best cheap/free scores 1.1

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I don't remember WG specs off of my head, but I think those were more like Chemicon KZE, Panasonic FM, Rubycon ZL, and Nichicon HD/HC.

wg is more on par with rubycon mbz, panny fj, chemicon kzg and nichicon hm.

[Wester547]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

In my experience, only Rubycon MBZ/MHZ (plus MCZ/MFZ if kept cool) and Panasonic FJ/FL made before 2007 were stable as far as ultra-low ESR capacitors go.

Also forgot to mention Nichicon HM/HN/HZ post-2005 capacitors, although it’s yet to be seen if they will make it 15+ years without unexplainable failure.

All according to their respective datasheets, Panasonic FM is equal to Chemi-con KZH but in larger case sizes. Rubycon ZA and Nichicon HC seem to be very low ESR, even lower ESR than KZH and FM (although not quite low ESR enough to be deemed “ultra low ESR”, however relative and loose a term that may be), but in rather large case sizes. Very common to find them (ZA and HC) on venerable Radeon 8500/9500/9700/9800 video cards. I never saw a HC or ZA fail on those cards without a seized fan (yep, you guessed it, ADDA ).

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I finally got a fairly decent FM2+ APU for a somewhat good price: an A8-5500b for $10 shipped. Their prices have been going up and down for the last 2 years, ranging from as low as $14 and as high as $25... though mostly hanging around the $20 mark, which honestly I think is too much, given their not-so-great CPU performance. Thus, when I saw a bunch get offered for $10, I had to grab one as I have a spare FM2+ mobo with no CPU just sitting on the shelf. I got it for a decent price too a while back, as it was offered "AS-IS", even though it was tested (and maybe I got lucky that it was just one of those auctions on eBay that don't get a lot of attention.)

And yeah, I know AMD FM1/FM2/FM2+ APUs are pretty weak and not really worth discussing much... but the whole story started when I got a bunch of scrap CPUs for cheap about 2 years ago. In that pile was an AMD A8-6600k APU. I thought I could make a nice little system with it, given it's a "quad-core" CPU (actually 2c, 4t, but AMD lied, lol) with somewhat decent built-in entry-level GPU and overall a low-power chip (65W TDP only.)

So shortly after grabbing that, I found an MSI MS-7778 motherboard from an HP system for cheap. Got it, put everything together and... nothing, it didn't boot. For a while, I thought it was the motherboard not being compatible, as HP has two versions of the MS-7778: "Jasmine" and "JasmineR", with the former being capped to 5k series of APUs only. Of course, I checked that back when I bought the mobo, and it did fit the description of the JasmineR... though now I'm still debating if that is true or not to this day. I chuck it to HP being silly, though, because they haven't made it easy to find which one it is.

To sink more bad money after bad money, I got a cheap A4-5300b APU to test the HP MS-7778 mobo... which eventually turned into this PC:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...&postcount=745
On the plus side, I did actually put a decent amount of use on that PC - mainly to test HDDs and as a cool-running browser PC in the summer (the built-in Wifi is great, because I can take the PC downstairs in the basement where it's cool in the summer, and use the PC there.)

Of course, the "APU saga" didn't end there ^. I still couldn't believe the A8-6600k APU was dead, so I got a cheap Gigabyte FM2+ mobo. Tested the A8-6600k on that and... it was dead there too. Tried re-heating the A8-6600k twice to high temperature (in hopes of reflowing it... or something!), but it was still dead. This made me consider flipping the Gigabyte FM2 mobo back on the market, but prices weren't really that great. Thus... time for more bad money after bad money... and that's why I got the A8-5500b APU.

As to whether or not I'll build another system with that Gigabyte FM2 mobo and the A8-5500b... we will see. I'm still pondering what to do (was thinking maybe put the A8-5500b in the MS-7778 as it has 4 RAM slots and bundle+flip the Gigabyte mobo with the A4-5300... IDK, we will see.)

