Your Best Dumpster Finds

[goodpsusearch]

Originally Posted by momaka

That motherboard looks very similar to what I have in a Dell Dimension XPS R-400, except yours also has the audio (mine doesn't, but the stock Intel boards do - they have Yamaha XG audio - very good audio quality). Makes me curious what yours has.

The IC is "Yamaha Japan YMF715E-S"

[kc8adu]

does hamvention free pile finds count?
300+ pounds of brand new industrial roller chain.think huge motorcycle chain,3 band modules for a kenwood tm-742.2m,220,and 70cm bands.wish they had left the rest of the rig there with it.most are easy(for me) to repair.
4 apc 650 ups's.and a oddball cnc control i have yet to id.
an icom 2720 in pieces in a ziploc bag.looks like everything is there.now to find out why it was taken apart!

[Per Hansson]

Originally Posted by momaka

Last but not least, I got the OS running after doing a CHKDSK /R. Originally it was boot-cycling (typical behaviour of a NTFS system when anything gets corrupted). Here I learned something new: if you have a Windows 2000 CD and you use the recovery console from that, you don't have to know the admin password on that computer. Either that, or that computer doesn't have an admin password (haven't checked that yet, but I doubt it doesn't).

FYI Windows 2000 does ask for the password.
But if it can't recognize a Windows install or I guess if the registry is corrupt then it wont ask for a password, since it wont really consider this a "real" Windows install...

You can verify that if the chkdsk run was not written in the windows event log, if it was then there was no password.
If nothing was written then it just accessed it like a normal harddrive with no OS or with an unrecognized OS on it...

[Uranium-235]

Originally Posted by momaka

Got another computer last Friday, again from the same condo complex where I always check the dumpsters.

This time, it was a HP Netserver E800. Specs:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport...ctID=c00069098
Actually, it's better than the specs above, because it also came with 768MB of PC133 registered RAM, a (new, LG?) DVD RW, some decent-looking Philips sound card, USB addon card, and a 256MB e-GeForce 6200 PCI card.

So, up to this point: great. But now, time for the bad news: IT STINKS! and I mean literally.
When I first picked it up from next to the dumpster, it looked okay (for a freebie anyways) - the sides were missing and there was not that much dust inside. After I got it home and looked more carefully - it's another whole story.
The first thing I noticed when I opened the trunk of my car was the smell - I swear someone must have taken a shit on the thing, it just wreaks of sewer. Oh look - rust spots on the case! Maybe this thing was sitting in a sewer after all. What else, what else... Large chucks of (presumably) food and also hair - check. ... And the brown things stuck in the dust on the CPU fan - dead roaches. YIKES, I got a roach-putter! Without a second thought, I put the whole computer straight on top of my trash can.

After a bit of thinking and pocking around, though, it seemed that there were no live roaches, so I decided to clean it [thoroughly, of course].
Step 1: took everything apart (including the PSU and one of the CD drives), above the trash can, and de-dusted with a toothbrush and a fine brush
Step 2: wiped the case twice with chlorine-based wipes (at this point, though, it still smelled like shit, especially over the rust spots)
Step 3: I gave it the RAID treatment. Just like member Junk Parts here, the only RAID I've used comes in a spray can
step 4: I put the case and PSU back in the trunk of my car (hey it already smells like shit - might as well put it back in and try to neutralize it with the smell of the RAID spray). Took some of the parts (HD, RAM, motherboard, etc.) and put them in a drawer in my garage.

So that's all since then. I still haven't tested if the thing actually works or not. I think I'll give the motherboard a nice soap wash before trying anything, though (hopefully in the next few days) - it still smells a little bit.
If it works, that will be great. I have one 80 GB, 10k RPM, SCSI HD I've been wanting to use now (can't sell it or throw it away due to sensitive data on it). If all is good, maybe I'll even consider getting a pair of 900-ish MHz P3 CPUs for it. I just saw an auction the other day on ebay for $8. Should be considerably faster than my regular everyday computers (mostly P3s).

Anyone interested in pictures? I haven't taken any, but might get some later on.

a year ago my workplace (a computer repair shop) was given one of those, and it was given to me cause they can't 'sell' it. The guy later came back with the HDD cage, I thanked him soo much

one issue with this lil pedistal server is there is an I/O bug on the main ide controller. If you have a cd drive that tries to read a large, single file over about 200M or so I believe, it stops trying to read anything from it. This also probably applies to HD's too, but I had put some SCSI drives in there so that dosen't apply

but I tried to install ubuntu linux, and when it goes to the main kernel binary, which is several hundred meg, it just sat there. so, hmm. I burned a fresh disk. same thing. tried a known working cd drive, same thing. same place it stopped too. I put an IDE card in there, hooked up the original cd drive that was in the thing and it worked like a champ. I'm not sure this would apply to windows, I bet no files on the install are that big

[Toasty]

Originally Posted by kc8adu

<snip> ...an icom 2720 in pieces in a ziploc bag.looks like everything is there.now to find out why it was taken apart!

A HAM sammich!

