best cheap/free scores 1.1

[jwillifixit]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Yes ive a box full of misc P II and III that i could try but i think I'll just leave it as a dedicated Duke Nukum machine!

[Per Hansson]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

^^No, you should play Duke Nukem on the oscilloscope! (Great score btw!)
http://www.lofibucket.com/articles/o...ope_quake.html

[Behemot]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

[jwillifixit]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

^^No, you should play Duke Nukem on the oscilloscope! (Great score btw!)
http://www.lofibucket.com/articles/o...ope_quake.html

OMG you have got to be kidding me right now!!!

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Bought a Radeon 9550 128MB made by Palit for $1.27 and an Celeron PC for $2.55.

PC specs:

Intel Celeron D @ 2.26GHz (literally)
MSI 848P Neo-V
Linkworld LPJ2 350W PSU (total trash, the only thing I salvaged was the replacement Nidec Beta SL fan that was in there)
256MB RAM
80GB WDC PATA drive
Samsung/TSSTCorp SH-S162D DVD-RW drive
an noname beige case of crapiness levels that were off the charts

I could easily tell that thing sat in a chicken shed, given the fact there were chicken feathers. Luckily I could salvage nearly everything (except the gutless wonder of a PSU that it had) and cleaned it up.

I have an issue with it though: no matter what, it won't boot with a USB keyboard. I couldn't check the HDD contents yet (or if it works) since I can't enter the BIOS because of the USB keyboard issue. I might try it on another motherboard (a Gigabyte GA-8I848P-G) and see if it works. Other than the board works nicely, and even has the proper I/O shield. I replaced the crappy Preshott based Celeron D along with the stock cooler with a Pentium 4 2.80GHz Northwood and a full copper cooler out of an scrapped Clevo L295U PC. (although I replaced the jet engine AVC fan with a silent fan from a stock AM2 cooler - I think it might be an AVC too but it is made to run at a much slower pace than the original fan this heatsink had)

Replaced the PSU with a recapped Torrent Computers LC-B400ATX PSU. Maybe not the best choice but miles better than the feather-light Stinkworld that the PC originally came with.

[Per Hansson]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Coming from you that PSU now intrigues me (Not trying to be a smartass)
kc8adu has the right idea, can we see yours?
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...27&postcount=2

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

^^No, you should play Duke Nukem on the oscilloscope! (Great score btw!)
http://www.lofibucket.com/articles/o...ope_quake.html

FTW!!!!

Seriously, that is absolutely amazing!

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Bought a Radeon 9550 128MB made by Palit for $1.27

Cool.
Those older Radeon 9500/9600 cards still sell on eBay for $10 or so.
They are old mid-range AGP cards, but still decent for retro games - beats the crap out of onboard Intel, VIA, and S3 graphics from that era, and then some more.

Coming from you that PSU now intrigues me (Not trying to be a smartass)

I know, right.
Granted I do keep/use some cheapo PSUs as well, but I've recapped/improved them enough to know they won't cause an issue. (And I don't use them that often to begin with.)

kc8adu has the right idea, can we see yours?
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...27&postcount=2

Eh, I don't know about squashing it like that. I would still save the 13007's in there, along with the 10/20 Amp TO-220 schottky rectifiers. They may be very weak, but they are good when you have a shitty monitor power supply with crappy 3 Amp diodes in parallel that keep burning out. Case in point:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=65900

Those Deer/L&C PSUs also usually have several large 2-3 Watt load resistors in the range of 6.8 to 270 Ohms - good for when you have a 60, 70, or 80 mm fan that is too loud and you want to drop the voltage going to it without implementing some kind of a fan controller.

The fan and wires are usually crap, though - good only for experimenting or testing stuff.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Remember that Sony Vaio from a page or two back? This is what it ended up getting....since its internals were all but useless. This build wasn't quite worthy of a thread of its own, but a little mention since it was built from random junk around the shop...and that Asus P5N-VM board momaka was asking about.

That old Vaio case cleaned up nice and is a very solid thick gauge steel....so kind of a sleeper build for as old as it is...

Test fit....and it fits the mounts....but that's about all that fit without some modification.





Of course it has a non-standard proprietary front panel pinout with a single-end connector....not for long!


Some individual FP connectors scavenged from a junk case.








Now for this front panel USB with a super short cord and of course a non-standard plug...


A standardized longer USB internal cable stripped from a really shoddy junk case...and the end nipped off to be used on this goofy proprietary PCB.


Proprietary plug removed, mapped out, and soldered together.


Hot glue at the wire base to restrict movement and otehrwise prevent tugs & oopsies...


Plugged in...and working.


