best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Dan81]

This poor PS3 phat, model CECHM03.
According to various sources these, alongside the CECHQ series, were born from a surplus of DIA-001 (the last PS3 phat board to have 90nm RSX and the first to have a NOR chip instead of NAND) boards Sony had.
As a result, the M03 SKU was born exclusively for the UK, while the CECHQ were destined for Japan. (part of the Final Fantasy Advent Children bundle, which in turn were recycled MGS4 bundles. Sasuga Sony, you cheap mf-ers)

Before:


After:



This one has been properly taken care of hardware wise - never reflowed, just repasted and it ran along fairly well.

Failure point was dead NEC-TOKINS (I swear these black buggers are the bane of my existence ever since I dug deep into Toshiba A300s and Acer 6920/6935/8920/8930 laptops.) on the bottom side of RSX.

I preemptively recapped the whole bottom side with 16 tantalum caps, 4x330uF per each Tokin.

Added some fresh MX6, upgraded the 80GB drive to a 7.2K HGST 320GB, and it runs trouble free, and rather cool.

The SFF30A 18-blade fan inside it is a bit audible at 32% constant fanspeed, but nothing too unbearable.

Currently FTP-ing games on it - it apparently can run PS2 games as well (SW emulation only, both GS and EE unfortunately - european BC units still had the GS to aid in hybrid emulation.) but so far haven't tried anything else outside what was already on it (NFSMW 2005, San Andreas and that's about it)

[Topcat]

As long as it's not as fluky as the Ricoh Color Laser AIO I bought used for my Church. It works but is quirky... and makes an annoying stamping noise. They have a very old Konica B&W like this one, but it's one that was leased somehow (nobody remembers how it worked out). Had I found one at the right price, I would have gotten it for them and not bothered with the single tray wannabe I got them instead. Hope you find a buyer... if not, enjoy!

My employer has a bunch of Konica ones like this too (recently upgraded by the leasing company)... the last one in my office was always broken but the new one works a lot better. Ours can do 11x17 (which we use a lot of), and even has a built in auto-stapler (handy for making packet sets for a gang of executives/VIPs).

I have 2 ricoh pinters, the one mentioned above and a C305 color laser (also given to me)....it was probably mentioned earlier in this thread; I've had it quite a few years. The C305 has performed perfect. I've done nothing to it other than feed it toner when it needed it. Makes no weird noises and is crazy reliable.

THis newest one, I can't speak for the reliability as of yet...I haven't had it long enough....but it's fast and prints stellar...and given its age (makde in 2019) and low page count, I see lots of life. I cleaned it before wheeling it inside, it didn't need much at all; very little toner mess & dust. I also like the paper compatibility, can take wide format, etc. I also like their drivers. Very simple; legacy-type installs locally or over a network....none of the modern garbage that others seem to have...but I think most commercial printing devices are like this. Driver is feature-rich (naturally because of the type of machine it is), but not full of crapware and nonsense that endlessly wants to sell you ink & toner.... Last HP driver I did for a customer, the print driver was like 400mb!! The drivers for this were 27mb zipped, 39mb unzipped.

[ratdude747]

As long as it's not as fluky as the Ricoh Color Laser AIO I bought used for my Church. It works but is quirky... and makes an annoying stamping noise. They have a very old Konica B&W like this one, but it's one that was leased somehow (nobody remembers how it worked out). Had I found one at the right price, I would have gotten it for them and not bothered with the single tray wannabe I got them instead. Hope you find a buyer... if not, enjoy!

My employer has a bunch of Konica ones like this too (recently upgraded by the leasing company)... the last one in my office was always broken but the new one works a lot better. Ours can do 11x17 (which we use a lot of), and even has a built in auto-stapler (handy for making packet sets for a gang of executives/VIPs).

