best cheap/free scores 1.1

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Now that is pretty dope, TC.
Those old Pentium 3 and Pentium 4 era cases are indeed very solid, despite the silly looks. My HP Pavilion 8756c looks very similar (though a lot more beat up, as it was a dumpster find and is missing some plastics). Still working with all of its original hardware. I would love to put something more modern in it.... but at the same time, I have enough okay-ish rigs at the moment that I'd rather keep it the way it is. A former co-worker of mine threw a retro LAN party last spring, and the idea has really been stuck and buzzing in my head for a while now that I should try and do something similar. Come to think of it, I have more than enough P3 and P4 PCs for that.

And oh yeah, I just took some pictures yesterday of a really cool oldschool case that I'm thinking to use for a special project. But that's all I'm revealing for now, as I'm still deep into the planning phase. When I'm done, that's when pictures and a thread will come (hopefully in less than 6 months from now). Might post pictures of the case and its original internals here when I get the pictures out of the camera. I think some of you here will approve.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

And oh yeah, I just took some pictures yesterday of a really cool oldschool case that I'm thinking to use for a special project. But that's all I'm revealing for now, as I'm still deep into the planning phase. When I'm done, that's when pictures and a thread will come (hopefully in less than 6 months from now). Might post pictures of the case and its original internals here when I get the pictures out of the camera. I think some of you here will approve.

I think I might know what this is!

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored a free Cyrix 6x86-P133+GP 110MHz and it works.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I got the board yesterday. It had that 'musty' smell like its been sitting in a box in someone's basement for the last 20 years, but was very clean.... It POST'd to BIOS v 1.0....and of course the ARO raidport controller wasn't seen. After several hours of musical firmwares & BIOS updates later, I finally got them all playing nicely together...just to discover that CPU2 slot is dead....if that isn't just enough to piss you off!! I'll have to back burner this one till I can troubleshoot that issue....but its alive & well running a raid0 with the raidport zcr controller.

Well I had a little time today, so I got the meter out and crawled through this board. After an hour or so poking at it, I discovered the VRM was putting out zip. I narrowed it down to u55 on the motherboard (HIP6004BCB), the regulator itself. I had a couple of these chips in a strange dual P2 board Ratdude gave me, but I never could get going....but it had external VRM's, with the chip I needed....so I bilked/borrowed one from it (I did order a couple from China from the link above to replace it). I replaced the bad one on my P6DGU, and shazam, both CPU's are now present and working. I have a build in mind for this board....more later.

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Well I had a little time today, so I got the meter out and crawled through this board. After an hour or so poking at it, I discovered the VRM was putting out zip. I narrowed it down to u55 on the motherboard (HIP6004BCB), the regulator itself. I had a couple of these chips in a strange dual P2 board Ratdude gave me, but I never could get going....but it had external VRM's, with the chip I needed....so I bilked/borrowed one from it (I did order a couple from China from the link above to replace it). I replaced the bad one on my P6DGU, and shazam, both CPU's are now present and working. I have a build in mind for this board....more later.

That board I gave is is an extremely rare AMI board... That's for Dual PIII Coppermines, not PII. It's odd because it uses slot 1 coppermine and also because it uses RAMBUS to SDRAM converter chips. It was butchered already (dead NIC that I later desoldered off for some stupid reason), and I'm glad you found some use for it.

[Hondaman]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Darn. You guys get all the great finds and I get lousy stuff. Yesterday I got:

HP Pavilion A305W, Intel board (3 PCI slots, Intel onboard video)
2.7 GHz Celery [Celeron], 256 Megs of 333 MHz RAM
EIDE 40 Gig WD drive
EIDE CD-RW (no DVD capability)
Hipro HP-D2537F3R PSU
3.5-inch floppy drive
56K modem

Windows XP Home

The capacitors all "look good", and the machine boots. Eventually, it detected my USB keyboard and mouse. Lots of thrashing, using the swap. I would like to know which version of IE it had, but IE wouldn't start.

I didn't check the hours on the hard drive yet (S.M.A.R.T. data) and I don't trust the HIPRO power supply (just because it has an official HP part number doesn't mean HP paid for a high quality PSU). (It has a voltage selector switch, so it is passive PFC). And I have no idea, but I think the CPU is probably 32-bit. And it looks like someone accidentally painted some clear varnish or glue onto part of the front of the tower case.

So basically, my 32-bit Athlon 2900 (I have one of these rare systems, an exclusive "vanity chip" made for Systemax) could outrun this thing.

My neighbor gave this HP system to me. I think his wife wanted him to clean out the shed and/or the garage.

