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best cheap/free scores 1.1

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    Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

    Originally posted by Topcat View Post

    [...]

    Next up is an unknown aluminum case; maybe a lian li or one of their knockoffs.

    [img]
    [img]

    Upon powerup, I released the magic smoke from the PSU. It smelled like caps venting....but the unit did power up...just no POST....so removed the PSU and tried another.

    [img]

    Here we go...now it POST's...

    [img]

    This is as far as it would ever go... The caps on this board appeared ok...but are crap brands. Board is an ECS iirc.

    [img]
    [...]
    It's a non-issue as the board misbehaves and it's most certainly not worth the effort to troubleshoot, but in my opinion if someone needs/wants an overkill 9x box without going either poor or mad with hacks upon hacks to make the system behave, a 754 K8M800 system with a good Sempron or a A64 and Win ME (yes, I said it) is a solid solution.

    You don't get the heat and power issues you'd get with a K7 or a P4 and as the IMC is in the CPU even the crappiest, lowest end boards will mostly behave and have fine performance (think of those generic taiwanese KT133/266 boards to see what I mean)

    Also 99,9% of the time the southbridge is the Plus revision so you get SATA that actually works.

    If it worked I'd say keep it as is and just add a 128bit Radeon 9550 flashed to 9600. It would be both period correct and fit with the idea of the whole build.
    Last edited by whatamidoing; 09-10-2023, 03:58 AM.

    Comment


      Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

      I come back with moar scores. Laptops again, and what is prolly my first server.

      - Fujitsu Siemens Primergy TX1330 M1
      - Sony Vaio SVE1712V1EB
      - Dell Studio 1558
      - Packard Bell TM83
      - HP Pavilion G7-1345sd
      Main rig:
      Gigabyte B75M-D3H
      Core i5-3470 3.60GHz
      Gigabyte Geforce GTX650 1GB GDDR5
      16GB DDR3-1600
      Samsung SH-224AB DVD-RW
      FSP Bluestorm II 500W (recapped)
      120GB ADATA + 2x Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST31000340NS 1TB
      Delux MG760 case

      Comment


        Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

        Today's freebies are:

        1) MS Surface Pro 4 256gb. Don't have the password for it...have to reload it. Charger missing but I had one.
        2) 11th gen I5 Lenovo laptop, windows was bungled up. Reloaded and had that sold with a phone call.
        3) Flawless condition C2D Asus laptop, bad HDD...slow but runs Mint ok with a SSD....just didn't have the heart to scrap it.
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          Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

          Santa Ratdude came last night bringing a HP kayak 6/300 I nabbed on ebay that was local to him; complete with it's 19" CRT monitor, KB and MS. In the box was some other goodies he scored at his goodwill....I wish our goodwill had stuff like that....all they have is clothes, shoes, and kitchen crap.

          Anywya, there was an AWE64 Gold, an AT socket7 board (appears to be NOS), and some other nifty things!!

          I usually send him home with some goodies from here as well....but he didn't find anything to lay claim to....
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            Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

            Another great day for scores:

            - custom build - MSI K8T Neo, NX6600GT 128MB, 2x512 DDR, noname PSU which in reality is a disguised Seasonic (!!!!!!), Samsung 160GB HDD and Samsung DVD-RW (both PATA)
            - OGXbox w/ Aladdin XT chip in need of a recap
            - Acer 6930G that needs some repairs
            - Acer Extensa 5630 that needs cleaning and maybe repair too
            - Pentium II "Deschutes" SL2W7
            - Sapphire HD7850 2GB GDDR5

            Also got a free NFS U2 copy with the Xbox
            Main rig:
            Gigabyte B75M-D3H
            Core i5-3470 3.60GHz
            Gigabyte Geforce GTX650 1GB GDDR5
            16GB DDR3-1600
            Samsung SH-224AB DVD-RW
            FSP Bluestorm II 500W (recapped)
            120GB ADATA + 2x Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST31000340NS 1TB
            Delux MG760 case

            Comment


              Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

              Two Rotel pieces, but I got a bleeding wound in my arm... Both are faulty, but will power on. Probably the deck needs a new belt, and the amp something else as it does not produce sound. It has separate transistors at the output, so it's easier to fix.
              Attached Files

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                Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                A couple interesting things....we'll start with the crappy first... The first two were dropoffs.

                MacbookPro that has no charger. Connected one of mine, it wouldn't power up. Just blinked the 6x battery status LED's.....so I'm assuming the battery is bad. It had PC3-8500 in it, so I'm ASSuming it's a core2 or first gen I-series CPU....nothing to write home about.