[Topcat]

Yesterday's megascore is a Ricoh MP 2555 document center. This was nearly 10 grand new. I carted it off along with some of the other usual stuff from a regular client; a medical company that gobbled up a smaller clinic...and they're bringing in all their own IT.... ebay prices has them around ~2500....but i'd never want to deal with shipping this, so I'll just use it in the front office and maybe see if I can get a local buyer....but it's one of those I don't care if I sell. Page count is 7800. No, I didn't leave off a zero.....7800 pages! This is easily a million-page machine!





Updated the firmware....I've learned through experience that this is the first thing that must be done to any printer when going through testing & setup...can eliminate tons of headaches!!





Print quality is fabulous and toner cylinder is full...and massive!!



It's new home.



It's fast compared to the Kyocera it replaced. I can tap the print button and by the time I walk over to it (maybe 8ft), it's done. Also can put wide format paper in it....

[redbaron1007]

I thought I was getting about five Toshiba 6140-e30 POS kiosks today, but when the guy showed up it was actually 23 of them. In the chaos of making room at my shop for them I forgot to take a picture so I'll probably post back with pictures later. Currently no clue what I'm going to do with 23 of them.

[Dan81]

I likely forgot posting one of the hauls before my HDD (and Chieftec build I gutted for time being) but here's what came out of it:

- DTK PRM 27i E0 - had missing caps bar two near AGP and the tiny buggers around the SB. Recapped with Ruby MFZ and IIRC low profile 1500uF MBZs. 440BX and 4x SDR slots ftw
- Gigabyte 945GM-S2 - pretty boring 775 mATX mobo. At least it has 4 DDR2 slots.
- ASUS A8N SLI - trashed as it had a dead chipset and SIO chip
- DFI Infinity nF4 Ultra RevB - works, needed a poly recap as someone tried to fit too big Samwha RD caps on the VRM

GPUs:

AGP
- ATI 3D Charger PCI (Rage IIC+ PCI) - works
- ASUS V9180SE MX440-8x - works
- noname GF4 MX4000 - works
- MSI FX5200 - works
- ASUS A9200 - also works

PCI-E
- MSI GF6200 - works
- Gigabyte X1300 - dead
- HIS X600 - dead
- Palit 7300GT - works
- Gigabyte 9600GT Silent - works

Misc:
- LAN cards
- Creative ES1373 PCI
- Quantum Bigfoot CY 2160AT - dead

[dmill89]

A bright green Chieftec/Chenming "Dragon" case



A build thread for a period correct-ish system here:
Chieftec Dragon LGA1366 Build - Badcaps

[Dan81]

Technically the 74GB is SATA2IDE, so I'm maxing out the IDE channel output. As in, the drive itself is SATA at its core.

btw I think I tested both drives' speed on HDSentinel (as it has a seek test feature, or something close to that but I forgot their wording) and both were almost equal in speeds - the Cheetah was barely any faster, despite being SCSI.

[Topcat]

HDDs: WD Raptor 74GB 10k (SATA2IDE, bootdrive), Seagate Cheetah 36GB 10k ST336607LW (SCSI, storage drive)

I'd flip those roles. Use the smaller 36GB 10k SCSI for boot, it'll perform far better than the 74gb IDE for booting.

PS.
I've got a goodie box packed for you....just havent had a chance to get to the PO. I got a quote online and it seems way too cheap....so I want a hard quote from the horse's mouth.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Quantum Fireball Plus AS 20GB - also working and as a bonus, has 98SE installed already. Will have to pull my 440LX/Deschutes 300 mobo tho, as the dual P3 MSI spits out an insufficient memory error. (1.5GB SDR).

it sounds like it just lacks the proper system.ini settings to boot with >1gb ram. just boot it in command prompt only or safe mode command prompt only and edit system.ini to limit the vcache and maxphyspage to 384-512mb and 1gb respectively and it should boot.

