Fog,
Bert's playing with your mind!
You have a few things to fix it up:
1) Get a new Power Box.
2) Make the primary HD the secondary, and get a Maxtor or Western Digital HD for the primary HD.
3) If the video is part of the motherboard, consider adding in a separate video card.
4) Consider upgrading the memory to 2-4 GB.
I finally got my HP computer working... it's limping along with the new Maxtor HD (the Seagate just couldn't hold a boot sector, which is weird). Hockeyref, the f1703 monitor only had a problem where the power cord plugs into the chassis. I taped it in tight and it now works. Never had to take it apart to do any soldering!
Had I not looked under the computer cover, I would have never known what was really there. Its motherboard looks pretty decent:
I'm waiting on the other stuff to come in (SATA cable, Ram memory, Power Box).
Which HP computer do you have? (for example, I have a HP Pavilion a1040n)
Cheers,
Al