It looks so professional

[pentium]

Today I was given a box of boards and cards and other pc goodies for free.

Right now I have an MSI K7N2 drying on the rack and I'm amazed that all the large caps are either nichicon or rubycon.
Along with the items was a video card. The rear stick had peen pulled off so by what I could see on the chipset it was a GeForce2 FX.
Now comes that professionalism.
The last owner had apparently lost the oroginal hold-down clips for the heatsink and thn tried to use bolts and nuts to no avail.
After I found new clips I cleaned the sink surface, placed the sink over the ship and rocked it to get a good seating in the heatsink compound.
Bow at first I though that it was really thin compound but when I took the sink off again I was stunned to find that there was no paste on the heatsink.
Feeling the chip I found a ring all around the side. Super glue. . After the bolts failed to hold the sink in place he tried to glue the heatsink on with no success. The dried glue now meant that I needed to add more compound to even make a contact. Damn, I am pumb out of thermal paste. Off to canadian tire tomorrow. Then to make things more creepier, the whole card was covered in our now infamous evercon caps.
On the plus side I did get a free 2.1 ghz AMD cpu, a gigabit card, A thermaltake 430W PSU, and other various goodies that only a geek could love.

[Spacedye69]

Re: It looks so professional

I love FREE STUFF!!!!!

[willawake]

Re: It looks so professional

damn....no 2 sticks of ddr ram????

[stevo1210]

Re: It looks so professional

I love FREE STUFF!!!!!

The same goes for me, I LOVE FREE STUFF!!!!

So far in 2007, I have been given the following:

* 1x Gigabyte GA-8iPE1000-G mainboard + 3GHz P4 Prescott CPU and an ATI Radeon 9250 128MB. Previous owner wanted a new Pentium D PC.

* 1x Gigabyte GA-8i848P-G mainboard (Faulty) + 3GHz P4 Prescott CPU and 512MB Veritech DDR400 memory.... unfortunately this system had a fried ICH5 southbridge because of some piece of crap "Deer" rebranded PSU. I RMA'd the motherboard out of warranty and got a replacement for $30AUD.

I also scored an ECS 661FX-M socket 478 motherboard for $10 a few weeks back. All it had was a damaged BIOS flash image....

I love free stuff...... and also cheap stuff.

[pentium]

Re: It looks so professional

damn....no 2 sticks of ddr ram????

I know what you are getting to and the ram was one of the few things that were not free. I was offered 512mb for $30 and My wallet is running pretty light these days.

[WNG]

Re: It looks so professional

Nice score!!
;-)
As for the super glue, it should be removable. There are removers that'll dissolve it.
A little heat should also break the bond. Acetone (nail polish remover, old style) will loosen super glue as well.

[Maxxarcade]

Re: It looks so professional

You guys always find the good shit for free...

Today one of my coworkers found a Dell Dimension 4200 (or something of the 4000 series anyway) on the side of the road in good working condition. The only thing wrong with it was that the RAM had come loose. It also has WinXP Pro from the factory. Lucky bastard got a free upgrade from what he was using before

Every time I find a free computer, it is something from the Windows 95-98 era or older

As for that super glue, I'd just sand it off if you can't find remover for it. I think since some types of superglue can make toxic fumes when heated too much. I've even had good luck just using a razor blade to scrape it off.

[pentium]

Re: It looks so professional

You guys always find the good shit for free...

That's because I know how to jump the landfill fence.

[Paul S]

Re: It looks so professional

We have a local recycling bin for old PC's. It is located in a business park in front of one of the businesses.

I was visiting one night, around 9:30pm, when the local law inforcement stopped by to see what I was doing. Feeling that I was not doing anything wrong, I explained to him that I was just looking for something good in this pile of junk. He told me that these old PC's must have value to the recycling company, and that what I was doing was stealing! He then told me that he better not see me (and my vehicle) around here again.

The moral: Don't get caught! Don't go so late at night. (and I have to fix my other vehicle so I can go back )

[WNG]

Re: It looks so professional

He then told me that he better not see me (and my vehicle) around here again.

That cop is a jack-ass.
I would have told him that unless driving on a public road is against the law, you'll continue to be there.

