Is Buying Used Computer Equipment Unsafe?

Any laptop or pc I ever bought was brand new. Also any mouse or keyboard I bought were new. I also bought ton of monitors throughout the years and almost every single one of them I bought was brand new. Once I bought a used one and the reason was because I could not find similar monitor with the resolution I want but someone had the monitor I like so I was able to buy it. That monitor however doesn't work anymore. Now where I'm located now, electronics are very expensive. I could buy online but prices are very high.



What I want to know is how safe would it be to buy a used computer equipment from someone? For example, I would never buy a used laptop ever because even if you do a clean reinstall, well you can never be sure in case someone put malware in it somehow in the ram or things like that. Yes I know that sounds like paranoia. Now, what about buying used monitors from other people? Of course when you buy it off of someone, they will provide you with the cable whether its an hdmi to hdmi cable or usb c to hdmi or dvi to hdmi or one of those cables. And they most likely got that cable that came along with their monitor when they bought it new or used or they just bought that cable as replacement if their original cable doesn't work etc.



My question is, is there any concern when buying a used monitor from someone and then plugging it into your laptop or desktop pc? I use windows 10. Now would the bigger concern be the cable itself? Such that if someone were to target you or want to hack you or someone that just wants to hack someone, they would sell a monitor and the cable they supply you with could contain malware? I heard about usb cable malware and things like that. Such that people who connect their phone to those cables could get malware. Also heard that if you connect your phone to a public outlet... those could contain malware as well... but you could buy those usb charging blocking ports to protect it etc. But has there been cases of people buying a used monitor... and it infecting their windows laptop? Is that possible? I assume if you were to buy a used monitor... as long as you buy the proper cable to connect it to your laptop, then its 100% safe? Thus you cannot put malware in a monitor... but you can with a cable?



I also heard a while someone could plant malware on a keyboard. Is that true? Could they do it with a wired keyboard? Wireless keyboard i assume very possible. I heard if they were to plant it inside the actual keyboard, then there isn't anything you can do about it? What about wired or wireless mouse? What about ram? i heard ram is possible with bios? What about a laptop battery? What about a used ssd?



Have there been any cases of malware with a used monitor or tv that you use to connect it to your windows laptop? How hard/easy would it be for someone to put malware on a cable for you to connect it to the monitor? Would the costs of that be not worth it unless someone had a specific target? thus you can sort of say like imagine someone sell malware cables on amazon or ebay but the thing is if it cost lot of money and time to make one... well it wouldn't be worth it unless they know certain people are buying it correct?

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You're not paranoid. You're just misinformed.

RAM cannot harbor malware.
Monitor cables cannot harbor malware.

Hardware like monitors do not have the ability to pass malware or contain it. I always swap out drives on used machines for a brand new out of the box SSD since the old drive can be damaged by abuse or be ready to go out, nothing to do with paranoia of believing everything has malware.

Over the past dozen years or so, I've bought all 3 of my laptops on ebay. I've not been disappointed. They each came with clean Windows installs on them and booted up with 'first time only' Windows screens (language, keyboard, etc). The advantage buying a used laptop online is first and foremost, price. A good, clean, 2-3 year old laptop can be had for about 1/2 the price of new. My current laptop, a used ASUS F510UA is a quad processor 8 thread machine that powers up (not sleeping) in under 30 seconds to the Windows 10 logon screen. Of course, my upgrading it with an extra 8GB RAM (total 16) and replacing the HD with an SSD made most of the difference. I've also done removed or disabled a lot of useless Windows 'baggage' on it as well.

Of course, when buying on ebay, first and foremost it's necessary to decide on a specific 'horsepower' computer...processors, threads, clock speed, RAM. I've settled on ASUS brand laptops as I've used nothing but ASUS motherboards in all the computers I've built for myself and my friends. I spent a couple hours per day over 2 weeks deciding on what 2 or 3 model ASUS laptops I wanted to buy. Obviously, the new 'bleeding edge' and 'gaming' laptops were not considered due to their over $300 price tag (my limit). The F510UA I bought was released about 2 years before I bought it, and its price had been $800 or something like that when new. I happened upon a seller that sold nothing but laptop computers of all makes and models. Of course, my ebay search string was for 'ASUS F510UA 256K -(parts,screen...)' which limited my results to only what I wanted. I ended up bidding more than I wanted, but won it at $324 as I recall.

After deciding what make and model I wanted, I 'vetted' each of the sellers looking for one with a rating over 10K with very few negatives and sold mostly, if not only, computers and computer parts. Someone selling mostly 'perfumes', beauty products and knicknacks and selling a laptop would not be a could candidate. Nor would someone who makes all their sales 'private'.

Next, it's necessary to look at 'sold' items for that specific item to determine what they typically sell for. It's necessary to look several times per day, in my opinion, at both what's for sale right now and what things sold for. Sometimes sellers will put a lowball buy-it-now price out there and there is always someone lucky to get it. I normally set my ebay search to sort by 'most recent' to catch those lowball prices. Unfortunately, I didn't check enough times per day to catch any of those lowballs. So, after settling on computer and seller, once I determined it was a good, clean, like new laptop (no scratches, dings, etc), I bid more than I wanted. Note that I also bid once and only once in the last 5-8 seconds of the auction. Rookies make multiple bids needlessly jacking up the prices. It's obvious there's other bidders out there like me.

As I build my own tower computers, I buy most of the components on Amazon. Less important items like fans I still do my homework on first, but may buy them on ebay or Amazon. My used parts...mobo with CPU (and its unused factory cooler and new tube of thermal paste), liquid cooler, RAM, etc, I have sold on ebay with little problem.

My concern with buying a used desktop or tower computer online is twofold. One is shipping costs. Shipping something more than 300-500 miles costs an arm and a leg. That might eliminate some sellers, in my book. The other is "what's under the hood". Computer manufacturers such as HP and Dell tend to 'cut corners' on their lower priced models and use slower hard drives, smaller RAM, and/or slower processors to keep a low price-point. "Joe's corner computer store" might be a better choice for buying used equipment as one can touch and feel it, and hopefully even try it out before buying it. "Joe" might even tell you if it's a lower end computer from Dell or wherever if he realizes you know what you're talking about. But beware..."Joe" might try to sell you some expensive upgrades that can be obtained elsewhere for less if you or someone you know can open the box and install them.