[Dan81]

Finally got around and got the dual Coppermine monster in a not-really-retro-but-it-looks-cool case - a Deepcool Tesseract BF I bought for the BP6, originally, in fear that I wouldn't have a case to house it in (which I later found, a Chieftec behemoth that almost BROKE MY SPINE)








Final specs:

Case: Deepcool Tesseract BF
MB: MSI 694D Pro-AR
CPUs: 2x Pentium 3 SL52R, 1GHz/133FSB/256k L2
RAM: 1.5GB SDRAM, PC133
HDDs: WD Raptor 74GB 10k (SATA2IDE, bootdrive), Seagate Cheetah 36GB 10k ST336607LW (SCSI, storage drive)
GPU: Gecube Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB w/ Omega drivers
LAN: Realtek RTL8169SC Gigabit LAN
USB2.0: NEC
SCSI controller: Adaptec AHA-2940UW
TV Tuner: InnoDV SmartTV PCI w/ SAA7131 chipset
PSU: Chieftec-Delta GPS-450AA-101 A, 450W (w/ white Gamemax fan)
ODD: TSSTCorp SH-S182D DVDRW
OS: XP Pro SP3 VLK

[Dan81]

They're all straight. Drive doesn't complete seek test properly but does not spin down, causing garbled text.

[noppa]

So, recent stuff:

- 2x Quantum Bigfoot CY 2160AT - one is dead with unreadable sectors, the other is absolutely fine (managed to partition and format just fine)
- ASUS A52JE - i5 540m+ HD 5470M. Interestingly glossy case (a bit uncharacteristic for the 52 series) and the CPU as well, as I have yet had to encounter a 5xx series CPU. 320GB 7.2k HDD, a Hitachi.
- Chieftec custom-build w/ M2N4-SLI, 450W Chieftec-Delta PSU, 8400GS Rev2 (G98), Samsung 320GB HDD
- ASUS F3SL that had a 8400MG in need of a reflow and some proper thermal paste application. Whoever thought an aluminium square tape over the copper that goes over the GPU is a good idea needs to be fired.
- Seagate Medalist 4321 - working, neat shape! One of Seagate's better drives IMO.
- Quantum Fireball Plus AS 20GB - also working and as a bonus, has 98SE installed already. Will have to pull my 440LX/Deschutes 300 mobo tho, as the dual P3 MSI spits out an insufficient memory error. (1.5GB SDR).
- Quantum Fireball 630AT 630MB - might be bad as only 310MB managed to get tested. I might have a chance fixing it with either Spinrite or DiskGenius.
- Fujitsu MPE3102AT - dead apparently. Produces garbled text during POST.
- Fujitsu MPB3021AT - works

For Fujitsu MPE3102AT check IDE connector for bent or damaged pins.

[Dan81]

So, recent stuff:

- 2x Quantum Bigfoot CY 2160AT - one is dead with unreadable sectors, the other is absolutely fine (managed to partition and format just fine)
- ASUS A52JE - i5 540m+ HD 5470M. Interestingly glossy case (a bit uncharacteristic for the 52 series) and the CPU as well, as I have yet had to encounter a 5xx series CPU. 320GB 7.2k HDD, a Hitachi.
- Chieftec custom-build w/ M2N4-SLI, 450W Chieftec-Delta PSU, 8400GS Rev2 (G98), Samsung 320GB HDD
- ASUS F3SL that had a 8400MG in need of a reflow and some proper thermal paste application. Whoever thought an aluminium square tape over the copper that goes over the GPU is a good idea needs to be fired.
- Seagate Medalist 4321 - working, neat shape! One of Seagate's better drives IMO.
- Quantum Fireball Plus AS 20GB - also working and as a bonus, has 98SE installed already. Will have to pull my 440LX/Deschutes 300 mobo tho, as the dual P3 MSI spits out an insufficient memory error. (1.5GB SDR).
- Quantum Fireball 630AT 630MB - might be bad as only 310MB managed to get tested. I might have a chance fixing it with either Spinrite or DiskGenius.
- Fujitsu MPE3102AT - dead apparently. Produces garbled text during POST.
- Fujitsu MPB3021AT - works