I would simply beat him at his own game by visiting the IT dep't during business hours and request if they can donate the disgarded old equipment to you for refurbishment. Instead of going to the dump for toxic materials recycling.
Then you can simply come pick stuff up from their offices.
It'll save them the effort of carrying stuff to the dumpster.
This is like those who collect fryer grease as bio-diesel. The owners no long have to touch the stuff. They have a person who will do the work.

And make sure the cop sees you, so you can tell him to go back to eating donuts and leave law-abiding citizens doing some good alone!

;-)

[Paul S]

Re: It looks so professional

I agree.

The bin is in the driveway to the company, so it is on private property. He had to make an executive desision, and he made a poor one.

I also make it a point to never argue with a man who has a gun.

I considered going to the company and asking for permission to raid the bin. But, the bin never really had much to offer, mostly Windows 95/98 HP computers. I was always looking for that one P4 gem that just needed a new PSU or hard drive.

[pentium]

Re: It looks so professional

We have a local recycling bin for old PC's. It is located in a business park in front of one of the businesses.

W have one heartless cad who comes through town every six monhs and just laods a transport truck full of computers for "recycling".
He knows me so much (I try to talk to him every chance I get) that the last time I went to ask I wasn't out of the car before he was dialing up the police on me.
I send out so many classified and poster ad's that I would swear that someone would contribute to my museum but all they see is this guy who always has a place on the second page of the paper.

[Spacedye69]

Re: It looks so professional

The company I work for use to PAY $47 per monitor and $.50/lb for everything else plus had to pay to ship it to Michigan! Guess who gets it now?

[bgavin]

Re: It looks so professional

I bought a few of those MSI boards for that very reason. So far, they are all working well in client machines, and one is in my primary workstation. I finally said good bye to the Epox 8KTA3-Pro board, KT133, T-Bird 1400 after many years of good service. I noticed the epox board needs a recap...

I've only seen one dead MSI board, and it was a beauty as noted above. Killed by a crappy PSU. Pity.

[tazwegion]

Re: It looks so professional

We have a local recycling bin for old PC's. It is located in a business park in front of one of the businesses.

I was visiting one night, around 9:30pm, when the local law inforcement stopped by to see what I was doing. Feeling that I was not doing anything wrong, I explained to him that I was just looking for something good in this pile of junk. He told me that these old PC's must have value to the recycling company, and that what I was doing was stealing! He then told me that he better not see me (and my vehicle) around here again.

He was decent enough to give you a verbal warning I wouldn't complain, people's refuse is technically a sticky subject, I mean depending on where you are in the world determines who's it is at what point of being discarded

You guys always find the good shit for free...

Today one of my coworkers found a Dell Dimension 4200 (or something of the 4000 series anyway) on the side of the road in good working condition. The only thing wrong with it was that the RAM had come loose. It also has WinXP Pro from the factory. Lucky bastard got a free upgrade from what he was using before

Every time I find a free computer, it is something from the Windows 95-98 era or older

It is said, one shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth... I happily take anything offered, after all it's good manners

Having said that though... free stuff ROCKS!

[randomchance]

Re: It looks so professional

This one I can chime in on and finally stop lurking...

Free stuff ROCKS!

I get all my (extended) family's computer 'junk' so I usually have a pretty good pile going at any given time. I just got done piecing together a system for my kids out of previously deceased computers. Got an AthlonXP 2100+, 512MB of DDR333 RAM, and a CD/DVD burner from my father-in-law out of a system that got fried by its crappy BestTec PSU. I got an 80GB hard drive and an ATX case from my dad's old Emachines box. I recapped the MSI motherboard out of an Emachines box I had previously written off with Rubycons (thanks Topcat for the caps!), and found another 512MB of DDR333 that I had stashed in the pile from somewhere else. One of my co-workers gave me a 17 inch CRT when he upgraded to LCD so the only thing I had to buy was a PSU, mouse, and keyboard.

Now my kids have a pretty good system to play their games on so they stay off of my main system. Of course in keeping with the free stuff theme, they run on SimplyMEPIS linux and open source software. Why pay for a crash happy OS when I can get an uber stable one that runs great on older hardware for free? I highly recommend open-source (free) Linux - even the openGL games run great on the embedded S3 ProSavage GPU and the kids haven't managed to crash it once.

I justify it to my wife like this - "some guys have a <insert non-functional 80's sports car here> in the garage that they like to constantly work on, I have my computers. At least I get my stuff for free!" FREE STUFF ROCKS!

~Random~