best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Another score, an nice Medion/MSI Geforce 4 Ti4200 AGP8x card. Untested as I am not home yet.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The 5v STBY is missing. Traced it down to a FAN6755 voltage controller....had to order one...but I'm confident it will fix it.... The next battle is some scratches on the screen. Most plasma's are bare glass on the front, this one has a laminated acrylic coating on it, which has a couple scratches on it.... I'll have to break out the 1200 & 2000 grit sandpaper and wetsand it, then polish it out with jewelers rouge; much like polishing out plastic headlight lenses. A 1080p plasma is well worth saving!

Finally got around to installing the PWM voltage controller...lo& behold STBY returned and shazam!!

A plasma saved!!

[Uranium-235]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I tried to get one of my customers to get a $249 non-smart TV to replace their 42" plasma cause of the issues I had trying to fix it.

They would rather spend more on the 42" because the new ones don't have the big silver bezel. They just didn't want a thin black bezel.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I tried to get one of my customers to get a $249 non-smart TV to replace their 42" plasma cause of the issues I had trying to fix it.

They would rather spend more on the 42" because the new ones don't have the big silver bezel. They just didn't want a thin black bezel.

This one wasn't bad, panel degradation was pretty much nill....has a fabulous picture.....but yea, plasma's can be very fickle.....I fought with an LG for a couple weeks some time back that I didn't think I'd ever get dialed in....but I finally got it!! I'd take a healthy & dialed-in 1080 plasma over any 4k that walmart sells...

[Uranium-235]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

This one wasn't bad, panel degradation was pretty much nill....has a fabulous picture.....but yea, plasma's can be very fickle.....I fought with an LG for a couple weeks some time back that I didn't think I'd ever get dialed in....but I finally got it!! I'd take a healthy & dialed-in 1080 plasma over any 4k that walmart sells...

I replaced soo many caps on the Y board and power board with no help. I got a working Y board for $75 on eb and broke a fucking FFC connector on it when I tried to install it. Issue was it took 45M for screen to come on, then longer and longer.

I did as someone suggested and take a heatgun to see if I could find some cold cap issues and found them. Replaced four ($5 mouser) on a vertical board and it fixed it. They were happy to pay it

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored some more laptops:

- Samsung NP-R530-JT50PL - no charger to test it atm, broken screen
- Acer Aspire 5737Z - overheats like hell, got to replace the thermal pad on the MCP
- HP DV2500 - Intel X3100 variant - will be gutted for spares for the dv2900 Special Edition I have (even if a 8400M GS is considered a downgrade)
- Dell Inspiron 1525 - not sure what I'll do with this one... maybe a replacement for the Extensa 5220 or a x64 equivalent.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

A few retro beauties dropped off today.

Beige PC Bliss!! The Compaq is a Pentium 2. Desktop case is a pentium 100. Gateway is a pentium 3. I haven't tested any of them.



...and a blue/gray one...



17" HP laptop



Toshiba Satellite 330CDS Pentium Classic Tillamook @ 266.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

So far, I've clipped off the Varta poison pill of doom and verified that the motherboard itself seems to work reasonably properly. The onboard 80486-DX2/50 has a heatsink, but no fan. It's got an empty socket next to it, not sure what that's for. More than likely an upgrade socket. If it is an upgrade socket, I'll drop an 80486-DX4/100 or an Am5x86/133 in there. I also plan on maxing the RAM out at 64MB (or is it 128MB max?) and plopping NT4 on there.
It only has 8MB of RAM

You'll be lucky to get 20 to 32 MB of RAM in there. 32 is likely the absolute max!

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

You'll be lucky to get 20 to 32 MB of RAM in there. 32 is likely the absolute max!

The motherboard's (unofficial albeit probably accurate) information says that 32MB is possible on the motherboard, with another 32MB installable via the Micronics M810 memory expansion card.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

17" HP laptop

From my experience, and from what the stickers look like, that thing should have a 9600M GT. A repaste and maybe a copper shim on the GPU should keep it cool for years to come.

At least that's what helped (and still does to this day) keep my dv7-1080es alive.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

From my experience, and from what the stickers look like, that thing should have a 9600M GT. A repaste and maybe a copper shim on the GPU should keep it cool for years to come.

At least that's what helped (and still does to this day) keep my dv7-1080es alive.

I pluged it in, it doesn't work. Press power, it fires for about a second and powers back down. No post, no beep, nothing.