[Dan81]

Gutted a C2D BTX prebuilt:

- Chieftec-Delta GPS-350FB-101 A PSU (yum!)
- 80GB Sammy HDD
- T H I C C A F Akasa 8cm fan (suspecting a rebranded Delta)
- Samsung DVDRW
- sleeved PATA cable
- Intel DQ965CO mobo

Other stuff today
- Panasonic Smart TV pre-Vestel buyout
- Xpertvision Radeon 9000 64MB AGP

Tomorrow:
- big retro component lot, among which there is a Quantum Bigfoot.

[Topcat]

And now they go for around $30 on eBay (gotta love depreciation). At that price point they make a pretty good budget build option when combined with one of the many Chinese X99 motherboards that are flooding the market (or of course in an older workstation if you can get it for a decent price). Performance wise they're on-par with something like a Ryzen 5 5500 of I7-12400F, but since it is split across 14 cores rather than 6 in the newer CPUs the Xeon isn't as good in single threaded performance, and of course the Xeon is far less efficient with a 135W TDP rather than the 65W of the newer chips.

True. I've got nothing in the T7910 workstation. By the time I build it out to my liking, I'll have ~$200 in it.... A barebones T7910 sells on ebay with lesser hardware for $250 and up + ship, this one will be outfitted well above & beyond that. I'll still make a buck on it in the end....but I'd hate to know what the pricetag for this was when it was new!

[dmill89]

looked that cpu up on wikipedia. turns out it cost US$2090 back in the day when it first came out. couldnt believe it... that price on just a cpu alone...

And now they go for around $30 on eBay (gotta love depreciation). At that price point they make a pretty good budget build option when combined with one of the many Chinese X99 motherboards that are flooding the market (or of course in an older workstation if you can get it for a decent price). Performance wise they're on-par with something like a Ryzen 5 5500 of I7-12400F, but since it is split across 14 cores rather than 6 in the newer CPUs the Xeon isn't as good in single threaded performance, and of course the Xeon is far less efficient with a 135W TDP rather than the 65W of the newer chips.

[jiroy]

ah ok. looks like a pci slot irq assignment problem. the creative soundblaster cards also had those problems. wouldnt work in some pci slots but were ok in others. had to keep moving the card around until it found a pci slot it liked and worked okay in... very fussy and picky hardware!

looked that cpu up on wikipedia. turns out it cost US$2090 back in the day when it first came out. couldnt believe it... that price on just a cpu alone...

Absolutely true .. A real nightmare back then . Specially with some dedicated PCI Cards which came originally with a specific IRQ that cannot be changed .

[ChaosLegionnaire]

I had to reoder the PCI cards for one

ah ok. looks like a pci slot irq assignment problem. the creative soundblaster cards also had those problems. wouldnt work in some pci slots but were ok in others. had to keep moving the card around until it found a pci slot it liked and worked okay in... very fussy and picky hardware!

E5-2690 v4 CPU's 14 cores per CPU

looked that cpu up on wikipedia. turns out it cost US$2090 back in the day when it first came out. couldnt believe it... that price on just a cpu alone...

[Topcat]

Had a big dropoff of goodness from a local resort. The pick of the litter is a Precision T7910 dual 2011-3 workstation supporting E5 2xxx v4's. Gonna have some fun with this one.

Finally had a little time to see what was in this.... 2x E5-2690 v4 CPU's 14 cores per CPU; 28 total @ 2.6GHz....holy shit, 28 cores + HT! 64gb DDR4; 8x 8GB modules. Weaksauce NVS310 GPU, LSI 9361 SAS card w/ BBU. HDD's were 2x toshiba 1tb sata.

Not bad!

The fun has already begun...bought a few things for it...