best cheap/free scores 1.1

[whatamidoing]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Also, my "night" PC to mess around with / watch YT this fall/winter, has been an old Athlon X2 6000+. As outdated as it may be, it can still (but just barely) handle 1080p YT video if it's only 25 or 30 FPS and lower-bitrate stuff (or 720p @ 50 FPS.) Just have to give the YT scripts a few seconds to load before starting the video to avoid stutter in the beginning.

Try the enhanced-h264ify extension if you don't use it already. It forces Youtube to use h264 and it does miracles on the older stuff, if you're lucky and the GPU/drivers/browser/moon phase combination are supported it will even use HW decoding

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Today's freebies from a local printing company include a bunch of laser printers; wide format color and some normal blacks. All are said to work.

You mean an 11x17 Color Laser? If it prints without being streaky all the time, you have my employer beat (we use 11x17 all the time for schematics and part drawings, and our "spare" stand-alone 11x17 laser has never printed worth a crap )

Now for an interesting relic I didn't know existed....yea, I knew of G5's, but never knew there was dual ones in PPC models....but here's a 2GHz version.



Running OSX Server 10.4.11
It's definitely lacking in RAM with 1.5gb....it can take up to 16gb PC4200 DDR2



More specs....




Definitely needs a cleaning. It's in fabulous condition, just dirty. Might be a fun restoration; albeit not too terribly valuable.....but it does fit the traditional 'dual CPU' specialty of mine....



I'd run with 10.5 with tenfourfox and some other goodies, would be a fun toy.

My church has two of them (not sure on the speed, but they are dualies), bought in 2006 (Right before the Mac Pro came out). They're dual processor and can eat a crapload of RAM all right... but they're virtually useless for any modern use (TenFourFox is nice, though). I combined the best parts from both to make our current A/V audio machine (as it has all of our music library and and some other legacy stuff) when I "upgraded" the video side machine to an early 2007 Intel iMac (the $10 one earlier in the thread, actually!).

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored a broken ASUS X53SC-SX424V. i5 2nd gen+ GF520MX, had a bad DC jack that was easily fixed, but now the issue is it just power cycles to infinite and will not POST. HDD and DVDROM don't initialize on the respective machine either.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Finally fixed the cycling POST. Apparently, the i5-2430M it came with was literally dead (tested not POSTing on two different machines, a Samsung NP300E and a ASUS X54HR). Temporarily replaced it with a Celeron B820 (I am not trusting it with a i7-2670QM due to the missing phases - K53SC has 2 phases - the higher end K53SV boards have 4 phases to support the high load of the i7 CPUs - K53SCs also support the i7s but it's dangerous to run them with 2 phases only IMO) until I can source a working i5-2430M (or a 25xxM series i5 for that matter) and some other parts that do need replacing (although I got them working for the time being - the parts in cause are the LVDS which seems to be acting up if it's not in a certain position, and the keyboard which is missing several keys and their respective pressing mechanisms).

Goodies I got it with were a fully working 320GB WD Scorpio Black (my second non-failing unit!), as well as 4GB of DDR3.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I was given a junk box with 3 older motherboards + CPU's and some other random cards; a Trident 2mb PCI video card and some PCI creative labs sound card.

The only thing in the box that piqued my interest was this Asus P5A-B, which had all its accessories with it (serial, parallel, ps2, USB ports). These were the most sought-after super socket 7 motherboards made, as they had an AGP. Even today these still go for $100+ if you can find one. It came with a K6-2 @ 500MHz, and works!





The next is this ECS K7SEM with a 1.3GHz Athlon and 1gb RAM in it. Caps were bad. It doesn't run anything faster than 100FSB, and is probably not worth the value of the caps I put in it.....but I revived it anyway....



The caps were the focus of this pic....but the camera focused on the 24-pin ATX plug....you get the idea though.



...and then there was this thing. QDI P51430TX Titanium 1B socket 7....also needed recapping. I recapped it, and it now works....but overall it's nothing to get overly excited about.



That's all for today...

[whatamidoing]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The next is this ECS K7SEM with a 1.3GHz Athlon and 1gb RAM in it. Caps were bad. It doesn't run anything faster than 100FSB, and is probably not worth the value of the caps I put in it.....but I revived it anyway....

I had a PC-Chips M810LMR, which is the same board just sold under a different name. Mine was a revision 7.1, with official support for Athlon XPs. I ran it for quite some time with an Athlon 2000+ running at 150FSB and a Geforce2 Ti, when it was the same as Core 2 today, old enough to be worthless but still perfectly usable and too good to throw away.
The only "issue" I ever had with it (other than caps) was the fact that the onboard sound was incredibly noisy.

Yours seems to be an earlier revision, with onboard RTL8139 network that required a custom breakout board to be used (basically a PCB with the jack and the magnetics that screwed on a card slot). Later models used the "free" SiS900 offered by the chipset and had a sane layout, with the jack on top of the USB ports.

As with all period PC-Chips designs, they either worked incredibily well or incredibly bad. yours survived 20+ years so I'd assume it's the former. New quality caps probably also resolve some "quirks" and increase stability (I know on mine they did).

Have a look at these links, they were the "bible" for this pile of crap:

http://web.archive.org/web/200807051...z/m810lmr.html

http://web.archive.org/web/201310220.../M810/M810.htm

It's on the wayback machine as, unsurprisingly, the original sites are long gone.

