best cheap/free scores 1.1

[DerStrom8]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

A few years ago I walked away with a fully-functioning PS2. Thought it might make a good gift for the kids if it worked, or a good project/parts source if it didn't. It ended up working, but I've just been using it as a DVD player, since I really don't play many games. Never quite made it to the kids

[DJduck]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Had a really good find a couple days ago. Was driving my bike along the road and saw a little HP Pavilion slimline sitting by the dumpsters. Picked it up and got it home, did it quiclky so nobody ealse could get it Its works but needs a sata hdd, sata dvd and ddr2 ram, the three things that i do not have It was not working at first, had a 7500le that was toasted, somebody already cooked it in the oven, pulled it out and did a BIOS reset and works nicely, has a core 2 duo 1.86ghz in there and a really sweet asus mini itx board with s775, pci-e x16 and all solid caps. Really tiny board, and the cpu also has a full copper 3 heatpipe hsf on it. also has wifi. tried it with usb boot linux. I will post a picture later of the board, its awesome. Also scored some other neat stuff. A box of cards (gpu, sound, network, etc...), box of ram and coolers, couple of s7 cpus, box of power supplies (including a VERY overbuilt enhance electronics one that weighs about 3kg) and a asus p5pl2-e (the newer black heatsink versoin) that should work but only supports p4, pentium d and cellery cpus.

[Jellyfish420]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Last week found 3 digital cable boxes. Pulled a 500Gb sata hdd out of each one. Yea 1.5T!!!!

[DJduck]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Last week found 3 digital cable boxes. Pulled a 500Gb sata hdd out of each one. Yea 1.5T!!!!

Nice Did they work?

Btw guys, if i got to my local electronics recycling station, can i get stuffs from there? I have heard that many people got there to get scrap electronics.

[ben7]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Nice Did they work?

Btw guys, if i got to my local electronics recycling station, can i get stuffs from there? I have heard that many people got there to get scrap electronics.

Sometimes you can, and sometimes they will yell at you. Or, sometimes people will look at you like 'WTF?'

[DerStrom8]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Btw guys, if i got to my local electronics recycling station, can i get stuffs from there? I have heard that many people got there to get scrap electronics.

In the US they'll generally say you have to pay for items from the electronics recycling station. However, seeing as you're not in the US, it's worth asking at the very least!

[DJduck]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Need help, got an offer. It's a dell optiplex gx620. 2.something ghz celeron s775, hd 5450 pci-e video, 768mb ddr2 ram, no hdd (takes sata). €20, should i take it?

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Need help, got an offer. It's a dell optiplex gx620. 2.something ghz celeron s775, hd 5450 pci-e video, 768mb ddr2 ram, no hdd (takes sata). €20, should i take it?

Depends on how much that ATI HD5450 PCI-E card is worth in your country. If it's worth at least 10 Euro, then it's probably an okay deal. I don't recall what kind of power supplies were in the GX620s, but if it's standard ATX, then this is a good deal since those PSUs are worthwhile to keep (usually Delta, LiteOn, or Chicony/HiPro).

[shovenose]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Well, the CPU is very likely a single-core Celeron D. (Celeron D is NOT Dual Core as the name would lead you to think).
DDR2 RAM is quite expensive. Unless you've got some extra DDR2, a better CPU, and a hard drive already, I personally wouldn't bother with that machine.

[shovenose]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Anyway today I got two power supplies for a total of $3+tax

Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850W
Antec TruePower 2.0 430W
The catch? The CM has one bad cap and the Antec has three bad caps. But it's an easy fix, just have to get around to it lol.

Also as mentioned in another thread for less than $200 I got two 20" Dell LED LCD monitors and a Radeon HD 5770 graphics card.

[DJduck]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

In my nearest city, Tartu, there is a little one man bussiness (others are volunteers) that takes free old computers from people and companies, fixes them up and gives them to poor families and people for free. Its a non-profit organization. I contacted the guy who is in chare and his friend, and they said that they have some stuff left over that they can give me for free. They have one little room, its stacked with computers. In exhange, i gave them an old laptop, some lappy ram, chargers and a box of electronic components, aka. things that i did not need. In exhange i got some awesome stuff:

White desktop tower. Has an intel mobo (nichicon and solid caps ), p4 2.4ghz, 256mb ddr, cd rom, 250w cheapo psu. works but need a hdd, putting a little one in there.

Ibm pc300. Little low profile case, sis mobo (all caps good), 1ghz p3 tualtin, 256mb pc133 mem, 20gb hdd, cd drive, hipro psu (didn't check the watts). Works, has Win XP

Awesome p3 cpus: 1.4ghz tualtins (3pcs matching, all sl5xl) 1.2ghz tualtin, 1.1 ghz matching pair tualtins, 1ghz matching pair of coppermines
Rams: 18pcs most are 128mb ddr and 32-64-128mb pc100-pc133

also got the pci controller/spu for this : http://204.27.59.234/index.php?optio...tions&Itemid=2

Nice stuff for free!

[Lobo]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Where I work, once a year the IT dept. throws out the oldest PC's and gets new ones. I've gotten all kinds of stuff, like monitors (some with bad caps), keyboards and mice, RAM, Hard Drives, Routers, switches, etc. Pretty much everything.

So what do I do with all this stuff? I put together working computers and give them away to families that can't afford one.

[mutant]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

So what do I do with all this stuff? I put together working computers and give them away to families that can't afford one.

You are Awesome and everyone else who is doing that!

Not quite a dumpster dive but was given dusty 17 inch Gateway monitor in perfect working condition about 8 years ago. They were going to trash it so I adopted it. Still works. Another "adopted" item just recently from someone else who was going to trash it is a translucent blue imac G3. Always wanted one of those things when they came out back in the late 90's. Now I got one

[rogerk]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

I too got 6 17" flat VGA's.
What to do with?