As for some of the retro rigs.......we'll start with the Compaq...
Specs are:
Pentium 2 @ 300MHz
128mb RAM
Embedded Rage Pro XL
8gb Quantum 'Bigfoot' HDD
Zip Drive, CD Drive, and Floppy

Popped the cover off, blew it out and replaced CMOS battery.



POST's and booted. Time is set through a bootable sofpaq utility, which I didn't have....so I had to use some other unconventional methods to set the time/date....but it worked. It had Win98 SE on it. Bigfoot has more bad sectors than a teenager has zits after a chocolate binge.... I just wiped the drive.



Here's the custom-build desktop style case. This one specs out as follows:

Pentium-S 100MHz
32mb RAM
Trident video card
Unknown ISA audio (forgot to look)
HDD missing
Nicely built Enlight case







Now for the Gateway. Specs:

Celeron 366MHz Slot-1
256mb RAM
Embedded GPU
HDD missing

It's in fabulous condition besides being dirty....no, that's not yellowing of the plastic, that is filth.







All 3 of these are fabulous resto candidates for slow days. Me is happy!

[Xenon-Codex]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

This no-name PC from the dump. 240gig Kingston SSD, Pentium G3220. Only 4 GB memory, but it's a single.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Today's scores:

- another GF4 Ti4200 128MB, DELL OEM apparently
- some Athlon based HP dv7 that looks pretty sorry
- SB Audigy 1394, model SB0090
- Galaxy S2
- Galaxy S5

[Xenon-Codex]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

This no-name PC from the dump. 240gig Kingston SSD, Pentium G3220. Only 4 GB memory, but it's a single.

It also had an 1TB drive disconnected inside. Motherboard is a Gigabyte which supports i7's.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored a Creative Inspire 5.1 5300 that's been pretty gutted. Was missing a lot of stuff - the volume and balance remote - as well as most of the tweeters.

It's been unfolding in a very DIY rebuild - the main woofer comes from a scrapped Altec Lansing (which in retrospect, was a literal Powmax-tier gutless wonder), I had been given a 12VAC 1A step-down transformer by one of my friends who runs a shop.

The only things left that I'm not yet sure on is the tweeters. I could either go with a bunch of Samsung clip-on tweeters he has, or buy a pair of 55W Panasonic tweeters and adapt those. I managed to bypass the whole volume/balance panel with two metal pieces stuck on the control port (which btw, is a modified PS/2 interface, lmao), and besides the tweeters, all that's left to do is to buy and craft myself three 3.5mm patch cables for each of the channels (front, rear and woofer.)

All in all, I'm happy that what was a pretty sad "shell" (not quite, as it still had the PCB inside, nothing else was missing besides what was covered above.) of a Creative 5.1 sound system (which I suspect was done by Cambridge Soundworks, probably... at least the original 10W tweeters used on this were said to be built by them, supposedly evidenced by "CSW" printed on the inside of the tweeters.) is starting to take shape into a nice 5.1 (or 4.1, depending on what I can cobble up from whatever bits I can find.) sound system.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Was given a Sony KDL 46NX810 1080P 3DTV. Seems to work and in perfect condition....but of course the stand is missing...

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Update on the Creative - bought and crafted the input patch cords (Front, Rear and Center), and have bought the Samsung clip-on tweeters. They may be rated for 166W (I think) but they seem to work way too well with the Creative base to pose a problem.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Had a dropoff of a bunch of whatnots.... The pick of the litter is a HP 20" 4:3 LCD with a native resolution of 1600x1200. Quite rare, especially these days!

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Panasonic Toughbook CF-31.

Specs:
CPU: Intel I5-3320M
RAM: 8GB DDR3-1600
Storage: 500GB SSD (SATA)
GPU: Integrated Intel HD4000
ODD: DVD-RW
Display: 13" 1024x768 Touch Screen
OS: Windows 10 Pro

Unfortunately, I forgot to get any "before/as received" pics, but it took close to an hour of scrubbing with degreaser and isopropyl alcohol to get it looking like this:







Need ports?:







For anyone not familiar with how thick these are here is the Toughbook next to a stack of other laptops (from top to bottom Apple MacBook Pro A1502, Lenovo ThinkPad T480, Lenovo ThinkPad T430):

[Xenon-Codex]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

These were in the e-waste container, then transported 2 miles on a bicycle. Every piece works. The JVC deck is really heavy, but it's from the upper end.