Thanks everyone.
It's a laptop, and it was the cheapest available back then- which means to me that I will not do that (buy the cheapest one) again. I'm not sure if it's a purely physical issue, there were some weird occurances (like total freezing with some sort of odd static on the screen), but if it is that's bad enough. That thing was constructed so you have no way of taking it apart. And believe me, despite my not knowing much about computers, I definitely know how to take one apart and fix it that way. With a bit of luck, I'll get a new one sometime next week, and at least I can use the computer pool here at the university. It's inconvenient, but it works.
It's a laptop, and it was the cheapest available back then- which means to me that I will not do that (buy the cheapest one) again. I'm not sure if it's a purely physical issue, there were some weird occurances (like total freezing with some sort of odd static on the screen), but if it is that's bad enough. That thing was constructed so you have no way of taking it apart. And believe me, despite my not knowing much about computers, I definitely know how to take one apart and fix it that way. With a bit of luck, I'll get a new one sometime next week, and at least I can use the computer pool here at the university. It's inconvenient, but it works.