best cheap/free scores 1.1

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

the humax HD pvr's all fail, you need to put a heatsink on the cpu.

[retiredcaps]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

2 weeks ago I scored a humax PVR for £4.50, sold it for £120

Excellent profit margin. Did you have to do something to the humax in terms of repair or recapping?

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Excellent profit margin. Did you have to do something to the humax in terms of repair or recapping?

Just sheer luck to be honest, was going to pass up at £5 lol, then she agreed to £4.50

No it was working fine, it came stock with a 320GB HDD but I threw in a spare 500GB HDD that I had, which are not exactly expensive.

Also picked up this Hinari CD player today with built in amp for £2

Hinari DPA2

Now I was being a bit judgmental when I bought this, was from some eastern European chaps at market and I usually avoid bying stuff from them as I find a lot of times they've already had a go at repairing and are basically selling electronic waste.

Along with being covered in mud and rain, but to my surprise works perfectly, both channels and playing cds like a champ.

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

the humax HD pvr's all fail, you need to put a heatsink on the cpu.

I've not much experience with them to be honest, although humax are more a premium brand compared to most. Only started looking out for PVRs recently as usually its no loss kind of deal. If they work score, if they don't you get a free hard drive + remote. So as long as you are only paying a couple of quid youre not going to lose out.

PVRs I got today are luxor tutv2500

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

What I've scored:

-ASRock K7VTA4+ - need to reflash
-ASRock 775V88+ w/P4 3.00GHz Prescott - need to reflash
-ASUS K8V SE Deluxe - won't post,see text below
-Winfast A7300GT TDH 256MB - DOS mode works fine,VGA has artefacts - anybody know a simple fix?

Now,regarding the K8V SE Deluxe:

I've got this board that was looking cool,has 4 SATA ports + RAID - 2x VIA8237R (standard) and 2x Promise PDC20378+IDE RAID port). I loaded it up with a Sempron 2500+ (test CPU,if it's possible to get it working then daily CPU for it is Athlon 64 2800+),1.5GB RAM and a "Speeze" (Spire iirc).

Problems with it:
-CPU stays cold most of the time,regardless of what I put in (Sempron 3000+,Sempron 2500+ or Athlon 64 2800+)
-MB turns on as soon as PSU switch is flipped (this is with my beefy Deer (not going to explain it again...),my FSP has a 1 second delay)
-does not POST
-does not beep
-SB is near stone cold - MB wouldn't turn on if SB was dead
What does warm up on it are the Network chip (Marvel 88E8001-LKJ),the Promise controller (Model number listed above) and the Winbond W83697HF,with the last one being less warmer than the NIC and SATA/RAID chip.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Crappy ones, freeview with just scart (no hd or hdmi) 250GB cant complain though for a quid each.

(Ill edit post in a bit with brand)

2 weeks ago I scored a humax PVR for £4.50, sold it for £120

Love this thing though, looks so cool. Also portable but takes 10 huge batteries!!

Anyone had to change drive belts on cassette decks?

I have serviced drive belts on tape drives. Not a big deal if you've got the right size belt. If a belt is just slipping on pulleys and not stretched, cracked or broken a little non-slip fluid (like RS used to sell) works well. Don't get any in the feed and takeup reel hub clutches though.

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I have serviced drive belts on tape drives. Not a big deal if you've got the right size belt. If a belt is just slipping on pulleys and not stretched, cracked or broken a little non-slip fluid (like RS used to sell) works well. Don't get any in the feed and takeup reel hub clutches though.

No its doing absolutely zilch, no movement what so ever so reckon they are dead / turned to goo (around 35 years old)

Any suggestions how to measure up correct size belts and where to source?

ebay belts worth looking at?

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

can you hear the motor running?
i had to replace a few motors in the past.

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

No cant hear motors, pressing buttons does nothing

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

time to get in it then - put a meter across the motor wires.
if it's got power you need to see if the shaft is stuck.
there is a pcb inside the back on most motors that contains a speed regulator btw.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

May not seem like big score but some little things like that make a world of difference.

Totally!

I regularly find broken earbuds on the street (usually near parked cars), and I always pick them up. May seem like a waste of time, but those 3.5 mm jacks always come in handy for audio projects. My latest kludge is a 3.5 mm to "speaker terminal" output adapter. Basically, I have a PC with a sound card that has a TEA2025b amp IC in it. It can be used to drive bookshelf speakers directly. I tried it, and I got pretty decent sound from a pair of Sharp 10 Watt speakers.

A 5$ mobile phone plastic disassembly toolset makes all the difference in the world. I have fixed my Samsung s3 two times already. I wouldn't even bother without plastic wedges and pry tools.