This is the same neighbor who gave me that 400 MHz first-generation Mac G3. It has 64-bit PCI slots, a strange animal indeed. But it is hardware limited to a 128 GB EIDE drive, and it is DOG SLOW, just like the HP. (Thanks Ratdude for the OS X disc, I'll get around to playing with that Mac someday.)

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Darn. You guys get all the great finds and I get lousy stuff.

Well, I'm surprised to see you're jealous of my Panasonic Thru... ... speakers above. They really are worth a goldmine!
EDIT by mods: the referenced post has been split and moved here: https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=72294

HP Pavilion A305W, Intel board (3 PCI slots, Intel onboard video)

Ah, another basterdized board with no AGP. Makes the board only good for word processing and very basic 2D work with old software.

... and I don't trust the HIPRO power supply (just because it has an official HP part number doesn't mean HP paid for a high quality PSU). (It has a voltage selector switch, so it is passive PFC).

Nah, it should still be a pretty decent HiPro unit in there. HiPro didn't really submit to peer pressure from manufacturers and still built great heavy units. Their only downfall is Teapo SC and occasionally AsiaX caps, with the former seeming to do worse for some reason. But they are still tanks after a recap.

No APFC? -Great! One less thing to break down. I project these PPFC/no-PFC PSUs will still work fine 10-20 years in the future (provided the output caps don't go bad or the PSU is recapped, of course). Very few modern PSUs can touch that kind of reliability.

And I have no idea, but I think the CPU is probably 32-bit.

With 256 MB RAM total... you're dealing either with DDR (most likely) or SDRAM (less likely). (I didn't look up the model number of this PC for specs.) So that 100% means 32-bit CPU.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

momaka - DDR, i845GL chipset.


Anyways, scored some cheap stuff and it was pretty much worth it.

Allied AL-8400BTX - PPFC unit, 12cm fan (Globe Fan).

Needs a recap and quite some washing (with IPA or medicinal spirit) but it does power up with a high pitched whine.
Will recap it, replace the ERL-28 transformer with a 35 (from another Allied which quietly died of absolute unknown reasons - it was recapped), replace the output torroid with a bigger one, and finally replace the main switchers with 13009s (or equivalents).
Paid about $2.46 (10 RON ) on it. Has 24pin ATX, 6pin PCI-E (which is kinda useless I guess), SATA and of course Molex and one Berg/Floppy connector.


ATI VGA Charger 512K ISA - this one was $0.98. Currently in use on my 486DX-50 machine w/4MB RAM.

Winfast A7600GT TDH 256MB AGP8x - visually looks fine, but won't POST. Will have to check. Strange, as the card looks really fine - no scratches or dents. Just gave it a good cleaning (it was really dusty). Caps aren't anything cheap either - Sanyo OSCON and UCC PS series.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Winfast A7600GT TDH 256MB AGP8x - visually looks fine, but won't POST. Will have to check. Strange, as the card looks really fine - no scratches or dents. Just gave it a good cleaning (it was really dusty).

looks like the card may have bitten the bumpgate bug. the 7600gt agp cards look very much similar to their predecessors, the 6600gt agp cards. if those two cards are anything similar to each other, the 6600gt agp runs at over 80+°C with the puny stock cooler! plus all that dust on the heatsink, that 7600gt agp may have overheated itself to death. something very common on the gf6, 7 and 8 series. time for a reflow but dont get your hopes up on that either. they're not very revivable.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

looks like the card may have bitten the bumpgate bug. the 7600gt agp cards look very much similar to their predecessors, the 6600gt agp cards. if those two cards are anything similar to each other, the 6600gt agp runs at over 80+°C with the puny stock cooler! plus all that dust on the heatsink, that 7600gt agp may have overheated itself to death. something very common on the gf6, 7 and 8 series. time for a reflow but dont get your hopes up on that either. they're not very revivable.

Actually, 8400GS cards are pretty easy to revive.

I did one artefacting 8400GS by simply leaving the heatsink off enough that the artefacts went away for a certain period (1 hour) and then ran Furmark to keep it scorching hot.

Now it works absolutely fine (no crashes) and is cooled down by a 12cm fan on a pretty quiet C2D machine.

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Another 8 Cisco 1142's. I gutted them for the cool cases. Would have taken more if they were weatherproof...

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I was given a VP6, working. Even it's original Jackcon caps are good (appearance-wise). Of course I'll recap it. Picked up a Supermicro P6DGS for peanuts as well, I dont know if it works or not, its previous owner had no way of testing it...but it was cheap enough that it was worth the gamble.