[kc8adu]

ROFLOL!
maybe a modern day heathkit?no mfj is closer.random partial kits.some reasembly and soldering required.

Originally Posted by Toasty

A HAM sammich!

[starmaxpc]

was at a local electronics roundup awhile back and was just looking for a vga cable for a lcd monitor. i asked the guy if i could go and look for one he said ok. i saw a toshiba laptop sitting on top of the pile and went back and asked the guy if i could take it. he said he didnt care so i did. took it home, looked to be in really good shape, purchased the proper ac adapter on ebay for it. when i got the adapter i plugged it in and it fired up to a passworded user account, rebooted into safe mode to the admin account erased the password rebooted into windows xp home. 80 gb hd, 512 memory, cdrw+ wireless and worked great?? guy must of lost the power cord for it or forgot the password and tossed it cause it was totally dead when i grabbed it. sold it locally for $150. BONUS!!!

[moola]

I never find anything interteesting, but mum found a brand new logitech wireless usb mouse for me in a free pile ... package had never even been opened :-)

[crtfool]

My best find was a 42" Sony HD Rear Projection ATSC Digital LCD TV that only needed a new lamp and the power cord replaced because it was cut off. It works perfectly and does not have the dreaded Light Engine failure that almost all of Sony's RP LCD sets have.

[Digital Technophile]

Wow, this thread is better than the New Members - please post your introductions here thread! I've just spent god knows how long reading this thread from the beginning and I feel like I'm no longer alone on this crazy little planet!
Yes, sad but true, I am a hopeless trashpicker/packrat extraordinare. On the trashpicking end I'm somewhat reformed since having left the golden dumpsters of dear old Philadelphia town (amazing shit on the sidewalks, too), but I never miss an opportunity to dive; just not a lot to dive into around here. Now the crap comes straight to me with little to no effort it seems. Latest acquisition is a <2 year old Dell Inspiron 1575 a friend asked me to fix the wobbly power cooter on (DC input). It turns out the sub-board had a screw loose, not to mention all the rest of the screws on the board being either loose or missing (I think only the one's holding the MoBo to the case were the only ones still tight). Needless to say that was the least of its problems. Its owner replaced the AC PS with a cheap non-Dell POS I believe boogered the receptacle further. To even power it on, you had to hold it in a certain way on the bottom. Carefully disassembled the comp, found that the sub-board housing the receptacle has a loose screw (I figured from his description the solder had become undone), cleaned out dust/cat hair/and crap from the cooler fins/board, carefully reassembled, and voila! nothing. Shiite it's his granddaughter's what am I going to tell him?! Called him up and told him what happened to which he replied, "I had a feeling it was toast, but I figured if you could't fix it, I was going to get rid of it anyway. How much do I owe you?" Knowing full well I could charge him to break something already broken, I made a deal to keep it in lieu of payment. From the deal I got: 2 sticks of RAM totalling 2GB, Intel Celeron M 550 (SLA2E) cpu, a WD scorpio 120GB HDD, mini-pcie wireless card, Li-ion battery, A- condition keyboard, and dvd-writer. Useful parts: LCD screen, WiFi antennae, 3G antennae, some surface mount mini-pcie connectors, express card/54 sub-board, and a bunch of: surface mount leds, a 5R8 40 amp 40-150 volt 50 nsec rectifier, among other scrounge-ables/connectors.

Beyond that, some of the things I'm most proud of finding: 36" of Western Electric Nassau "Pedigreed" Stearine-core AT-7424 solder (apparently very rare and expensive stuff), I'm especially proud of the nice collection of vacuum tubes packed neatly into a RCA service toolbox and put out on the curb (hey you never know when a nuclear holocaust might strike ). Also working one summer many moons ago as a residential mover proved to be another avenue of junque collecting: A beautiful antique Free (before Singer, there was Free) sewing machine replete with ALL of the original attachments and manual, an old wind up mantle clock that had a couple of 2 dollar bills tucked away inside, and a ~1999 Dell Optiplex GX1 my official first computer that served me way up until 2005 when I acquired my current computer an Hp a1253w (bought that one). My Ex had a penchant for three legged chairs and table left out on the curb, dressers missing drawers (you know, the reason they were on the curb in the first place). My one and only golden rule for trash picking is that the object in question has to be functional if not repairable. Other than that, scratches, dents, and other flaws don't deter me from taking an otherwise good piece of whatever home. I could probably sit here and think of other un-useful crap that seemed like a good idea at the time, only to end up on my curb instead.

Anyhow, I've enjoyed reading this amusing thread very much; cheers to the OP
And if I may bestow an award for social engineer of the 1st decade....drum rolll...

PCBONEZ, I hereby award you an honorary Doctorate of BS degree, having demonstrated great understanding of the foibles of earthlings, able to manipulate their apparent lack of intelligence, second only IMHO to the late great Grouch Marx!

[starmaxpc]

Another back alley find. Seanix Computer tower Celeron 2.2ghz 40gb hd 512 memory cdrw+ cleaned it up a bit, was raining out, kept booting to safe mode so i wiped the drive clean and formatted with windows xp home and now running smooth. shake my head and laugh when find s**t like this.

