Mini entry: Who does that!?

So we've taken to helping out some family friends with their computers from time to time, making a small amount of money. Naturally, I'm the one in front for these situations, so I have some knowledge on how to manage a computer and what to look for.

Our second and most recent investigation was a computer that seemed suspiciously underpowered for what was being offered, and after, with consent of course, backing up the disk to a Clonezilla image and installing Linux Mint Debian Edition, using a USB to get the files back into place, I decided to check why the RAM seemed to be half the size that it was supposed to be.

You won't believe this.

I had been under the assumption the old Windows 7 machine was just corrupted or something, and I had been told that the computer had been sent to someone to repair before, but when I looked into the RAM compartment after turning off the computer post install, I discovered whoever had worked on this poor thing before had stolen one of the RAM sticks!! There wasn't even a point to doing that, this computer was made for DDR2 2GB sticks! (If you don't really grasp what that means, I just mean: it's old and not very worth.)

Eventually the itch this gave me got me to ask if I could get the client new RAM sticks, to which they agreed. I will have to return the old RAM stick as work ethic dictates, but believe me when I say I'd ask to keep it if I could. I can only hope this laptop has a better future from now on... under the assumption the old Windows 7 machine was just corrupted or something, and I had been told that the computer had been sent to someone to repair before, but when I looked into the RAM compartment after turning off the computer post install, I discovered whoever had worked on this poor thing before had stolen one of the RAM sticks!! There wasn't even a point to doing that, this computer was made for DDR2 2GB sticks! (If you don't really grasp what that means, I just mean: it's old and not very worth.)

Eventually the itch this gave me got me to ask if I could get the client new RAM sticks, to which they agreed. I will have to return the old RAM stick as work ethic dictates, but believe me when I say I'd ask to keep it if I could. I can only hope this laptop has a better future from now on...