Do you remember when computer chips on desktops were all socketed? An easy fix back then for a non=operative computer was the drop repair, which you didn’t want the customer to see. Pick up the computer about six inches and drop it. This had the effect of seating any loose chips in their sockets and often gave you a quick, down and dirty fix. LOL! It was still a good idea to open it and press them all down by hand, but you knew what was wrong.
I remember buying motherboards, memory chips and the CPU and having to press them all in by hand. Then you had to fill the ISA slots with the boards to control the drives, hook up the monitor, add serial ports and add a printer, if you had enough slots on the motherboard or found multifunction I/O boards you might have enough room for a sound card. And then you had to figure out how to set all the dip switches to get it all to work together.
This morning I am struggling with my new HP laptop. I purchased a cable and rubber boot to add an additional hard drive, but it seems that HP has the latest BIOS programmed to reject any hard drive that is not on the list of original HP approved parts... reminds me of their efforts to keep people from refilling their ink cartridges. I have been looking for a work around.