I'd say put in a Duron Morgan (or maybe if you have it a Mobile Palomino) and pencil the multiplier away, as that 1300 Thunderbird must be cooking the VRMs.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored an Medion Akoya E7222. i3-2370M (upgraded to i7-2670QM) HD3000 graphics, 160GB HDD (upgraded to 750GB), 4GB DDR3, Centrino N-100 (had a pretty cooked 2230 on which one of the antennae sockets broke). Runs 10 LTSC like a champ, and is surprisingly snappy despite using a mechanical drive and iGPU.

The remaining i3-2370M went into the ASUS X53SC I just repaired, while the 160GB got retired (I don't really have much use for anything below 200GB unless it's a SSD, and even then the lowest I go is 120GB for the SSDs). The 2230 WLAN went into the trash as the trace leading to the broken antennae socket literally got ripped off well under the card's heat shield, making it impossible to get it working again.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Hey no worries, I'm in no hurry whatsoever. Even if you post them a year from now, I'll still be greatfull.

Pics as promised. It's definitely not usable. It does otherwise work other than the burned screen....but the nit-picker in me can't get past the horrible burn....it apparently was on a Mac all it's life....I guess nobody heard of a screensaver...

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Fixed a free Crucial 128GB SATA II SSD that was showing up as "YATAPDONG BAREFOOT ROM" in both BIOS and Windows. My friend also had a SuperTalent SSD that I might snag sometime, as it's having the same issue.

Hard since I needed to run Windows in IDE mode (AHCI would not work with the MPTool I used for it) and also because the switch has its positions inverted as opposed to Indilinx's standard (which would be the switch set in the position that's nearest to the SATA plugs - this drive has it inverted) which meant that to get the drive to be recognized by Windows, I had to set the switch in the opposite side of the SATA plugs.

Anyways, it's been running great so far, despite being SATA II, and also being rather old (2009 or so? Forgot checking the datecodes.)

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Today's dropoffs came from a local shop cleaning out a storage room.... Of course the usual bunch of yorkfield/wolfdale/penryn era core2/coreQ era systems, there was a Samsung laser printer/copier....



Asus & HP 24" 1080 displays......untested, but I'd wager they need to be recapped.





The cool piece was an APG cash drawer from some old POS system pulled from a defunct gift & florist shop. He said he sold the system, but the buyer didn't want the drawer for some reason. Interesting. 24v DC solenoid controls it, easy enough to make something out of it.







Damn, no money....but there were tons of credit card slips under the cash tray....they dated back to 2015.





I took them outside and set them on fire. Yes, the drawer came with the key.

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Could you use it as a secure storage box for unwiped hard disks?

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

probably not,
most cash drawers have a hole in the bottom rear corner with a manual release button in it.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

probably not,
most cash drawers have a hole in the bottom rear corner with a manual release button in it.

This one does not. The keylock has 3 positions; 1: mechanical locked (locked even if solenoid is tripped), 2: mechanical unlocked (would be 'normal operation'), and 3: manual release. If you lose the key and can't trigger it electronically, it's hammers & pry bars.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Bought a cheap CH341A programmer. Came in handy to reflash my ASUS X75VD's BIOS which had corrupt ME region.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Fixed a free Crucial 128GB SATA II SSD that was showing up as "YATAPDONG BAREFOOT ROM" in both BIOS and Windows. My friend also had a SuperTalent SSD that I might snag sometime, as it's having the same issue.

That reminds me the issues that some people reported with HDDs, will show the code name as a warning sign of a firmware fault, most likely.

At least kind of like the reports of Destiny 2 or the original reporting codes with animal words or stuff of a silly nature like that, such as "Error code: CHICKEN" and etc.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Just an update; the newer HP Color Laserjet Pro MFP M281FDW shown in this pic (the bright white one with the fax sitting on top of it):



Had a page count of 2800-ish pages, which is nothing! These are good for 80k before any real problems start to show up. Has a LCD display with a touchscreen, the digitizer was bad (wouldn't respond to anything). Found a brand new & complete display/digitizer for $20, now good as new. Prints great and touchpanel now works.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I had a T-bird like that one in 2002, I got one for my 100 MHz FSB motherboard. (The 1.3 GHz 100 MHz FSB variant)

It's only bad, because I killed it by putting too much horizontal pressure. (or semi-horizontal)

Had it from July 5, 2002 to October 13, 2002, not even my 22nd birthday. RIP! (just because I wanted it on the other motherboard I had)

Back in went the T-bird 900 MHz (The one I got in June, 2001)

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

That reminds me the issues that some people reported with HDDs, will show the code name as a warning sign of a firmware fault, most likely.

At least kind of like the reports of Destiny 2 or the original reporting codes with animal words or stuff of a silly nature like that, such as "Error code: CHICKEN" and etc.

From my memory, it was Maxtor that would show up with a code name - I remember reports of some Maxtor drives showing up as Athena.

As for SSDs, the only ones I know of that show up with codenames by are Indilinx based drives (which show up as YATAPDONG BAREFOOT ROM, though I recall seeing some with different strings as well.) and Sandforce drives (the most usual ones being Intel SSDs, I have one that I might as well repair just for the fun of it. It's SATA III as opposed to the Crucial I saved) that show up as Sandforce 200026BB.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

And speaking of firmware shenanigans - y'all remember Alcor and the whole myriad of fake USB sticka popping left and right?

Just happened that my ADATA C008/8GB corrupted itself, so had to restore it with their MPTool.

You can imagine my surprise when both Alcor and ChipGenius reported the actual flash chip (and this is actually true, as I just checked the datasheets) soldered in is in fact 16GB.

Sooo... did I just somehow pull a big ass Uno card on the whole fake USB deal?

[diif]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Possibly it's a crappy 16GB chip that they marked as 8GB to avoid the bad sectors or it was cheaper to buy 16GB and use firmware to make 8GB and 16GB versions.