Whichever the case though, I don't think I want to spend any more money on a FM1/FM2 APU system ever again. In terms of performance per price, they really aren't that great. And I have yet to see how reliable they are, as the AMD chipsets on these sometimes seem to run blazing-hot. The MS-7778 was actually fine in that regard. But the Gigabyte mobo... after 5 minutes, the MCP heatsink was actually hot enough to nearly-blister the skin on my fingers (I got slight red burn marks that stayed there for a bit.) No wonder I used to see so many of these FM2 boards dead on eBay for a while.

wg is more on par with rubycon mbz, panny fj, chemicon kzg and nichicon hm.

Ah, cool. Thanks for the datasheet!

Also forgot to mention Nichicon HM/HN/HZ post-2005 capacitors, although it’s yet to be seen if they will make it 15+ years without unexplainable failure.

I think they are OK. Haven't had a single 2006-made HZ fail yet. But ones from 2005 and earlier - plenty - again only from the HZ series, and those being 6.3V caps. Haven't had any 16V Nichicon HN caps fail from 2005. Also, taking random cap readings from my cap inventory, I can see that all of the post-2005 HZ caps read nearly spot-on in terms of capacitance and appear to hold a charge OK if I leave them stored with a charge. The MCZ and MFZ (from Xbox 360's) from the same era seem to loose charge a lot faster and some even show slight negative voltage readings (a sign of depolarization / plating breaking down or thinning??) So, IDK, I guess we will see. But I do have hope for all post-2005 made Nichicon low-ESR electrolytic caps.

All according to their respective datasheets, Panasonic FM is equal to Chemi-con KZH but in larger case sizes. Rubycon ZA and Nichicon HC seem to be very low ESR, even lower ESR than KZH and FM

Interesting and good to know.

Very common to find them (ZA and HC) on venerable Radeon 8500/9500/9700/9800 video cards. I never saw a HC or ZA fail on those cards without a seized fan (yep, you guessed it, ADDA ).

Well, I've never seen failed Nichicon HC on any Radeon card - even ones with failed fans. Maybe someone did a reflow on the ones you saw without removing the caps?

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

yupp, i mucked up my oven reflow and the nichicon hc caps on the radeon 9600 non-pro i was reflowing bloated from the heat. still cant get it to fix after several reflows. i guess the rv350 chip is just permanently focked with artifacts and there's no reviving it.

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I like the FM2 platform my ThinkCentre M78 with upgraded A10 5700 is run 24/7 as my DVR for my cameras and while the cpu performance isn't great they are probably equal or a bit better then a core 2 quad.

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Got some decent cheap scores today

I3 HP desktop complete - £10
MATX AMD FM2 system, not checked full specs yet but also came with a separate GTX 960 4GB card all together - £15 (if card works that’s a proper score)

Also picked up some Akai SW-7 speakers (originals not the MKIi) £8

Wasn’t sure they were a decent set but as soon as I picked them up knew they should be decent. Just a quick googling and seem quite rare and decent.

Finally a joblot of router all seem like decent once’s AC-1900, there a netgear nighthawk in there, some TP-Links and a few asus’s. Many don’t have power adapters but hopefully should be able to use the ones that have one to test the others. All the boxed are damp as hell, perhaps returns not sure but at £3 each was worth a gamble.

[retiredcaps]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Finally a joblot of router all seem like decent once's AC-1900, there a netgear nighthawk in there, some TP-Links and a few asus's.

Good game for 3 pounds.

For the above, try openwrt, dd-wrt, fresh tomato and/or asus merlin.

https://openwrt.org/

https://download1.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv...ds/betas/2020/

https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/

http://freshtomato.org/

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored a Toshiba Satellite A300, with bad NEC Tokin and bad LVDS port (bent pins, one broke when I straightened them, but thankfully it was a GND tab) plus charger.

Fixed it (somewhat - got it into a booting state, but still needs work) with a few classic 470uF 10v caps. It's too much for now, but at least it POSTs on battery.

