general info bout p.cs please i think im bein lied to

hi as you will see from my posts im pretty clueless! right.. i purchased a h.p pentium 4 pc off a bloke on gumtree and within the first couple of days it started freezing so i had to turn it off and back on again ,this happened 7 times and  also it wouldnt run "reaper" properly (the graphics were basic) and not how it should look.. so  i told the bloke and he agreed 2 exchange it for a dell with pentium 4 but a few days later said he couldnt find fault with the h.p? i did run a demo of sonar x2 on the h.p it and if im not mistaken, wouldnt a pentium 4 be too slow to handle x2? could that of caused it to keep freezing? it happened when i wasnt even runnin x2 aswell? thats my first question . cheers 

right.. the dell he gave me seemed ok but after getting advise from sum good people on the forum i realised a pentium 4 was gona be a bit iffy running sonar 8 .. so i asked the bloke who seemed genuine enough if he would mind taking it back for a small profit and he could sell it on as he seems to use refurbishing p.cs as a 2nd income.. he seemed fine with that but next thing i got a text sayin he had found me a dual core lenova m70 e think center 2.80ghz which would be adequate for running sonar ..but obviously i would need 2 give him sum more money and give the dell tower back (but keep the samsung monitor and keyboard etc i originaly got with the h.p ).. i told him i was a bit skint and would just prefer the money back as agreed but he seemed to get a bit funny .. i wont get into details but yer a bit of tension was building.. i agreed to go with the deal and have the lenova dula core...

right , he told me to bring the samsung monitor , i didnt understand why but i trusted there was valid reason.. when i got there he had a differnt monitor set that he said was a better resolution or sumthing when i said i was happy with my original monitor he said it wouldnt be suitable and the lenova was too high spec for it !!?   the original monitor he gave me was a
Samsung SyncMaster 931BW and i dont think its very old so sureley it would of worked with the lenova? thats my first main question..?
right the monitor that he gave me is also a samsung and is playing up bigtime . i only got it a couple of days ago and its switchin itself off regulary (and completley off) the standby and power light go off and i have to click the on/off switch on the back to get it goin again.. if im lucky it stays on for 3o min but sumtimes its every 5 mins.. i contacted the bloke and he said thats normal with powersuite or sumthing !!?!  then when it got real bad and started happening more frequent i contacted him again and told him straight that this cant be normal and theres gota be sumthing wrong with the monitor and he just pretty much said i would need to get another monitor!!!  when i told him hes gota be jokin and ide payed for the p.c /monitor and extras he just started waflling about how hes done me a great favour and he lost 20quid just 2 get it from a mate cheaper and he has installed 64bit etc etc  and basically he wouldnt replace it or give me money to cover the monitor!  right before i go ranting and raving i need sum answers to the questions ive asked so then i can argue with facts 

personaly i think hes takin advantage of the fact im clueless and a  mate of mine whos worked at IBM for 30 years rekons any fairly modern monitor should work with the lenova and the guys lying  .. i think hes lied to me  and given me a monitor he knows is faulty and kept the decent 1 himself , a few things hes said just dont add up and i think hes taking the piss .. can anyone help please. sorry for the length but i wanna make sure im not ripped off.. cheers

please note ive hooked up the monitor to me mums p.c and its just switched off as i got to the end of writing this so it cant be the lenova at fault and must be the monitor?? 
  thanks again

helo mate how u doin? i dint have any plugins mate i just litterly ran sonar x2 demo and also had reaper installed and that was it and i didnt even have an interface hooked up and it just froze 6/7 times in 48hrs and then i contacted him and he agreed to swap it for a dell but hes basically implying im the problem and he says hes since sold the h.p and had no complaints but to be honest i dont trust anything he says now... cheers mate

There are many to choose from in the UK

Quite honestly, I'd go for one of the bigger players in the industry - Digital Village are always worth a shout, as are inta-audio

A quick Google search will yield a good 20+ usable results, you can narrow it down from that point.

+1 Dave.  the P4 will sort of work but only if other components are up to snuff. A 7200 RPM HD and a min of 2 Gigs RAM. I bet with that machine the seller pulled the good RAM and put in 256MB  to make the thing boot. I bet the OS is pirated too.  I have a P4 Laptop that works only because it is optimized to the max. That said it only records audio,, It cannot handle much in the way of VST's or session drummer.