Wiring tied up and a 147gb 10k RPM SATA HDD added....I wanted to do a SSD, but I am fresh out of unused spares. Yes, this case was made for one of those 'shorty' ATX power supplies....but I didn't have one. The original PSU for this case was missing when I got it.


Installed Ubuntu 16.04LTS


Like it was born there....




Super cool mod was done to maintain the illuminated the Vaio badge.


Not a bad little 'sleeper box'....who'd think this old ass Vaio is housing a Xeon @ 3.16/1333, 8GB RAM, Quadro740 GPU. The PSU is an AcBel 390W that originally came with an Asus barebones with a destroyed case. This Vaio case originally had a P4 1.8/400 with no upgrade beyond 512mb RAM and 400FSB. The floppy drive in this case is for decoration only, this motherboard has no FDD controller...

Ok, I've wasted enough time on this....but what the hell, it was fun! Of course this post was made from it, FF57 on ubuntu 16.04... It did annoy me that ubuntu updating up'd FF to 57....need to figure out how to roll it back....no gosh darn status bar!

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Dell OptiPlex 390 with a dead PSU for $1 (that's right a buck):
Specs as purchased:
CPU: I3-2100
RAM: 4GB DDR3-1600
HDD: Seagate Barracuda160GB 7200.7
GPU: Radeon HD6450
OS: Windows 7 Pro

Upgrades:
Replaced dead 265W PSU with a Dell (Delta) DPS-460DB-4 I had laying around
Upgraded HDD to a WD1600HLHX VelociRaptor 160GB 10K rpm drive
Upgraded the GPU to a Zotac GeForce GTX1050.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Coming from you that PSU now intrigues me (Not trying to be a smartass)
kc8adu has the right idea, can we see yours?
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...27&postcount=2

If it's about the Deer PSU I chose, then of course, I'll put up some pictures of it later. It's been recapped with Samwha RDs on the secondary and I added the PI coils and missing stuff (where possible and where I had the components to do so).

If it's about the Linkworld, it's currently gathering dust on a drawer. I didn't harvest parts out of it yet, although I'm not sure if the schottkies on this one are worth something. The main transistors aren't 13007 though, I couldn't identify them good enough to see. The main caps are ridiculously tiny, and they're only 220uF!

momaka - I've read something about the 9550 being BIOS moddable into a 9600 Pro. Is that true? I might actually try that. (I do have a spare 9600SE 128MB in case stuff goes south with this one)

And true, some of Deer's PSUs are actually safe to use granted you replace the caps and add PI coils. And if you want to take it a step further, upgrade the secondary rectifiers

[retiredcaps]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Of course this post was made from it, FF57 on ubuntu 16.04... It did annoy me that ubuntu updating up'd FF to 57....need to figure out how to roll it back....no gosh darn status bar!

See below article on how to rollback.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/6611...irefox-version

Code at

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/r...-x86_64/en-US/

[Per Hansson]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

If it's about the Linkworld, it's currently gathering dust on a drawer. I didn't harvest parts out of it yet, although I'm not sure if the schottkies on this one are worth something. The main transistors aren't 13007 though, I couldn't identify them good enough to see. The main caps are ridiculously tiny, and they're only 220uF!

The Linkworld of course!
I love seeing pics of crappy PSU's!

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Sure. Will post up some pics here later.

Now I don't know if I should actually rebuild it just to see how far can I take a PSU of that size or simply harvest parts out of it. Saying this because I just finished harvesting parts from a beefy Allied that had ripped pads and another beefy Linkworld (it was a 12cm fan 460W model from what I remember, and the full size units they make usually have good components to harvest) and I ended up with a boatload of PI coils, a pair of 13007s, lots of caps, a set of heatsinks, a fan control PCB and a few other stuff including small inductors, wires and whatnot.

[hhernandez38]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Same here

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Okay, so here are the pictures.

If you wonder why there's no fan, it's because I took the one it had out (a Nidec Beta SL 80mm) for other projects.

[jiroy]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

It was the busiest month in my career , lol .. They even bought my personal desktop , (why customers always think that your own computer is from outerspace ? , lol ..) ..

Lot of free stuff the passing two weeks , will be reporting them tomorrow .

[Per Hansson]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

That's a great PSU if you need to harvest allot of jumper wires for a single sided PCB project!

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

momaka - I've read something about the 9550 being BIOS moddable into a 9600 Pro. Is that true? I might actually try that. (I do have a spare 9600SE 128MB in case stuff goes south with this one)

Yes.
Radeon 9550, 9600SE, 9600 non-pro, and 9600 Pro all use the same RV350 GPU core. The only difference between them is the core and memory speeds, with the Radeon 9600 Pro obviously having the fastest core and memory speeds of the bunch, and the 9550 the slowest.