Right now the symptoms clearly point to my caps being unsuitable (hangs with colors at boot, most have said it's the cap doing this and not the HD3470 GPU) and will not POST over charger.

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

A300 is nice - very solid case

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

A300 is nice - very solid case

Yeah, shame the speakers' foam are in pretty bad shape. Otherwise, I can agree the A210 and A300 I have, both look pretty sturdy.

Found these at the trash just now:

Conner Peripherals CFA270 270MB
Fujitsu M1606TAU 1GB HDD
Sparkle S3 Virge/DX Onboard
3Com 3C905TX

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

After going through routers non have psu’s or antennas.

1 x netgear nighthawk X4S AC-2600
3 x ASUS AC56U
2 x tp link archer VR900

Think I will start with the netgear as that looks a beast and is still £160 in shops.

Gtx 960 works as well so that’s a bonus.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Update for the HDDs:

Tested both, they work well. Conner was empty, but the Fujitsu had a 2k Pro install that I saved. (had missing NTLDR plus root boot files)

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Finally got around to "breaking" through the registration process on the MAXX2 I rescued a while back (I don't use cell phones as phones). Though, having done that, I think I prefer my smaller LG smartphone for PMP, address book, clock, camera, etc. Definitely easier to CARRY!

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I wouldn't call it a cheap score but for years I have wanted a gameboy light which were only sold in Japan and I finally got one today, it does have some wear but works good, only real downer is the start button is hard to press but I love that electroluminescent screen for playing the 8 bit classics.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored these at the dumpster

PC - 400W Premier LC-C400ATX, ASUS DVDRW, Maxtor/Quantum HDD (idk what size), unknown red GPU (either ATI X-series or Geforce 6000/7000), USB bracket, ASUS M2N-E mobo, atound 3 or 4 GB DDR2.

laptop - ASUS M60Vp - Pentium T3200, 2GB RAM. Sadly HD4650 has some short on a corner of the board and chip is very slightly bubbled in a corner. Will try to reflow and see if anything changes.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Slight update, managed to finally fix the Toshiba A300.

I managed to do quite a contraption:

- 1x 330uF
- 3x 47uF
- 1x 100uF
- 2x 150uF

Managed to cram all that in there because most caps were small, with the exception of the 330uF cap.

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

why didnt you just put it to one side till you could get a bunch of 330's from china or an old desktop board??

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Because where I am staying on my trip for now (Arad), there's literally NO PLACE to find tantalums, let alone 330s.

I managed to find some stuff on a broken L300 board (although the bigger tantalums were missing, don't ask why) hence why so many values.

I will replace those with 330s once I get home, but for a temporary solution, it works. I did have to trade the T5800 for a T6500, and disable the 2nd core for now. No noticeable slowdowns at all for now.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored another Acer 6530. This one seems ABSOLUTELY untouched - no marks of flux anywhere.

Probably a failed RS780 which needs reflow (again, chip was never touched, in fact ALL screws in the laptop were never tampered with) as otherwise the rest (HD3650, 320GB and 4GB DDR2) were all working perfectly.

On S1G2 and 3 it usually points to the IGP (or NB, in this case, but all my bad shares of IGPs were NBs mostly) going bad in most cases, so assuming it really hasn't been too much tampered with (mind you, the only stuff that wasn't really okay was a missing cover on the LCD, battery and a bunch of missing keys), it should fire back up fine. Would be a nice addition, considering my other two units are both Intels (T9400 and P8700) and that I also still have a boatload of dead AMD boards and case stuff to take parts from.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Another dumpster find, this time it's a Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo Mobile D9510.

P8700, 4GB DDR3, 200 GB Toshiba HDD. Only issue with it is bad inverter.

Also got a lead for a very nice ASUS G70S with dual 8700M GTs in SLI. One (or both, idk) went bad and prolly needs a reflow.