Dumpster Computer Find

[goontron]

Re: Dumpster Computer Find

Hi guys talking about Dumpsters computers,i also found this week a Dell dimention 4500 pentium4 intel i845,1023gb ram,2.26ghz processor,80gb hd,
with Nvidia Geforce 4Ti 4200,it was runing with Win XP sp3,it started up but when it got to the dektop it would freeze, since i know Xp is not supported any more i went a head and i started to install linux distro and erased Win,but at first i couldn't run Debian wheezy7,Xubuntu12.04,lubuntu, mint14,
Bu i thought of Changing the Nvidia card to an ATI 9600,and installed
Debian Wheezy7 and it installed great, then since i like Xubuntu 1204 better
went a head and installed it,this time it installed great and i have a great Extra PC, and it runs like a champ,

XP isn't EOL for a few more months you know?

[GadgetmaNZ]

Re: Dumpster Computer Find

I found a Toshiba Satellite A 50 laptop and faulty power supply last week near a sportsfield. Somebody has dumped lot of household stuff and this laptop caught my eye.

The power supply had broken DC plug which I cut off. Separated the wires and plugged in the mains power. It worked But I needed to fit a new DC plug.

Toshiba uses 6.5 mm DC plug which are not easy to obtain. Went to local recycling shops but no luck, neither the electronics shop Jaycar had the plug.
Then I remembered that I have an universal laptop power supply in my van. Sure enough, I found all the plugs which came with this power supply.

To use this adaptor plug with the AC adapter without DC plug, I had to find couple connectors to fit into the adapter and solder other ends to the 15V DC output cable. Found a computer power supply with that Molex multipin plug and took two pins with short cables out of that cutting the off with a carpet knife. Easy job and used heat shrink tube to insulate and make it look tidy. Plugged in the cable with right polarity testing 3 times with my multimeter that positive was in the center pin as with original plug.
The laptop had 2 lights up but I did not hear the hdd starting up and nothing came on the screen.

In the meantime while I was wondering about pulling this laptop apart I bought exactly same model Toshiba Satellite A50 with different fault from Trademe, a local Ebay. This one was faulty too but different fault.

Testing showed that the screen came to life but Win XP did not load. I took the hdd from that dumped A50 and that got the laptop going : popcorn1:
The keyboard did miss a key and some screws are missing on the bottom but there are enough screws and good parts to make one good laptop and I can sell the rest for parts for more than $40 I paid for the second faulty laptop.
Pretty stoked as I was looking for a proper laptop to do stuff I need Windows OS and watch some movies in my van. I have already 2 tablets and now I can sell my Asus Transformer TF 101.

[ivtec]

Re: Dumpster Computer Find

I found a Toshiba Satellite A 50 laptop and faulty power supply last week near a sportsfield. Somebody has dumped lot of household stuff and this laptop caught my eye.

The power supply had broken DC plug which I cut off. Separated the wires and plugged in the mains power. It worked But I needed to fit a new DC plug.

Toshiba uses 6.5 mm DC plug which are not easy to obtain. Went to local recycling shops but no luck, neither the electronics shop Jaycar had the plug.
Then I remembered that I have an universal laptop power supply in my van. Sure enough, I found all the plugs which came with this power supply.

To use this adaptor plug with the AC adapter without DC plug, I had to find couple connectors to fit into the adapter and solder other ends to the 15V DC output cable. Found a computer power supply with that Molex multipin plug and took two pins with short cables out of that cutting the off with a carpet knife. Easy job and used heat shrink tube to insulate and make it look tidy. Plugged in the cable with right polarity testing 3 times with my multimeter that positive was in the center pin as with original plug.
The laptop had 2 lights up but I did not hear the hdd starting up and nothing came on the screen.

In the meantime while I was wondering about pulling this laptop apart I bought exactly same model Toshiba Satellite A50 with different fault from Trademe, a local Ebay. This one was faulty too but different fault.

Testing showed that the screen came to life but Win XP did not load. I took the hdd from that dumped A50 and that got the laptop going : popcorn1:
The keyboard did miss a key and some screws are missing on the bottom but there are enough screws and good parts to make one good laptop and I can sell the rest for parts for more than $40 I paid for the second faulty laptop.
Pretty stoked as I was looking for a proper laptop to do stuff I need Windows OS and watch some movies in my van. I have already 2 tablets and now I can sell my Asus Transformer TF 101.

Good Job Bro:Your like me that's the way one learns stuff,
i also have a Toshiba satellite that was given to me but the mouth in the Laptop did not work, i had to use an external mouth,story short i was walking on a street and i noticed on a garbage can on the side of the street ready to be picked up by the garbage truck, a Toshiba exactly like mine in pieces inside a plastic bag the only thing missing was the hard drive,i opened my Toshiba and checked why the mouth did not work and it was a missing cable tape, took cable tape of the found Toshiba put it in place and now i have a laptop fully working even have an extra battery,Thats Luck>

[killian6pk]

Re: Dumpster Computer Find

There are six capacitors on the board that need changing. Three Chemicon caps (With the brown sleeve) by the CPU VRM (Near the back panel connectors) and three more left of the memory slots. The board is made by Foxconn, as is typical with Dell Vostros, and they're decent quality.

Vostros use LiteOn PSUs, but YMMV. They need to be re-capped as well, but you can use a different PSU if you want since Vostros are standard ATX computers.

This is an update on the dumpster computer. I did as Mockingbird suggested with the replacement caps. Put in the memory (4gb) and added a SATA HD (250gb) I had from another computer. Fired it up with Zorin OS 7 on a Flash drive and it worked perfectly. Installed the Zorin and it has been working now for several weeks. Loads almost instantly. This is my first experience with Ubunto OS's and so far I am satisfied. One problem I am having tho is that when I go to Youtube to watch a video about half the time it either just sits there and does not load or the little spinner just spins and it does not load. If I click on the address bar and hit enter it will load usually first time. Anyone have a solution to this problem?

BTW I have flash player for Linux downloaded, don't know if this helps or hurts.