Yeah, if you're not going to be putting it through heavy usage or anything and just want it around, I would say to reinstall Windows* (weird that you didn't get an XP disc, though) and see if that fixes it, but don't put any money into fixing it because what it would take to fix it would likely be more than what it would take to just buy a new machine.
*I am not a Linux man so I have no knowledge about it and can't speak to that.