best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

$25.00 ebay score = Supermicro P6DGU dual slot-1 GX chipset motherboard. Been looking for one on and off for a while, I have the dedicated 'RAID port' add-on card for the onboard SCSI that goes to one of these (came in a junk box years ago). I don't know if either works, the motherboard was listed as untested and I've never had a board to test the raidport card....so $25 gamble, I'm not too worried if none of it works, I've gambled a lot more than this on pool & football games.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Got a free ECS 755-A2 v1.0 that won't POST (or beep for that matter), further check showed corrosion.

Also got a ASUS A9550GE/TD/256M/A

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

A few recent scores.

Dell OptiPlex 790 SFF for $20:




Epson LX350 9-Pin dot-matrix printer with 2 new ribbons for $15:



IBM Thinkpad T40 for $10:



In case you're wondering what on earth I'd do with such an ancient laptop, IBM actually released Windows 9x drivers for these so with a 1.5 Ghz. Pentium M, 512 MB ram, and a mobility-Radeon 7500 it makes a nice Win 9x system and will even run most games from that era well.

I see good ol' Windows 98 SE!

[brethin]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I see good ol' Windows 98 SE!

My T40 has a 2ghz CPU and 2 GB ram running Windows 7 ultimate.

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

My T40 has a 2ghz CPU and 2 GB ram running Windows 7 ultimate.

that must run like shit on 32bit.
sounds like you have an M760 cpu.

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Another pair of Cisco 2960's (no idea why I'm seeing so many of these, lately).

And, the "insignificant but most treasured" prize is a set of 3 Cisco "console" cables. These will be SO much easier to keep track of than my homemade cables!

[brethin]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

that must run like shit on 32bit.
sounds like you have an M760 cpu.

It runs great.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Raided a local computer shop, got 4x Mitsumi floppy & card reader combos. I never even knew these existed!! Awesomeness!

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

i think i have one new in the box.
it may be a different make though.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Raided a local computer shop, got 4x Mitsumi floppy & card reader combos. I never even knew these existed!! Awesomeness!

wow nice... usb 3 in 1 floppy card reader. i think i might need one as well. will u be flipping them on junkbay? hehe!

topcat, might i trouble u to post the top shot of the mitsumis showing the model number sticker? is it fa404m? thanks man!

EDIT: on second thought, after raiding ebay for pics. the connector on the drive doesnt appear to be usb but some kind of 4 pin connector. any idea what that is?

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Raided a local computer shop, got 4x Mitsumi floppy & card reader combos. I never even knew these existed!! Awesomeness!

If they're the right version, with a FW upgrade they can do SDHC. IIRC it's' V1.6 and higher. I can't find it at the moment but I know it's posted on here somewhere.

I have two of these myself. Not used anywhere, but good drives nevertheless.

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

wow nice... usb 3 in 1 floppy card reader. i think i might need one as well. will u be flipping them on junkbay? hehe!

topcat, might i trouble u to post the top shot of the mitsumis showing the model number sticker? is it fa404m? thanks man!

EDIT: on second thought, after raiding ebay for pics. the connector on the drive doesnt appear to be usb but some kind of 4 pin connector. any idea what that is?

USB. 4 pin heqder for internal use. No shield.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Yes, they are FA404M drives. I tested them all, they all work. The beige one is going in one of my retro rigs.

I've never updated firmware on a floppy drive or card reader...

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I've never updated firmware on a floppy drive or card reader...

Card readers, optical media drives (WORM, CD, DVD), NICs, CPUs, damn near any USB peripheral, etc. all increasingly rely on firmware updates (to fix the crap the manufacturer didn't realize initially).

A big part of each system build that I undertake is verifying the firmware for all of the devices is up-to-date before starting the OS install. Often, it's hard to "inspect" current version numbers. So you have to locate an update and try to apply it -- only to have it tell you "this device does not need an update".

And, firmware can often vary from OEM to OEM and application to application. My DLTs had all sorts of different firmware upgrades depending on where and how I intended to use them! <frown>

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Yes, they are FA404M drives. I tested them all, they all work. The beige one is going in one of my retro rigs.

I've never updated firmware on a floppy drive or card reader...

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...6&postcount=19

Just a windows .exe updater. It's in Japanese but the firmware is the same. Took some digging to find it back in the day, but now it's uploaded here for all eternity.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

^
Cool, thanks. I'll try it tomorrow when I get in the office.

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

A friend just dropped off a box of workstation graphics cards (AGP & PCIe -- several Quadro 6000's, a couple of GTX960's, etc.) that he picked up in an auction lot, this week. I'll probably just trade them away to a friend/colleague for something I may find interesting.

But, I want to avoid trading stuff of "unknown quality" as it can leave a sour taste in folks' mouths.

If I simply plug each card in and verify that I can get "generic" (low resolution) video and something towards the upper end of their display capabilities ON EACH INTERFACE and verify fans are working (for those cards that have fans), is that a "close enough for government work" test? I.e., how likely is it that something subtler has failed that won't be apparent if the card "appears" to work?

[Note there are rarely any claims made as to the quality of goods purchased at auction so I can't even say they were "working pulls".]

Or, should I not bother testing at all and just treat the lot as "as-is, where-is"? Its future recipient may "get lucky" or he may end up with a bunch of recyclable boards...

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

i would run a 3d game or a stress-test program to get them warm.

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

i would run a 3d game or a stress-test program to get them warm.

Ah, OK. Good point.

But, will a "failure" manifest as some sort of NOTICEABLE visual artifact(s) or an outright crash? If a disk drive fails to produce data for a read() operation, the OS logs that event. I can examine the logs to see if the disk is having issues. I can run a disk benchmark and see if it is having to retry operations (affecting throughput) and note degradation in performance as a crude indicator of the drive's integrity.

Is there anything similar when it comes to a video card? If some benchmark claims the card can do <whatever>, would that same benchmark ALWAYS yield the same performance for a "good" card? Would it show reduced performance for a compromised card? Or, would it just "not run"??

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

A friend just dropped off a box of workstation graphics cards (AGP & PCIe -- several Quadro 6000's, a couple of GTX960's, etc.) that he picked up in an auction lot, this week. I'll probably just trade them away to a friend/colleague for something I may find interesting.

But, I want to avoid trading stuff of "unknown quality" as it can leave a sour taste in folks' mouths.

If I simply plug each card in and verify that I can get "generic" (low resolution) video and something towards the upper end of their display capabilities ON EACH INTERFACE and verify fans are working (for those cards that have fans), is that a "close enough for government work" test? I.e., how likely is it that something subtler has failed that won't be apparent if the card "appears" to work?

[Note there are rarely any claims made as to the quality of goods purchased at auction so I can't even say they were "working pulls".]

Or, should I not bother testing at all and just treat the lot as "as-is, where-is"? Its future recipient may "get lucky" or he may end up with a bunch of recyclable boards...

GTX 960's? Those are actually quite recent... If they do work (power up, no artifacts after 30 mins of use), you'd probably be able to sell them pretty easily. If they're a matched pair, then that would be good for an SLI rig. I've been sorta looking for a pair, actually; from what I've seen even the 960's still go for a pretty penny.

The rest, it depends. Older AGP may have some retro value, newer would have upgrade value for old systems; neither would have mass appeal though. For the other PCIe's, it depends on what exactly it is; older ones have lost a lot of value due to the massive improvements in GPU performance in recent years and also are more prone to failure. Newer cards run cooler in addition to having much better performance.