Your tale about the 400 boxes sounds like it would have made an entertaining episode
of I Love Lucy or The Three Stooges. Before you blow $150 why don't
you find a screwdriver and open up your computer's case and inspect the motherboard
to see if you can find any swollen or leaking capacitors. If you do find any then
I suggest you salute your motherboard for its loyal service and play taps over it.
On the other hand it may be something as simple as a stick of RAM that has gone
bad. You won't know until you open up the case and try to get it running with one
stick of RAM at a time until you find the bad one.
Here is the thing,
the guys at the computer repair shop won't know what's wrong with your computer either
until they start trying out different things and they finally stumble upon the faulty
part. This all takes time you will be charged for and some of those repair guys have
the morals of a used car salesman, especially when dealing with a woman, no offence,
that is how some of these guys think.
I don't see the point of spending
$150 on a computer that probably would not fetch much more than $20 if you sold it.
You should be able to buy a working computer that can run win98 for about $20-$25
monitor included.
The smartest option might be to buy a new TV Wonder
USB which will run under XP and use it on one of your other computers. The latest
model lists in the $55-$60 range.
