best cheap/free scores 1.1

[shovenose]

Well, IDK if things that cost $80 fit in this thread, but I can buy 2TB drives for $80 at work perfect for our servers!

[kc8adu]

sansui g5700 from the curb.
50+ new motorcycle batteries at a yardsale $2 ea.
missing acid packs in a few but thats easy to get.dry charged so shelf life is forever.

[ratdude747]

I got a Targus SCL lock cord for $3. Brand new in stapled bulk bag with manual and accessories.

http://www.targus.com/us/productdeta...RlZ29yeUlkPTE5

Mine is the older style with no plastic and a top mound eject button:



(not my pic)

[momaka]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

I got a Targus SCL lock cord for $3. Brand new in stapled bulk bag with manual and accessories.

I need to buy me a lock cord as well. There's a lot of shops in the area I can bike to rather than have to drive or walk.

By the way, the GeForce 7600 GS 512 MB AGP I got a few weeks ago turned out to be dead . Upon pressing the PC power button, the card would buzz and would make the PSU turn off immediately. (At least now I know that the SCP/OCP on my 430W Thermaltake TR2 works very well - no burning wires).

Fortunately, I found and fixed the problem - the upper MOSFET for GPU power was shorted. Not sure what rating it had cause I couldn't find any data sheets for it, but I replaced it with an 85A one, which is also slightly bigger (so most likely it's quite overspec-ed, but that's good). The card works great now . Just need to find/make/hack a better heat sink for it. The small motherboard NB heat sink I put on there was only good enough for testing for a minute or so, but it quickly became very hot.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by momaka

I need to buy me a lock cord as well.

Got one. It wasn't a good deal, though. It does what I need it to, so that's all that matters.

However, I did get 1 GB DDR PC3200 (2x 512 MB) from Micro Center the other day for <$12, which I think is a pretty good deal. The RAM is Corsair Value Select and not cheap stuff. The cheap (and slower) stuff actually sells for 2x to 3x more than that price . Go figure.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by momaka

Got one. It wasn't a good deal, though. It does what I need it to, so that's all that matters.

However, I did get 1 GB DDR PC3200 (2x 512 MB) from Micro Center the other day for <$12, which I think is a pretty good deal. The RAM is Corsair Value Select and not cheap stuff. The cheap (and slower) stuff actually sells for 2x to 3x more than that price . Go figure.

if it's desktop, than yeah, good deal.

If it were laptop, then no shock, as stuff that can use pc3200 in a laptop is hard to find.

[ncovert]

I got a vintage Zenith Supersport 286 laptop at a hamfest for $1. The thing was dirty and beat up, but hey, I'm only out a buck. Besides, it's collectible. So I open it up to have a peek inside, first thing I notice is there's two dead shield bugs, one under the keyboard, and one under the hard drive. I hastily extracted the HDD and put the cover back on without disturbing the dead six-legged menaces.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by ncovert

I got a vintage Zenith Supersport 286 laptop at a hamfest for $1. The thing was dirty and beat up, but hey, I'm only out a buck. Besides, it's collectible. So I open it up to have a peek inside, first thing I notice is there's two dead shield bugs, one under the keyboard, and one under the hard drive. I hastily extracted the HDD and put the cover back on without disturbing the dead six-legged menaces.

I have one of those... I paid $2 for it. It also included the Zenith carry case and a burnt up and warped battery unit.

people swore it was dead due to no display... turns out in reality that the contrast slider was all the way to one side... easy fix

[Agent24]

Hey, you're lucky the bugs were dead!

I opened a printer once that was full of LIVE cockroaches.

[brethin]

Picked up a PNY 9800GTX+ video card in the box will all the accessories for $5 at a yard sale yesterday. After giving it a serious thrashing (testing) over night is seems to be fine. Now to find it a good home.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

if it's desktop, than yeah, good deal.

Yup, desktop.

Originally Posted by brethin

Picked up a PNY 9800GTX+ video card in the box will all the accessories for $5 at a yard sale yesterday. After giving it a serious thrashing (testing) over night is seems to be fine. Now to find it a good home.

That's a damn fine deal.

[Topcat]

just a little precision m6300 update....the battery life is about 3hrs +/- 30 minutes...better than I expected.

[shovenose]

Originally Posted by Topcat

just a little precision m6300 update....the battery life is about 3hrs +/- 30 minutes...better than I expected.