[Lance Thornton]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

A Dell core I7 with a completely destroyed hard drive. Probably done by a hammer by the looks of it. Pieces of the drive lying in the bottom of the case. Windows 7 COA. I installed a 80 gig hard drive and it's been folding for months now.

[cspiddler]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Would like a dumpster find but none to date. I know two people operating a home business acting as computer system consultants. They support businesses and build or buy and install, network setup, etc. People sometimes ask them to take the broken ones away and if they have no better use, they give to me. I fix and give to the Salvation Army or srip for parts. If you can find someone like that, then it's like a dumpster with refills. Best finds to date are a few motherboards with core2 processors and hard drives >200 GB. I have 3 or 4 of those old rubber coated Seagate drives mentioned in the first post, but too small for any use now. Have put together a few old, old machines for retro games like Kings Quest, and they're good for that.

[bfordz]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

My best finds have the good ole "curb" finds.
I found one of those "cube" refrig, like the ones they use in college dorms...works perfect, it's in my office at work.
I found a push mower a few years back, when gas hit $4/gal I didn't have to buy gas to mow the lawn.
My last find was an Oreck XL vacuum cleaner, works perfect; new belt, new cord (taped in 6 spots) and a pkg of bags. Nice light weight vac, works even better for the price.

This wasn't a find but a neighbor was moving; selling a complete drum set, my son wanted it but couldn't afford the whole set. Bought the basic drums for $35, later that night the guy stopped by and "gave" my son all the foot pedals, symbols, stands (the rest of the set) for nothing. Good thing the price was right; a teenager with a complete drum set in his room just isn't right at any price

[DerStrom8]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Where I work, once a year the IT dept. throws out the oldest PC's and gets new ones. I've gotten all kinds of stuff, like monitors (some with bad caps), keyboards and mice, RAM, Hard Drives, Routers, switches, etc. Pretty much everything.

So what do I do with all this stuff? I put together working computers and give them away to families that can't afford one.

Very admirable of you, Lobo!

Would you consider selling some of it to someone who just bought a new computer, and is trying to upgrade the HDDs?

In case you couldn't guess, I just bought a new desktop. Only has 320 gigs of drive space currently, I'd like to bring that up to at least 500, if not more (I'd prefer 1 TB )

[vinceroger69]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Just had two great free scores of my local gumtree it started with them offering two boxes of mixed computer items when i got them home it had a selection of kettle leads vga cables and also dvi-d leads which are still wrapped up unopened about 20 in total next was 14 brand new unused tft/lcd saver cables then 3 boxes of brand new speakers 2 speakers and a power adaptor in each box new sealed again then 4 new dell docking pads still in bubble wrap then about 5 printer/usb leads one dell laptop charger about 6 usb keyboards either dell or hp and some new unopened ps2 mice and some various items for visually impaired people ie large keyboards and some unopened software so for replying to a free add about 15 mins driving got some good items for free.On another note whilst i was loading my car up the manager of the office i was at came to me and said if i pop back today there may be some more items they are disposing of for free so i went back down and have just got 4 hp towers all intact hard drives memory etc all with xp pro key codes on cases not sure what spec yet still in car and get this 5 dell latitude laptops 3 still in dell carry bags 2 loose with wireless cards in all 5 machines quite old i think but all come with chargers i have not tested any yet but as i was just getting in my car to leave i was asked did i want some old lcd monitors i got 5 in the end Samsung etc all about 17 inch some wide screen and all with vga leads and kettle leads i will get some pics up soon and also a old sony digital camera 0.35 pixel lol with a battery and mains charger so guys its well worth spending time on local free sites imo.

[vinceroger69]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Just had two great free scores of my local gumtree it started with them offering two boxes of mixed computer items when i got them home it had a selection of kettle leads vga cables and also dvi-d leads which are still wrapped up unopened about 20 in total next was 14 brand new unused tft/lcd saver cables then 3 boxes of brand new speakers 2 speakers and a power adaptor in each box new sealed again then 4 new dell docking pads still in bubble wrap then about 5 printer/usb leads one dell laptop charger about 6 usb keyboards either dell or hp and some new unopened ps2 mice and some various items for visually impaired people ie large keyboards and some unopened software so for replying to a free add about 15 mins driving got some good items for free.On another note whilst i was loading my car up the manager of the office i was at came to me and said if i pop back today there may be some more items they are disposing of for free so i went back down and have just got 4 hp towers all intact hard drives memory etc all with xp pro key codes on cases not sure what spec yet still in car and get this 5 dell latitude laptops 3 still in dell carry bags 2 loose with wireless cards in all 5 machines quite old i think but all come with chargers i have not tested any yet but as i was just getting in my car to leave i was asked did i want some old lcd monitors i got 5 in the end Samsung etc all about 17 inch some wide screen and all with vga leads and kettle leads i will get some pics up soon and also a old sony digital camera 0.35 pixel lol with a battery and mains charger so guys its well worth spending time on local free sites imo.

well just started today to have a look at the computer items i have collected for free!!! the desktops are all hp dx2300 models motherboards are ms-7336 ver 1 all have 1gb ram 80 gb sata drive and a cd/dvd rom sata drive and a 1.8 ghz dual core cpu so now i have 4 of these units to re install xp back on ready to pass on. The laptops i have picked up are all identical as well dell latitude c510/610 20 gb ide drive 384 memory 1.74 ghz cpu all with laptop bags and all battery chargers and all battery lives last over 75 mins so not bad i picked up 5 of these and have repaired 3 so far i have also found five wireless pci cards for them i will install and then pass these on free to needy family's.