Help with old Gateway laptop?

[thompson4life09]

OK, so I got ahold of an older gateway laptop recently, bought it at a yard sale because apparently the lady who owned it tried to do a recovery on it and now it's just working? It's running on Windows XP still, model number is MX6445, Model No. MA3.

I Do not know much about these things, don't know where to start, what I need, or even the proper terms for what I need. So if you could seriously dumb things down for me that would be so helpful. I haven't done computer service in many of years.

*edit* it starts up, and gets to the home screen, but I can't connect it to the Internet at all, not through Wi-Fi or even straight cabling it to my router.

 

[USAFRet]

So what are you looking to do with this old thing?
Any used system really needs a full wipe and reinstall, before you start to use it.

Being XP, you almost certainly don't have any install media for it.
And even if you do get it working, XP really does not want to be connected to the actual internet.

Sometimes...old junk is simply old junk. Even if it was free.

 

[Scottray]

One thing you might try is installing a Linux operating system on it. I'd suggest Mint, 32 bit Cinnamon edition; https://linuxmint.com/download.php.