Two entirely separate problems here; I'd ideally like to solve both of them.
Problem #1!
I woke up this morning and pressed the power button on my desktop, thinking I'd browse me some BG before going out and actually doing something. Fans whirred, power lights ignited, but the monitor said "No input detected". Thinking this was a monitor problem, I hit the CD and DVD drive buttons, only to be met with an uncooperative silence and stillness. Basically, I don't think anything's working. The desktop's an old Acer Aspire bought in the winter of 2004-2005, slightly modified with a better graphics card (well, it was better in 2005) and a CDRW drive on top of the factory-installed DVD drive. Sticker on the front claims that it's an AMD Sempron inside. Should run Windows XP Home Edition. What's a cheap way to diagnose and fix whatever's causing it to not work?
Problem #2!
As the desktop failed to work, I plugged my brand-spanking new laptop into the internets. As I'm posting on forums no problem, I thought all was good. Then I tried logging in to PlayOnline and Ventrilo. Playonline gives me POL-2059 error, despite the fact that McAffee and AdAware confirm that I don't have any spyware. Hell, the thing's so new I've not even browsed any porn on it. Ventrilo gives me "MSG: Contacting Server" indefinitely. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1720 running Windows Vista. I've disabled the firewall, but still no dice. I could log on to FFXI just fine back at my mum's house on a wireless connection even with the firewall running, but here in London on a wired connection it seems I'm out of luck. The same wired connection worked for my desktop, but the desktop is, as noted above, experiencing a significant utility deficit. The problem therefore lies within the settings inside my laptop. Vista Network and Sharing Center has my settings listed as:
Access: Local and Internet
Connection: Local Area Connection
Network Discovery: On
File Sharing: On
Public Folder Sharing: Off
Printer Sharing: Off
Password Protected Sharing: On
Media Sharing: Off