                Next up is an Alienware M15X. It's a first gen I7, 8gb RAM and a 500gb spinner. It too was missing the charger and the batt is bad....but it does otherwise work. It's in pretty poor condition though, probably won't do anything with it.



                Last but not least is a weird Ebay score. Ever since the Sencore tower shown above, for some reason broadcast grade AV gear shows up as 'related searches' at the bottom of an item listing page....and I am even blocking ads, but this function apparently still works (always has)....and these show up.... Tektronix makes an identical model as well, lots of those showed up....but this was the second 'Sencore' version I've ever encountered. I typically ignore them, as they always have a 4-figure (sometimes 5) price tag (they go for around a grand in real-world bidding).....but a couple weeks ago one popped up live bidding with a $9.99 opening bid + $40 shipping. Listed for parts; saying the display was bad. I tossed in a max bid and nobody outbid me.... This is a Sencore MAP 1870-P

                I thought these were kind of neat; as it's a modern-day "luggable", reminds me of the giant heavy 'portable' computers of the 80's before laptops.

                I didn't take pics along the way; as it was a real treat taking this apart to get to the defective display. When I finally got it out, nothing was really jumping out at me as to why the display wouldn't power up. It just feeds +12v from the ATX PSU, and it was working. If I connected an external display, the unit functions. Examining the board, I just happened to notice 4x Jackcon caps (yea, Jackcon, anyone remember those turds) datecoded 2004....that was the first red flag, considering this thing was made in 2010. I checked them on my Sencore LCR (<--ironic, isn't it), they were reading very low; 470uF 16v caps, all reading ~320uF. They were not swollen... I also fluxed & reflowed the solder on the signal processor chip just for good measure (not a BGA, just a legged IC). Yay, working display!! It's 17" 1280x1024 32 bit color.



                Now here's what makes this kind of unique... This luggable case is just a standard full ATX; very nice build quality aluminum construction using a normal ATX power supply. Not sure who makes this case, as the tektronix version uses the same case.



                Expansion bays for full size drives.



                Keyboard & touchpad. Keyboard has a nice feel to it, it's not a flimsy laptop keyboard. Touchpad is a 'glidepoint', but uses an Elan driver.







                Inside. The motherboard is a supermicro X8SAX, a board I'm already familiar with. CPU is a first gen I7 920 @ 2.67GHz, 3GB RAM, and a 9400GT video card. The additional cards are proprietary for the functions this machine does....which operation of this is above my pay grade....





                Software licensing key is visible....and the software appears to work when loaded up. I'll play around with it and see if I can make it do anything.....but I'll have to educate myself a little first.



                Drives are a pair of WD 250gb RE3's in a stripe array of 500gb.



                I'd have loved a case like this back in the LANfest days!! Since it appears to be functioning as it should, I may just flip it; since a working one brings a pretty nice amount.....but I want to tinker with it before I do....
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                  Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                  Had a couple dropoffs yesterday. The noteworthy one was a custom built blonde uATX case with one of those goofy P3 era boards that has both a S370 and a slot1 on it. The slot 1 was populated with a SL3XR 800/100 coppermine, quite rare.... Unit works.

                  The other was some compaq pentium4....meh.
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                    Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                    Originally posted by Topcat View Post
                    Had a couple dropoffs yesterday. The noteworthy one was a custom built blonde uATX case with one of those goofy P3 era boards that has both a S370 and a slot1 on it. The slot 1 was populated with a SL3XR 800/100 coppermine, quite rare.... Unit works.

                    The other was some compaq pentium4....meh.
                    The case itself was a custom build?
                    Don't buy those $10 PSU "specials". They fail, and they have taken whole computers with them.

                    My computer doubles as a space heater.

                    Permanently Retired Systems:
                    RIP Advantech UNO-3072LA (2008-2021) - Decommissioned and taken out of service permanently due to lack of software support for it. Not very likely to ever be recommissioned again.
                    Asus Q550LF (Old main laptop, 2014-2022) - Decommissioned and stripped due to a myriad of problems, the main battery bloating being the final nail in the coffin.


