Your Best Dumpster Finds

[jwillifixit]

Originally Posted by martino

I know it's an old post but just ran into it. Selling that?

Sure... what did you have in mind? I haven't even begun to work on it. Just dusted it off and it's sitting on a shelf. It's pretty big and heavy... I've got to believe that shipping would cost even more than it's worth.

[jwillifixit]

Among other stuff I picked up a Lenovo Thinkpad T510.
It didn't have the battery in it, the cover for the ram bay was gone as was the cover for the hdd. I dug around a bit and there was the battery, and the two covers!

I put some RAM and a hard drive in it and it's working just fine!!!

[goontron]

Originally Posted by CapLeaker

For over a year now there is nothing in the dumpster that hasn’t been gutted. It sux so bad I have given up on it. Only thing I find are old tube TV’s and microwaves.

Hey, i would love those finds!

[retiredcaps]

Originally Posted by goontron

Hey, i would love those finds!

No need to dumpster dive. Old tube CRT TVs are regularly given away free on my local kijiji. Even what used to be high end Sony Wegas are given away for free.

That and projection TVs in the 60 to 70 inch size are given away. Some might need a new lamp which costs around $150.

Check your local craigslist or equivalent if you want old working CRT TVs.

[momaka]

My local Craigslist is also filled with CRT and projection TVs - at least several posted every day. And once or twice a month, I also see those high-end widescreen Sony Wega and Panasonic TVs - but those do actually get taken. I asked a few posters, and they said they often manage to give them away in no more than a few days. Same goes with newer and/or larger CRT monitors - looks like I'm not the only one that takes those anymore. What's even more funny, some people have now started to list CRT monitors for sale for a good chunk of money due to their "vintage" value.

As for microwaves... I see those on CL here too, but they are usually broken. Still, people do seem to take them once in a while. The working microwaves definitely get snatched quickly.

[stj]

people want the transformers, now there are sites showing how to make battery-tab welders.

[retiredcaps]

Originally Posted by momaka

What's even more funny, some people have now started to list CRT monitors for sale for a good chunk of money due to their "vintage" value.

I'll take my 50 inch plasma anyday over my old vintage Sony 32 inch CRT.

I dread the day the plasma dies and I can't fix it. I already pre-ordered the mostly like components to die in my plasma.

[goontron]

Originally Posted by stj

people want the transformers, now there are sites showing how to make battery-tab welders.

Good thing no sites show how to drive one resonantly and get 2-3x the voltage out of it...

[dmill89]

Originally Posted by retiredcaps

No need to dumpster dive. Old tube CRT TVs are regularly given away free on my local kijiji. Even what used to be high end Sony Wegas are given away for free.

Similar around here. A few years ago PA banned disposal of electronics in regular garbage (and if you try putting it out on the curb the garbage men won't pick it up), but left it up to the individual counties to set up e-waste collection rather than setting up a statewide program. In some counties it is "free" (obviously paid for by taxes or fees on new electronics, but no charge for disposal) for residents, but in the county I live in (and several others) they charge $0.50/lb. for disposal so as a result people would rather give something away than pay to dispose of it (especially heavy things like large CRTs and projection sets). Of course there has also been a massive rise in illegal dumping as a result to the point that you'll find old TVs and other e-waste in just about any wooded/secluded area (of course the law was passed for "environmental reasons", yah that worked out real well, now instead of going to the landfill e-waste is piling up in the woods and on the roadsides).

[Vitam]

Probably a fuckton of server equipment. These people were throwing out an entire hosting company. Of course, all the servers were old, so I only kept one IBM server and all the rest of the firewall/NAS/switch stuff went to scrap (couldn't be sold). Even throwing out the rack mount. I kept about 3 tiny HP desktops they were throwing out as well. Later on, they asked for our phone number because they had more, and when they called us, they had 3 matching monitors for the desktops, and a few laptops. Back in 2012, some dude down the street threw out a ton of desktops, monitors, VCRs, and printers. I took some of the desktops, but what was special to me is the Toshiba TIMM monitor... a 20" CRT TV with VGA, tuner, composite in and GREAT BOOMING SOUND! I still own it to this day. Now, next is not really a curb find, but it was free. One of my dad's facebook friends was giving away their late 2013 iMac. They said it got slow, then would not work at all, they're sick of it and already bought a new one. My dad went and got it (90 people replied to it saying YEAH I WANT IT!) and brought it home for me! Came with the keyboard, mouse, and power cord. Reinstalled High Sierra on it, and voila, new computer. It is now my main computer, and I am actually typing this on it!

[Curious.George]

Logitech SqueezeBox (bad wall wart). I'll see if I should replace one of the Chumbys with this (smaller, less hokey looking).

[MAVA]

This is my first.

Back in the early 2000's I got a hair up my butt to upgrade our 27" Sony Trinitron to 30 something like XBR or XBR-Squared units that were non-working on Craigslist. Nearly all the TV's just needed new caps, but I upgraded to a flat screen, but my father still watches TV for about four hours of TV a day on one of those 36" Sony's I re-capped

It sure pays to look for free stuff on craigslist...

Martin

[hikaruichijo]

Rescued this some days ago, it has some rust, well a lot, and is useless nowadays, does not worth time of cleaning it, and I guess these clones made in Taiwan where common on their days but it is around thirty years old and after a clean it powered on without problems only the hdd is dead, the motor won't start,a 20mb mfm nec 2156 drive, a shame.
And the first MDA monitor I've seen.
sure some forum members have good memories attached to a similar machine, it's a 8088-2.
Well there was a mouse corpse inside the case maybe it eaten the some bits of the hdd.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by hikaruichijo

only the hdd is dead, the motor won't start,a 20mb mfm nec 2156 drive, a shame.

