this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2026
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I wouldn't buy any second-hand PC without booting it up & running a utility that can validate its specs and that they're all in working order. There are any number of Linux distros you can throw on a USB drive to do this (and confirm the USB ports are working while you're at it).
This is not generally an option in my case. I go to a street market where stuff is dirt cheap because it’s untested and has risk. Sometimes there is someone at the market who will rent their power generator for a buck to test something, but most laptops do not have their power supply. So I would have to be equipped with the correct PSU (and the universals don’t usually do 19.5v which is what many HP’s are, plus HP has some lock-in tech that forces a PSU to be HP). Some don’t even have the RAM and thus would not boot even if I had a Knoppix drive.
I’m signing up for some risk. But what I don’t want is the risk that the CPU is not even what I am after. It’s central to my buying decision so I need to know early before wasting time and money.
Worth noting that we ~~know~~ think/suspect from this page that Elitebooks and Probooks possibly indicate AMD or Intel in the 3rd digit of their model number. And it seems likely because some Lenovos also use a 0 or 5 to make the same designation in their model numbers. But this is apprently useless for HP Pavilions AFAICT.
It would be nice to force HP to talk. I wonder if a FOIA request could be used somehow, perhaps targetted at the FCC who licenses the radios in a laptop and thus may have some info on the specs.
in this scenario for me it would have to be I don't care if it works level of cheap.
This. Untested scrap at untested scrap prices. It's also HP; they should be paying you to dispose of it.
Seller basically quoted the cost of 2 big macs. I might offer ½ that considering the display is apparently 17″. I would still feel stung if it were a brick (coupled w/potentially having nothing to salvage from it like RAM or HDD). But it’s a regular seller at this market so there is a slight chance of doing a sympathy return (though strictly speaking it’s an as-is txn).
Under the "time is money" mindset, if you strongly suspect it has what you're looking for, how much time are you willing to invest before deciding? I've tried a few avenues already, and am likely hitting the same roadblocks you have (Pepperidge Farms remembers when all the info one could need was maintained on manufacturer Web sites, even for ancient products - enshitification indeed).
And good luck getting anything out of Trump's FCC. I'm afraid you're likely just going to have to decide uninformed.
To quote RMS (who was quoting someone else): “time ain’t money when all you have is time”.
I need some certainty on the CPU; not just on this particular one but to generally be able to know the CPU of anything I look at. If you open an HP manual for an arbitrary laptop, it lists ~4+ possible intel CPUs and ~4+ possible AMDs. So it’s like a coin toss AFAICT. A 50% chance is not good enough. I already have an unreasonable number of laptops and cannot tolerate expanding that with anything useless.
I’ve never done a FOIA request but read that they are not gratis. Since it’s compensated maybe it would be one of the few things Trump’s FCC would be willing to do.