                    Kooky and Kool Systems
                    - 1996 Power Macintosh 7200/120 + PC Compatibility Card - Under Restoration
                    - 1993 Gateway 2000 80486DX/50 - Fully Operational/WIP
                    - 2004 Athlon 64 Retro Gaming System - Indefinitely Parked
                    - Main Workstation - Fully operational!

                    sigpic

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                      Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                      Originally posted by TechGeek View Post
                      The case itself was a custom build?
                      Nah, it's just not one of the 'big box' brands. Custom / homebrew.
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                        Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                        Ah, ok. Just looking at the modern state of computer cases makes me want to build my own, styled after the early-1990s full-tower AT cases that stood 3 feet high and weighed 70lbs empty, but with modern provisions for cooling and tons of expansion.
                        Don't buy those $10 PSU "specials". They fail, and they have taken whole computers with them.

                        My computer doubles as a space heater.

                        Permanently Retired Systems:
                        RIP Advantech UNO-3072LA (2008-2021) - Decommissioned and taken out of service permanently due to lack of software support for it. Not very likely to ever be recommissioned again.
                        Asus Q550LF (Old main laptop, 2014-2022) - Decommissioned and stripped due to a myriad of problems, the main battery bloating being the final nail in the coffin.


                        Kooky and Kool Systems
                        - 1996 Power Macintosh 7200/120 + PC Compatibility Card - Under Restoration
                        - 1993 Gateway 2000 80486DX/50 - Fully Operational/WIP
                        - 2004 Athlon 64 Retro Gaming System - Indefinitely Parked
                        - Main Workstation - Fully operational!

                        sigpic

                        Comment


                          Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                          Originally posted by TechGeek View Post
                          Ah, ok. Just looking at the modern state of computer cases makes me want to build my own, styled after the early-1990s full-tower AT cases that stood 3 feet high and weighed 70lbs empty, but with modern provisions for cooling and tons of expansion.
                          You mean something like this?





                          I bought this new back around 1998 or so. IIRC it's empty weight is 62lbs. Solid metal, zero plastic anywhere. It's ATX, but does have an IO shield so a AT board can be fitted. I still have all the accessories that came with it.
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                          ----------------------------------------------
                          Badcaps.net Forum Members Folding Team
                          http://folding.stanford.edu/
                          Team : 49813
                          Join in!!
                          Team Stats

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                            Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                            Very similar to that! Isn't that the case that housed the first Badcaps.net server?
                            Don't buy those $10 PSU "specials". They fail, and they have taken whole computers with them.

                            My computer doubles as a space heater.

                            Permanently Retired Systems:
                            RIP Advantech UNO-3072LA (2008-2021) - Decommissioned and taken out of service permanently due to lack of software support for it. Not very likely to ever be recommissioned again.
                            Asus Q550LF (Old main laptop, 2014-2022) - Decommissioned and stripped due to a myriad of problems, the main battery bloating being the final nail in the coffin.


                            Kooky and Kool Systems
                            - 1996 Power Macintosh 7200/120 + PC Compatibility Card - Under Restoration
                            - 1993 Gateway 2000 80486DX/50 - Fully Operational/WIP
                            - 2004 Athlon 64 Retro Gaming System - Indefinitely Parked
                            - Main Workstation - Fully operational!

                            sigpic

                            Comment


                              Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                              Some audio scores....
                              Schiit Modi 2U DAC and a Loxjie P20 headphone amplifier, kitted out with Soviet 6N3P-E tubes. Needed to dig up appropriate power adapters, but both are in working order.
                              Don't buy those $10 PSU "specials". They fail, and they have taken whole computers with them.

                              My computer doubles as a space heater.

                              Permanently Retired Systems:
                              RIP Advantech UNO-3072LA (2008-2021) - Decommissioned and taken out of service permanently due to lack of software support for it. Not very likely to ever be recommissioned again.
                              Asus Q550LF (Old main laptop, 2014-2022) - Decommissioned and stripped due to a myriad of problems, the main battery bloating being the final nail in the coffin.


                              Kooky and Kool Systems
                              - 1996 Power Macintosh 7200/120 + PC Compatibility Card - Under Restoration
                              - 1993 Gateway 2000 80486DX/50 - Fully Operational/WIP
                              - 2004 Athlon 64 Retro Gaming System - Indefinitely Parked
                              - Main Workstation - Fully operational!

                              sigpic

                              Comment


                                Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                                2x Xbox 360s.

                                One is a Falcon that I painted after cleaning, the other is a Xenon that got dismantled for parts.
                                Main rig:
                                Gigabyte B75M-D3H
                                Core i5-3470 3.60GHz
                                Gigabyte Geforce GTX650 1GB GDDR5
                                16GB DDR3-1600
                                Samsung SH-224AB DVD-RW
                                FSP Bluestorm II 500W (recapped)
                                120GB ADATA + 2x Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST31000340NS 1TB
                                Delux MG760 case

                                Comment

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