I don't think those older HDDs have parking ramps, so the heads may have stuck to the platters, preventing the HDD from spinning up. Old trick for these drives is to bang them around a little (tap or hit the drive on a hard surface... but not too hard to cause damage). Then try powering it on and see if it spins up. I have a 20 GB Maxtor, which although much newer, suffers from the same problem. Recently I tested an old Quantum Bigfoot I had in storage, and it had that problem too. Didn't take much of a tap get the HDD spinning again.

[hikaruichijo]

Already tried that, but I can move the motor and the head by hand but it wont spin up and the voltages are present on the conector of the motor.
I've had that problem with an old scsi segate 10gb drive, one lite hit and running, and after some time of storage again the same problem, but another identical drive never had that problem...

[momaka]

Well, here is a not-so-interesting but functional PC I found two weeks ago in my townhouse neighborhood on trash day:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1524018918
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1524018918
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1524018918

It's a Dell Inspiron 530 with a Core 2 Duo E4700 (2.6 GHz), 4 GB of DDR2 RAM (4x 1 GB), and a HIS Radeon 4670 video card with 1 GB of VRAM. Original PSU seems to have been replaced for some reason - a shame really, as the original was probably built better. On that note, the replacement PSU in there is a ThermalTake PurePower PP-350NL1NC (advertised as 350 Watts peak and 305 Watts continuous). It's a not-so-impressive CWT / Channel Well Tech. under the cover, but it does work. Also, the computer came with two optical DVD-R/RW drives: the original plus a newer one. Both are SATA. There was no hard drive in the PC. I found it in the recycling bin with the lid off and screws loosely banging inside.

Now here is the funny part: the original optical drive had a game disc inside it - Medal of Honor: Airborne. I haven't tested the disc yet, nor ever played this game, but it should be right up my alley, as it's an older DX9.0c-based game and a first person shooter too.

So double-score?
... I guess that depends on how you look at it. The PC was extremely dusty inside and absolutely needed cleaning. Coming from the row of townhouses in my neighborhood, though, I knew it wouldn't be disgusting and/or have any bugs or pests in it (like bedbugs or roaches). Nevertheless, I did a complete disassembly and cleaning + disinfecting with ammonia-based window cleaner. It looks almost like new now. Actually, the pictures above show it in the clean condition. When I picked it up, there were HUGE dust bunnies inside. The CPU heatsink, GPU heatsink, and PSU were caked with dust too. Also, the dust stunk of mold a bit. But now it's all been cleaned up and looks good. Still a bit of a moldy smell inside the case, but I'm sure it will come out as I run the PC eventually. On that note, I haven't found a use for it yet. But it's a decent PC for browsing - the best I've found in my neighborhood so far.

[kaboom]

Those were interesting cases, looking rather e-Machine-ish but hiding something nicer inside...

Bet it's quiet with that large heatsink and CPU fan, only ramping up under heavy load.

[momaka]

I haven't tested it under heavy load to find out, but I'm fairly sure it's quiet. One thing I don't like on these newer Dells (as in, socket 775 and newer, lol) is the lack of PS/2 ports. I don't have a whole lot of USB mice and keyboards (only one of each, actually... or at least until I got a second USB keyboard a few weeks ago), so it's hard to do any semi-permanent or permanent setups.

Other than that, it should also be a pretty reliable PC, given it's an Intel G33) chipset and it doesn't run too hot. I don't trust the chipsets on modern motherboards these days. Same goes for last-gen nVidia chipsets (glad they don't make these anymore).

[dmill89]

Originally Posted by momaka

I haven't tested it under heavy load to find out, but I'm fairly sure it's quiet. One thing I don't like on these newer Dells (as in, socket 775 and newer, lol) is the lack of PS/2 ports. I don't have a whole lot of USB mice and keyboards (only one of each, actually... or at least until I got a second USB keyboard a few weeks ago), so it's hard to do any semi-permanent or permanent setups.

Other than that, it should also be a pretty reliable PC, given it's an Intel G33) chipset and it doesn't run too hot. I don't trust the chipsets on modern motherboards these days. Same goes for last-gen nVidia chipsets (glad they don't make these anymore).

A special note on that system, since you appear to have the G33M02 variant of the motherboard it only supports dual-core CPUs (the less common G33M03 supported quad-cores as well), but it does support Wolfdale Core2Duos.

[momaka]

Thanks for the info, dmill!

Fortunately (or not, depending on how you look at it ), I don't have any spare Core 2 Quad CPUs at my disposal, so I will very likely use this PC as is. Also, C2Q's pump out quite a bit more heat, so I reserve those for PCs that have bigger and/or more case fans to deal away with the heat.

I do, however, have a Xeon 5150 that I wonder if it would work with that PC with a 771 to 775 sticker mod. AFAIK, both G31 and G33 chipsets support these Xeons. So perhaps it's just down to inserting the microcodes in the BIOS or finding one that has them inserted already.

But if not, I'm still more than okay with the stock CPU. If a Pentium 4 still gets me by, just imagine what this will do.

Though the stock E4700 CPU having 800 MHz FSB, I could also do a BSEL mod.

*EDIT* and I just made it over post 7777. Where's my jackpot?!