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Two Dell 2950's (6x3.5" option) and Two R710's (8x2" option). I think I'll turn them into drive cloners (do 6/8 in the time it takes to do 1).

[momaka]

Antec Performance One P180B case from Craigslist

Last week, I got an Antec Performance One P180B case off of my local Craigslist for $10. It came with a SATA DVD-RW drive and also four 120 mm fans (three of which are Antec with a speed selector) – a little dusty, but all spinning fine. Some pictures:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539923662
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539923662
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539923662
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539923662

Looks pretty good to me. Maybe not perfect, but the owner noted all of this in the posting (i.e. the loose front door, which he fixed with glue, along with the scratches, stains, and dings on the side.) Speaking of which, what is it that people drink next to their PCs that always leaves these stains in the paint? Neither Ammonia-based, nor alcohol-based, nor dish detergent, nor Chlorine-based cleaners can get that stuff out. You can see the stains on the first picture I posted above. It doesn't really bother me too much, as I know the case is clean and disinfected already, but I'm just curious to know what it is.

Here are some shots of the inside:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539923662
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539923662
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539923662

And look what I found behind the HDD cage:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539923662
- A box of screws that supposedly came with the case. I'm glad the owner kept these and didn't loose them. The front door keys for the lock are also there - very thoughtful of Antec to include this in the case design!

And here you can see one more imperfection on the bottom:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539923662
- The case is missing a foot, which has been repaired by the owner. It maybe a little mod… but again kudos to the owner for actually caring to do this. Most cases I've found on my local Craiglist here have been much worse and much dirtier. Missing feet? – Almost the norm.

On that note, the case was also cleaned up pretty well by the original owner prior to selling it to me. Of course I still pulled it apart and inspected + cleaned/disinfected it further (it's just an OCD of mine.) Nevertheless, I can't remember the last time I picked up a PC case from Craigslist that was this clean. Most stuff I get here is at least very dusty and goes all the way up to having dead roach and bedbug bodies (at which point, I usually just throw it away or refuse the deal). But not this case (pun… weeee! )

Moreover, what's weird is that I bought this from the more “poor” side of my neighborhood. I frankly expected to get a case full of roaches when I saw the condo complex (and hence why I cleaned + inspected the case again). But no! It was clean. Meanwhile, I've had pretty poor luck picking up good stuff from in front of big McMansion houses in the richer parts of my neighborhood.

So perhaps the theory I came up with in the Panasonic Thrusters thread is true:

… why does it always seem that the crappiest and most smelly and moldy items I get always come from upper-middle class neighborhoods with large houses. I just don't get it! These speakers were located in front of a newly-built and fairly large McMansion home. One would think there would be better things in such a house, and definitely not smelling like mold. Not the first time either that I seem to pickup something very crappy from an otherwise good-looking house.

Anyways, for $10, I think I scored well here. Now to think about which build I should put in it. With all those fans, it sure can take some hot hardware. I guess I'll have to dig out my Pentium D 830 CPU. It's been getting cold lately and I could use a room heater.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

^
I've got one of those here, brand new in its original box! Very awesome case, well built well designed.....I have no build in mind for mine, but when I use it it'll be something special!

[brethin]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

^
I've got one of those here, brand new in its original box! Very awesome case, well built well designed.....I have no build in mind for mine, but when I use it it'll be something special!

If I remember correctly you got that from me in one of my big box sales at a very good price.

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Got a load of dell hardware a few weeks ago including

Dell usb 3.0 4K docks x 3 for a fiver each
A load of new 65w and 120w laptop power supplies £1 each
A few other bits and pieces

Non pc stuff got a Bose wave radio/cd. Absolute filthy but worked a treat once cleaned up. £10
Bose personal portable CD player, absolute bargain for a £1. Was buried amongs loads of kids toys. Looked like it had never been used still had the cardboard piece inside that you remove before first use. Unfortunately numnuts over here killed it as was dirty from the outside so tried cleaning. Managed to tear ribbon cable when dismantling (wanted to clean around button) luckily I managed to bridge with a thin cable but had to sell for a 3rd of what it was worth if I didn’t damage the ribbon.

Anyhow off tomorrow and sunday to some Carboot will update with haul hopefully.

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

nice, i like the carboot reports.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

If I remember correctly you got that from me in one of my big box sales at a very good price.

No, I got that case from a local shop that was going belly up.

This is the one I got from you, Antec DF30 gaming case, which is still in use BTW:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...94&postcount=1

[brethin]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

No, I got that case from a local shop that was going belly up.

This is the one I got from you, Antec DF30 gaming case, which is still in use BTW:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...94&postcount=1

Ah that's right, my memory isn't what it use to be.