JeJaRaLa said:

he say its a Monitor: BenQ Zowie XL 144hz 24" 1080p

 

1 minute ago, Jumas548 said:

I said it already in first post, benq zowie xl 144hz

was stated before haha, as said i missed that when reading

[Jumas548]

30 minutes ago, DimasRMDO said:

I'd ask about the history of the PC...

What have been the owner doing to it? Has he overclocked anything? Has he messed something up but fixed (or not)? Basically any incident that's occured. Also ask why he's selling his PC.

The specs is already wicked, you can always try to benchmark his PC (might not have enough time to actually stress test).

Never oc, no viruses/problems, he said he is selling his pc cuz he doesnt like playing anymore and told me that cars started interest him more than games, because he is gonna buy his own car soon. What is stress test and how to do it?

[WickedStarfish]

Just now, Jumas548 said:

Never oc, no viruses/problems, he said he is selling his pc cuz he doesnt like playing anymore and told me that cars started interest him more than games, because he is gonna buy his own car soon. What is stress test and how to do it?

 

28 minutes ago, WickedStarfish said:

for a quick analysis of the system run user benchmark. - http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/ the test takes about 3 minutes

running this program will also tell you how the physical hardware compares to others of the same hardware. 

here is mine, don't have to great of a laugh haha - http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/10085625

the gpu should preform better than this, as this is my GTX 1060 6GB which is less powerful than the GTX 980 Ti

DX9                      DX10

Lighting 231 Reflection 195 Parallax 209                    69% 212 fps

MRender 146 Gravity 206 Splatting 166   74% 173 fps

going to this website and clicking on the button at the top 

that runs a test for everything including the storage than gives you the file in return 

2 minutes ago, Jumas548 said:

What is stress test and how to do it?

a stress test is basically an .exe that runs like any program. as stated earlier by JeJaRaLa running benchmark firestrike ,Unigine Heaven Benchmark, and memtest. just google those three names and it should lead you to download them, links are below

Firestrike (a part of 3D Mark) - https://benchmarks.ul.com/3dmark

Unigine Heaven Benchmark - https://benchmark.unigine.com/heaven

Memtest - http://www.memtest.org/

[The Torrent]

Use core temp or something rune prime95 just check temps and check dust inside for a estimate how much it’s been used.

[JeJaRaLa]

1 hour ago, Jumas548 said:

So yesterday when I was in town, I met group of about 20-year old people and we started talking about pcs and one guy told me that he is selling one for 550€

 

Cpu: i7-4790k

Cpu cooler: Corsair Hydro H45

Graphics card: Matrix GTX 980 Ti Platinum 6gb

Motherboard: MSI PcMate Z97

Ram: HyperX 16gb ram DDR3-1333mhz

Storage: 128gb ssd and 1Tb Hdd ( No idea what brand, but it should not matter that much right?)

Power supply: EVGA 650W SuperNOVA G2 Full modular Gold certified

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro

Monitor: BenQ Zowie XL 144hz 24"

 

He said that I can come visit him someday and try some games on it. What things I should do when visiting? Benchmark? But how, and what program I should use? And if I try some game, and it has less fps than it should, how can I know that what components makes the fps less, is it gpu, cpu or ram? How can I know which components makes lack of the fps? 

dont recomend prime95 use aida 64 for cpu stress test prime 95 will give you insane temp  that you will never have  in normal use .

the cooler is basic  120mm aio   you can spec some hight temperature