That said....
I **don't** suggest you flash your 9550 to a 9600 Pro - not just yet.
Depending on what RAM you have equipped on your 9550, you may or may not be able to run it at 9600 Pro speeds. For this reason, I suggest you experiment with your Radeon 9550 by overclocking the GPU and memory in small increments in order to find the highest possible speed the GPU and memory can run. If you find that it meets the speeds of Radeon 9600 or 9600 Pro, then you should be able to flash it to that without a problem. Otherwise, no, don't do it, as this will just brick the card.

And finally, it's worth mentioning that as you overclock the core and memory, your video card will run a bit warmer. So depending on what kind of cooler it came with, you may need to upgrade it. Usually the Radeon 9550, 9600SE, and 9600 all use the same cooler, as there is very little difference between their TDPs. But the 9600 Pro may run slightly warmer.

The Linkworld of course!
I love seeing pics of crappy PSU's!

Same here.
So much more interesting than a well-built PSU, isn't it?

Okay, so here are the pictures.

Well.... to be brutally honest, I don't see that much of a difference between this Linkworld and the Deer/L&C LC-B300ATX you posted.

Perhaps the only thing that makes the L&C better is that its PCB has spots for two caps on each rail. On the other hand, I do remember reading some reviews of crappy PSUs a while back that showed that the custom Linkworld PWM controller that Linkworld PSUs use has working OPP and made it very hard to blow up the PSU. I think the review was by c_hegge here on hardwareinsights. Will have to look to find it, if you're interested. If I did remember that right, then the Linkworld PSU has a small advantage in therms of safety.

In terms of efficiency, I don't know which one of these sucks more. But I can tell you that the L&C has pretty bad efficiency.

That's a great PSU if you need to harvest allot of jumper wires for a single sided PCB project!

Don't be so pessimistic now!
I've used an even more gutless PSU to save/test a dozen of other PSUs with problems - namely, a 100W self-oscillating 12V PSU for Halogen lights, a CRT monitor, one of my 250 Watt HiPro PSUs (just needed a 1.5A fast recovery diode), and to temporarily fix a broken rectifier in a Behringer EPQ-1200 amp. I'm not even counting the 10's of breadboard projects I made with the parts from that PSU over the years.

So yeah, even a gutless Deer can be useful.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

In terms of efficiency, I don't know which one of these sucks more. But I can tell you that the L&C has pretty bad efficiency.

Yet they still continue to run.

Yes.
Radeon 9550, 9600SE, 9600 non-pro, and 9600 Pro all use the same RV350 GPU core. The only difference between them is the core and memory speeds, with the Radeon 9600 Pro obviously having the fastest core and memory speeds of the bunch, and the 9550 the slowest.

That said....
I **don't** suggest you flash your 9550 to a 9600 Pro - not just yet.
Depending on what RAM you have equipped on your 9550, you may or may not be able to run it at 9600 Pro speeds. For this reason, I suggest you experiment with your Radeon 9550 by overclocking the GPU and memory in small increments in order to find the highest possible speed the GPU and memory can run. If you find that it meets the speeds of Radeon 9600 or 9600 Pro, then you should be able to flash it to that without a problem. Otherwise, no, don't do it, as this will just brick the card.

And finally, it's worth mentioning that as you overclock the core and memory, your video card will run a bit warmer. So depending on what kind of cooler it came with, you may need to upgrade it. Usually the Radeon 9550, 9600SE, and 9600 all use the same cooler, as there is very little difference between their TDPs. But the 9600 Pro may run slightly warmer.

I think it uses Samsung RAM chips, and they're not BGA.

I'll look some more and research about my card and my options.

I've used an even more gutless PSU to save/test a dozen of other PSUs with problems - namely, a 100W self-oscillating 12V PSU for Halogen lights, a CRT monitor, one of my 250 Watt HiPro PSUs (just needed a 1.5A fast recovery diode), and to temporarily fix a broken rectifier in a Behringer EPQ-1200 amp. I'm not even counting the 10's of breadboard projects I made with the parts from that PSU over the years.

So yeah, even a gutless Deer can be useful.

I still have to do some mods on the two Deer PSUs. As for the Linkworld, I have enough reasons not to bother with it (other than maybe adding PI coils, that is) and rather fix up the Deer. Also, I've read Phaedrus' review on the LPJ2, and I now have no reason to waste good parts on it

The only Linkworlds I'd actually have a shot at are the ones with SG6105D controllers usually and the ones that are full length, like the LPK2-30 400W (I found one that I might buy, I have some empty cases that I want to use) and the LPK19-30 460W. These one usually have good heatsinks and crappy caps (I've seen one with tiny primaries but thick heatsinks (almost as thick as a Bestec!) and EI-33 transformers.