best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Do you perform your own car maintenance?

Yes. If I am able and have the know-how, I do major repairs as well. If I don't, I have a friend in the business....so it only cost me parts (diesel pickup).

Maintain your home appliances (stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, washer/dryer, ACbrrr, furnace) -- or, hire someone to do so? Do you dine out?

Yup. When I first started in electronics, I shared a storefront with an appliance repairman. I learned a lot.

Do your own grocery shopping?

Yup. If my wife did it all, I'd weigh 400lbs....all she'd buy is garbage. I shop a little smarter, and weigh 165lbs.

Each time you choose to do something yourself, you've implicitly decided that your time is worth LESS than what a "professional" would charge to perform that activity. Conversely, each time you opt to pay someone, you've decided that your time is worth more (than whatever he/she is likely to charge -- offset by whatever time it is likely to cost you to be inconvenienced by him/her).

I'm paid well for my 'professional time'....my puttering time, I don't really care...that's my playtime. Tinkering with junk; finding/buying/selling/refurbishing is not something I charge myself by the hour for....it's quite therapeutic...that's reward enough!!

In "normal times", I would be doling out items like this to friends/colleagues (at auctions, swap meets, in casual exchanges, etc.) just as part of "being friendly" (not strictly "bartering" but, rather, "buying future favors"). The only "cost" to doing so is remembering to bring <whatever> with me to the next such get-together. But, these sorts of get-togethers have been canceled, for the forseeable future.

I think by mid-May things should start to return to normal....hang in there!

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Yes. If I am able and have the know-how, I do major repairs as well. If I don't, I have a friend in the business....so it only cost me parts (diesel pickup).

Yup. When I first started in electronics, I shared a storefront with an appliance repairman. I learned a lot.

Yup. If my wife did it all, I'd weigh 400lbs....all she'd buy is garbage. I shop a little smarter, and weigh 165lbs.

That's my point -- you have consciously or subconsciously "done the math" and decided that the TOTAL time that you will expend at some hypothetical rate will "cost" you less than "hiring out".

If I want to have someone fix the ACbrrr (or car or...), then I have to find someone (takes time and represents a "risk"), wait for them to show up, wait for them to fix it, pay them, hope they ACTUALLY fix it (and don't need a second visit), etc.

But, KNOWING how to fix these things, already, doing it myself is far less costly -- in time -- because I *know* that I will fix it properly (instead of HOPING that someone else will). So, the net time SAVED by doing it myself dwarfs the "cost" of paying someone to do it for me.

About the only things that I now "hire out" are oil changes -- because the time it takes to drive to the shop would be replaced by the time it takes to drive to some place to dispose of the waste oil. (I could arrange to pick up oil, filter, wipers, air filter, cabin filter, etc. BETWEEN oil changes and have them on hand in preparation for the NEXT oil change but I still need to dispose of waste oil)

I'm not going to be much faster changing it myself than the mechanic would be. So, it's a question of how much THAT amount of my time is worth vs. what it costs me to pay him for his. And, I can drag a laptop/tablet with me and spend any time that would be "lost" waiting actually working. I can make money PAYING him to do it!

We do our own shopping for similar reasons. It takes more of my time to order on-line than it would take to pick out the items ourselves. And, we can adapt our shopping list based on observations ("Hmmm... no Bok Choy so let's 86 the snow peas and spinach and substitute a different meal plan").

I'm paid well for my 'professional time'....my puttering time, I don't really care...that's my playtime. Tinkering with junk; finding/buying/selling/refurbishing is not something I charge myself by the hour for....it's quite therapeutic...that's reward enough!!

A lot depends on how many saleable hours you have available. If you're limited to a 9-5 then any hours beyond that are "free"/"without value". The math was very different when I worked a "regular job".

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored a cheap ASUS P8P67 Pro R3.1 for $15. Only had a bad BT module (don't ask me how that happened) and a few ever so slightly bent pins in the socket (and only one broken off completely, probably some GND pin).

POST'd fine with a 1GB DDR3-1333 stick, a Pentium G645 and a HD4850.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored a free Acer Aspire 6930G, complete with charger and a surprisingly working Geforce 9300GT (G98 core).

Replaced the T5800 with a full blown T9400 (2.53GHz + 1066FSB), and also had to replace the subwoofer (it was blown), as well as added a BT module from a dead 6530G. Also added 2 hard drives - a 500GB HGST as main drive and a 320GB Seagate Momentus Thin.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored a second free 6930G!

Original specs:

C2D P7350 2GHz
4GB DDR2-667 RAM
crappy Lite-On DVD-RW from 2008
Geforce 9600M GT 512MB (GDDR3)
250GB WDC WD2500BEVT
Windows 10 Pro

New specs:
C2D P7350 2GHz (atm, might replace it with a P8600 if I can source one from a dud Macbook 2010 C2D)
4GB DDR2-800 RAM
Hitachi-LG GT30N DVDRW from 2010
ATi Radeon Mobility HD4650 1GB (DDR2)
250GB WDC WD2500BEVT + 320GB Seagate Momentus Thin
Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC + Windows 7 Ultimate x64

The guy that gave me this one said he's also got a 8930G so might snag that one later this week too. That one is an even BIGGER beast than these 16 inchers. It's enough to scare a grown man. Also, it's advertised as having DDR3, although I have my doubts on that one.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The 8930G came in!



Specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 2GHz 1066FSB (originally had a T6400 800FSB)
2x2GB Samsung DDR3 (6GB max)
Geforce 9600M GS 512MB MXM2
500GB WD Blue WD5000BPVT + 250GB Hitachi
Windows 7 x64
HUGE 18.4" LCD (1680x945, though I used nVidia Control Panel to unleash FULL HD 1920x1080 resolution)
4800mAh AS07B42 battery that might need replacing
Hitachi-LG GT30N DVD-RW (came with a crappy Panasonic DVD-RW drive)

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

wow thats a really neat laptop, I like the media buttons on the side.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Thanks. So far it's running great. I'm deciding whether I should stick a 1TB SSD + 1TB HDD or just stick with 1TB HDD + 500GB HDD.

Oh, and I have a 7738G coming to me next Wednesday. Has missing RAM, LCD, HDD and battery, but I already sourced 90% of the parts. The only thing left is to find some DDR3 memory and I'm all set. Wwill also drop a Quadro 1000M (MXM 3 type) if I can find one.

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

My co-worker who has been working at home came up to visit and his wife sold me a PS3 SUPER SLIM, they said it didn't work, only problem I found was it was set to the old PS3 multiout instead of HDMI which was an easy fix, also it wouldn't update its system software and whenever I played a DVD it would show a all green screen and freeze so I put it in safe mode and loaded ps3 software 4.86 and now have a fully functional super slim. I am not really thrilled with the design but at least it doesn't have NEC TOKINs.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Raided a local school. Large haul. 39 systems so far....and there's more to get, but the weather turned to shit....

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

looks like a good haul, what kind of systems it looks like dell 745s?

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

looks like a good haul, what kind of systems it looks like dell 745s?

A lot of 960's. 990's, and 330's. A couple Westmere precision workstations in there as well.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Nice rescues, TC!

Those old BTX Dells are very solid office machines. Some of them probably will need a recap (which you already know) as would some of their PSUs... but all in all, I think they are still worth it - at least the Core 2 Duo ones and maybe the Pentium D's.

looks like a good haul, what kind of systems it looks like dell 745s?

Weren't the 745's the AMD version?
From that picture above, I can see a few Core 2 Duo stickers, so I'm going to guess it's mostly 755, 620, and 760 models (and I think there were also a few others models I forget from the Dell BTX that use that style of case.) I also see one oldschool Dell P4 clamshell case in there (GX270?), and some SFF/USFF boxes as well (Optiplex 3010 and similar?)

*EDIT*

A couple Westmere precision workstations in there as well.

0.o Noooice!

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Nice rescues, TC!

Those old BTX Dells are very solid office machines. Some of them probably will need a recap (which you already know) as would some of their PSUs... but all in all, I think they are still worth it - at least the Core 2 Duo ones and maybe the Pentium D's.


Weren't the 745's the AMD version?
From that picture above, I can see a few Core 2 Duo stickers, so I'm going to guess it's mostly 755, 620, and 760 models (and I think there were also a few others models I forget from the Dell BTX that use that style of case.) I also see one oldschool Dell P4 clamshell case in there (GX270?), and some SFF/USFF boxes as well (Optiplex 3010 and similar?)

*EDIT*

0.o Noooice!

No AMD version is the optiplex 740 and I still have one with a Phenom x4 9600B and GT 530 low profile in my storage.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The 990's are sandybridge i5's and i7's. The 960's and 330's are all C2D era stuff, the 3 I checked had e8400 c2d's @ 3ghz 1333fsb. There a bunch of Nobilis systems in there as well, all c2d era......and then there was one lone pentium3 dell system with a win2k coa...I haven't powered it up yet.

It's going to take a while to go through all these.

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The 990's are sandybridge i5's and i7's. The 960's and 330's are all C2D era stuff, the 3 I checked had e8400 c2d's @ 3ghz 1333fsb. There a bunch of Nobilis systems in there as well, all c2d era......and then there was one lone pentium3 dell system with a win2k coa...I haven't powered it up yet.

It's going to take a while to go through all these.

what a P3 now thats the one I want to see, if its black its probably a optiplex GX150 the first of the black dells with P3s, my GX150 is running like a CHAMP still.

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Raided a local school. Large haul. 39 systems so far....and there's more to get, but the weather turned to shit....

Cool! I managed to "pass along" my gifted iPads to a local school district. I'm now wondering if the "update cycle" at schools and businesses will lengthen (due to revenue losses) and dry up much of the supply of "discarded" kit.

The local University has suspended their auctions for months, now -- despite having an on-line capability. Makes me wonder if THEY will now hold onto their kit longer, too! (concerns as to whether or not they will "open" in the Fall; no need to update kit if all your students are on the end of an internet connection!)

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Oh, and BTW, my latest:

a pair of SmartUPS 3000's

[retiredcaps]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Cool! I managed to "pass along" my gifted iPads to a local school district.

Good for you. Better than being in the landfill.

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Good for you. Better than being in the landfill.

We "refurbish" thousands of laptops, computers and medical devices/supplies each year.

Refurbish, reuse, repurpose, recycle -- that last step being the one you want to avoid!

The problem is most places are PC-centric. Apple products are harder to find homes (you need a support staff that is oriented towards servicing them as WE don't have the resources to take on that "ongoing" task).

Our "service policy" for desktops/laptops is to simply reinstall the original disk image (as most "problems" aren't hardware related).

[Lately, I've been building custom restore partitions so the user can do this, himself. This saves us the time -- and bench space -- to do it in the shop. It also denies them the opportunity to come in and try to finagle an upgrade, etc. (we don't have time/staff to deal with "customers")]