Save it or dump it?

hello everybody. a buddy of mine gave me one of his old pc's. he claimed that it doesnt work. its a dell and its only about 3 or 4 years old. it had windows professional. when i boot the pc the windows loading screen pops up and then the screen simply stays black after that. the mouse pointer shows up but the whole screen is black. its not monitor cuz i tried it on mine. can i save this pc? p.s. i tried safe mode it does the same thing.
thanks, allen