Wow! That's impressive for such a beast!

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by shovenose

Wow! That's impressive for such a beast!

My thought too....but I tested 3 different machines, all are the same. I was pleasantly surprised.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Topcat

just a little precision m6300 update....the battery life is about 3hrs +/- 30 minutes...better than I expected.

Nice... My D630 gets about 3-4 hours... and that is a battery with 10% wear (it was NOS).

Good scores BTW...

[momaka]

I got some cool stuff yesterday from work:

- A Dell Precision 210 (dual Slot 1 Pentium III motherboard, 1x 500 MHz Pentium III, 768 MB of RAM, and 32 MB Riva TNT video card) - I will be giving that to a friend of mine, though. It's one hell of a tough system. Has a 330 W Newton PSU rated for 35A on the 5V rail, 14A on the 12V rail and 14A on the 3.3V rail (with combined rating of the 3.3V and 5V rails at 235 W !!!).

- 64 MB CF card. This is going to make a nice upgrade for my camera (right now I have an 8 MB card in it).

- 4x 256 MB desktop DDR RAM (most likely PC2700) for a total of 1 GB.

Also, I recently saw on the local Craigslist here some Pentium 4 Shuttle computers (2 to 2.6 GHz Northwood cores) with 1 GB of RAM for $20 each. Is this a good deal? I'm assuming most if not all have cap problems. Owner says they all have some sort of issues (no ethernet, no boot, etc.). If I were to resell these, how much could I get back. I know the market for Pentium 4 is not so great ATM, but I'm counting on the fact that those are small Shuttle computers that people will find appealing. Any ideas?

[retiredcaps]

Originally Posted by momaka

Also, I recently saw on the local Craigslist here some Pentium 4 Shuttle computers (2 to 2.6 GHz Northwood cores) with 1 GB of RAM for $20 each. Is this a good deal? I'm assuming most if not all have cap problems. Owner says they all have some sort of issues (no ethernet, no boot, etc.). If I were to resell these, how much could I get back.

On my local kijiji, I see many P4s (range from 2.4 to 3.0Ghz) with 1GB, 80GB hard disk, Windows XP, for $30 or so. Some people ask $50, but their ads are months old and get few views.

For you to buy at $20, spend another $10 to $15 in caps for the motherboard and power supply, and test everything, IMHO, is a losing proposition. AND that is it is an "easy" fix. No one will pay or appreciate that the recapped boards are all high quality Japanese caps. This is especially true for the bottom fishers who are solely shopping based on lowest possible price.

My advice is to pass on this deal and invest your hard earned cash in something else.

[ratdude747]

The shuttles don't resale well but after a recap of both the PSU and the Mobo, they can be pretty slick... I have one with an ATI chipset, Radeon x1300 GPU, and a P4 HT 2.8ghz Northwood... For $20 they make good HTPCs at the least.

The amount of RAM is a huge plus... mine has 512mb, which SUCKS. I used to have some PC3200 1gb sticks but they were traded awhile back. If the ram in the units for sale is good (PC3200), they may be worth it just for the RAM inside if the unit was not economicly repairable.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

If the ram in the units for sale is good (PC3200), they may be worth it just for the RAM inside if the unit was not economicly repairable.

That's what I was thinking too. Considering they have 2 RAM slots only, they either have 2x 512 MB or 1x 1 GB. The only actual reason I don't want to get them is because I'm trying to limit on bringing more computer stuff in my room (especially bulky ones). Need to unload some.
...
Speaking of which, I just found a 19" Philips 190S5 LCD monitor left next to a trash can in my neighborhood. I didn't want to take it, but considering it will go *crunch* in the dump truck tomorrow, I felt that saving it is the right thing to do. Plus, it isn't as bulky as an old computer. Monitor works but backlight turns off immediately. Not bad caps or bad CCFLs... Will dig more into it later this week/month.

By the way, I forgot to mention that I also got a Dell QuietKey keyboard from work the last time. Just need to wash it cause it's dirty. Has nice clicky keys (not sure why Dell decided to call it QuietKey ). It will replace a slightly more newer Dell keyboard on one of my computers since that one isn't as clicky.

[ratdude747]

I bet the LCD monitor has a transistor/transformer issue... Lucky you finding it... The only trashed monitors around here are dead CRTs...