Even with proper tools (borrowed from a friend before), I still dislike working on small stuff like that. Strains my eyes too much.

(2x Geforce 250 SLI'd).

I said decent, not "gamer".

IMO, even one of those is decent enough for most needs.

No cant hear motors, pressing buttons does nothing

Try it with a tape. Some decks may have a switch that disables the capstan/motor from running if there is no tape in the deck. Or at least my Marantz SD4000 has that. When I first got it, I was almost convinced it was bad . Needed fairly little TLC to get it in good working order. Definitely worth the $10 I paid for it (too bad the shipping was twice that ).

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Cheap scores yesterday:

ECS P6VXAT w/Celeron 1100,284MB RAM,noname Deer/L&C clone and Geforce MX440 64MB (one of the sticks is EDO SDRAM!!)
PCChips M952 w/Pentium 4 2.80GHz (Northwood) - one of their quite better built mobos,sadly won't POST
MSI KT3V - won't POST,big scratch on traces between Northbridge and AGP slot

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Think I scored big this week, spent about £65 in total though but got a lot of stuff

Yaesu Ft-290Rii + mic and Yaesu FL-2025 amp (untested)
Panasonic DMR-XS350 Twin Sat HD PVR 250GB + DVD Player / Burner (working no remote)
Bang & Olufsen CX50 Bookshelf speakers (foams perished) hope can reform them
Yamaha dsp-a592 receiver (untested)
Some water cooling gear ek block / dual rad / pump red combo

Will update later, got to go out but loads of other stuff too

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Just tested Yaesu at brother in laws and all working surprisingly.

Also got a

Xbox original + games
Old school Apple keyboard
12v / 6v battery charger
Sony 6 cd changer
Super flower fan master fan controller
Tad am us-122

And finally a Gaggia Baby Class, works perfectly and in excellent condition.

[lbwlow]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

My score of the month :
- Lenovo ThinkCentre A57 (some badcaps)
- Hp Dx2700Mt desktop (a lots of badcaps)
- Hp Compaq 4000 pro SFF (no idea what wrong, salvage what i need, sold the unit back for cost)
- Dell Precision M4300 (Wifi card semi faulty)
- Acer TravelMate 6291 (faulty keyboard)
- Custom Dual core desktop complete set (Just the main boot drive was dead)

All the item came from local scrape yard in my country, paid $5-$6 each (converted from my currency).

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Moar scores!

Today I scored a entire PC - quite busted,missing front panel. I removed the components from the case - including front panel wires and such.

Delux ATX-450W P4 PSU - Sun-Pro built,but they apparently wrote Delux's own text - ".DELUX-AY v1.0,20120715". Smallest fuse ever (was the size of a screw),FHY/AsiaX caps. No PI coils but there are spaces for them so I'm gonna install them and see if it works - I tested it briefly with the board below (came with the PC

Biostar K8VGA-M - funny thing,whatever "genius guy" recapped this board,not only he used some no-name ("SHECON" - anybody know them? ) 2200uF 25v caps (I'm guessing some KZGs went bad...),but he also omitted a completely dead KZG - bung popped and vent also popped

Removed the KZG with some pliers and going to recap it with Sanyo WGs.


Powercolor Radeon 9250 128MB AGP - this one is fine. No problems,though there's a "STONE"(I guess it's actually made from stone instead of electrolyte ) cap with a Ruby vent that I might replace in the future since it's sitting next to two diodes.

Maxtor Diamondmax 9 6Y080L0 80GB PATA

1x BTC CD/DVD-RW drive and 1x DVD-ROM

and that's all. I found a Windows 7 Pro install on it.

[Compgeke]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Bought a Xeon W3520 for $5 off someone in an IRC channel.

Seems they also threw in a single 1 GB DDR2 laptop ram module and a Core 2 Duo P8400 chip. Not bad for $5.

[fjutrackx]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

The best I ever found was a 42" lg flatron monitor / promo display in 2009 (which were sold until 2007 for about 7000 euro). That thing was only 4 years old.
I fixed the screen, connected to a computer to watch movies and play games on. At home they only had CRT TV's, except on my room there was that big size monitor XD
The same year I also found a computer with a Q6600 CPU. But.. speaking of the "belt" from a computer store.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

^ Nice CPU... but man, 130 Watts TDP (and 224W peak)? That thing is power-hungry!

[Compgeke]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Power isn't a huge concern with it. I'll be throwing it in my 2nd Precision T3500 whenever I get around to fixing that up to sell - I'd rather keep the i7 940 from it.

I personally run an X5560 in my desktop being as it's a far lower power chip (95W TDP, 197 max) and I'd recommend the same to anyone else going with a 1366 chip. The 130s double as effective room heaters.