Another good score....

[Topcat]

...A friend of mine messages me today telling me that his dentist just replaced one of his office computers because his 'old dell' quit him. He told the dentist that he knew a guy that might want it (me), so he set it in the back instead of pitching it in the trash, which is what he planned on doing with it. When he said 'old', that's what I was expecting....

Anyway, I go to pick it up, and its an absolutely mint condition GX280 SFF....and I mean MINT!!! Not a single scratch or blemish on this thing. Inside was so clean, it looked like it had never been turned on. zero dust. It even had the original stand. Sitting next to it is a mint shape 19" LCD widescreen monitor, KB, and mouse, and he tells me to take all of it.

I get it to the shop and crack it open. Board is loaded with Nichicon HN caps, that amazingly haven't failed! I hook it up, but it does nothing.....so I open up the PSU, and sure enough, theres a couple bad caps in there (teapos IIRC). I recapped the PSU and bench test the board and the PSU, and viola, they work. I recapped the board anyway....as we know what will become of those HN's... System has a 320gb hdd, 2gb RAM, 3Ghz CPU, DVDRW, and came with all the original disks and paperwork. He said he threw the box away just a few months ago.......ohh well... Not a bad freebee!!

A local tech quoted him $400 bucks to fix it, so he just replaced it. I can't believe how stupid some techs are these days!

Its not as if everyone here hasn't seen hundreds of GX280's, but this one just took the pristine condition prize! I'll toss up a few pics of it next trip to the shop.

[acstech]

Re: Another good score....

A local tech quoted him $400 bucks to fix it, so he just replaced it. I can't believe how stupid some techs are these days!

Board swappers. That's how most of 'em operate any more. Still, $400? I think they were fishing.

[Toasty]

Re: Another good score....

They see the Dentist or Doctor title and immediately see $$$.

[c_hegge]

Re: Another good score....

I get lots of motherboards and PSUs for FREE from work out of customer PCs. Anything that doesn't work. In many cases it has just been bad caps. I can re-cap them cheaply and sell them easily for 2-3 times what the re-cap cost me.

[kaniki]

Re: Another good score....

I have a friend that works are a car dealership. they have a computer that got wet. they let it sit for a short time, started it back up and it was glitching out. they just gave it too me. I took it apart, washed the whole thing down (very dirty) let it dry and it worked properly. it was a IBM thinkcentre if i remember right with 3 gig processor, 640 MB RAM, and either 80 or 120 gig hard drive.. not bad for a freebee. Unfortunately i thought the board was bad so bought another one just to find that it did not dry out quite enough.. something like 95% dry but enough moisture to screw it up.. but hey, only paid $20 for the new board so still good deal.