Well everyone else has said something and so far you've lucked out hardware wise, so...
My Win 8.1 laptop that ran classic shell and behaved like a win 7 machine, died earlier this year.
After a period of catchup I opted for a micro form factor. Ryzen 7 processor, 32Gb RAM, 1TB SSD running preinstalled Win 11.
Firstly, Win 11 is a terrible OS and spends most of its time trying to sell you Microsoft products that you don't want or need. I then looked into Linux OS and installed Linux Mint. Because Microsoft is so alien to me, switching actually made sense. You can download it for free and run it on a USB to trial it.
As for your screen issues, it's quite possible that your screen is struggling with the connection, hence staying dark. Older screens can have issues with newer display ports on PCs. My LG TV has a HDMI port but wont display anything if my new PC is in the BIOS and I'm connected via HDMI, but if I connect to my TV using a HDMI to VGA lead, all of a sudden the BIOS displays.
Anyway, I bought my micro PC direct from China on Aliexpress for £230 brand new and it does anything I ask of it, it'll run any OS and hopefully I'm future proof for at least another decade.
My Win 8.1 laptop that ran classic shell and behaved like a win 7 machine, died earlier this year.
After a period of catchup I opted for a micro form factor. Ryzen 7 processor, 32Gb RAM, 1TB SSD running preinstalled Win 11.
Firstly, Win 11 is a terrible OS and spends most of its time trying to sell you Microsoft products that you don't want or need. I then looked into Linux OS and installed Linux Mint. Because Microsoft is so alien to me, switching actually made sense. You can download it for free and run it on a USB to trial it.
As for your screen issues, it's quite possible that your screen is struggling with the connection, hence staying dark. Older screens can have issues with newer display ports on PCs. My LG TV has a HDMI port but wont display anything if my new PC is in the BIOS and I'm connected via HDMI, but if I connect to my TV using a HDMI to VGA lead, all of a sudden the BIOS displays.
Anyway, I bought my micro PC direct from China on Aliexpress for £230 brand new and it does anything I ask of it, it'll run any OS and hopefully I'm future proof for at least another decade.