[MBLeo]

I found a Compac CQ62 laptop with a big fist print in the screen...The next day I found a magnavox 20" hdtv...Changed the fuse in the tv and hooked it up to the laptop...Works for me...

[Evil Lurker]

Got a Golden Eagle police issued K band radar gun, antenna, and remote control couple weeks ago. Unit is functional now that I repaired the antenna cord. Opened it up and my god at the tantalum capacitors and top of the line nichicon caps... now I see how these things can live for years on hot dashboards.

Lets see... coupla leaf blowers... needed new fuel lines and carb rebuild. Alpine ozone generator, needed cleaning and screwing one of the control knobs. Today I got a couple ballasts for 8ft commercial lights, some junction boxes, an exhaust fan, big ass 16V wall wart, and a schlumberger gas pumpy controllery thingabox. Says it has a 25 amp 12v SMPS in it. Will probably take the board out and use the PSU and box to put one of my projects in.

[kc8adu]

using a 1948 emerson fan that a friend picked out of a pile.cleaned and oiled it.
this guy finds some nice stuff.he drives an automated garbage truck for the city.too many pc's and tv/monitors to count.

[mcdaydavies]

My best dumpster find was when my school threw out 4 computers, 3 where pentium 4's, all with 512mb ram. 1 was amd 64 with 1 gb ram. all 4 worked flawlessly. Hard drives were took out of course. 1 trashpicked dell dimension 3000 which also worked flawlessly with private data on it. Also found 1 dell 17 inch monitor which works fine.

[momaka]

Nice finds mcdaydavies!
The public schools around here store their dead computer and then ship them off for recycling at once, so nothing in the dumpsters.
----
I just went out today with my bike to check the dumpsters of the local shops in our town - and the result: nothing found .
Oh well...
----
By the way, yesterday I was at my friends house - he lives in the same condo complex where I usually check the dumpsters and where I got that roach-putter a few months ago.

Well, at one point I went to use his bathroom. Turn on the lights and saw a few roaches scattering on the floor and on the sink. Also noticed that the bathroom had the same foul smell as the computer I got.

When I got out, I told him about the roaches, but he said he couldn't do anything about them because they were coming from the neighbours. The bathroom does have a door that gives access to the bathroom of the other apartment, so I do believe him.

Then again, these condos are just too old and not so well maintained, so that explains a lot too. There are also some low-income families that live there, so I think you get the full picture.

I guess I got lucky because the other 3 computers I got from that place were fine. Sure they were dirty and dusty, but no roaches!

[momaka]

Got another free computer from the dumpster. Same apartament complex again. This time it's not very dirty and it doesn't have roaches. The computer is also a bit newer.

Getting it was a bit of a story (more about it here).
...
So far, this is what I gathered about it:
It has a Pentium 4, 1.7 GHz, 256kb L2, 1.75v processor with stock Intel HSF. Motherboard is some purple ESC with 2x DDR, 2x SDRAM, and AGP (has OST caps on VRM). Case is a beige/off-white generic stuff with CyberLink PSU (or maybe it was TurboLink, but that's the same thing). The PSU is absolutely guttless - probably why the computer was thrown out. The secondary caps are just one size bigger than the standard 5x11 mm caps. No PI inductors whatsoever.
Overall not much, but the addon cards were okay: it had a SoundBlaster Live PCI audio card, LinkSys 802.11G wireless PCI, some RAID card (external SATA??), and a Radeon 7000 AGP grahpics with 32 MB. For optical drives, it has a Plextor DVD-RW and another DVD ROM.
And that's pretty much it. Haven't tested anything because it's still wet. Amazingly, the battery is still good, even though it was wet. I hope the BIOS didn't get screwed because of that, though.

Does anyone know if the P4 1.7 GHz is better than a 1.4 GHz AMD Duron Applbred? According to cpuworld, it's definitely more power hungry (80W vs 57W). Makes sense - 0.18 micron at 1.75v vs 0.13 micron at 1.5v.
If it is, though, then this will be an upgrade for me .

[kc8adu]

last night i went to a friends to fix the ac in their cars.
on the way home i spotted a hp box with something sticking out and a flatscreen sitting on the curb.
well the box held a quadcore alienware desktop and the flatscreen is an acer 24".
replaced the caps early this morning and its fine now.
the desktop had a dork squad folder taped to it that stated the mobo was bad and nla.
i did my standard tests and found the +5stby at 3v and fluctuating.its an antec basiq 500.
antec anything is suspect at best till proven anyway.
recapped it(full of crapxons) and the thing now boots complete with the previous owners porn and malware.
oh well it has the vista virus anyway.time to reload...

[JuliaS]

I recall doing a stupid thing once - throwing out an SGI Octane workstation that I had no use for, then going on e-bay out of curiosity to see if anyone still traded those things. They went for $4000-8000 at the time. God damnit!

Made up for the loss over the years though, having found numerous LCD's with simple capacitor issues. Found a Sony Broadcast display just the other day. Found an old all-in-one compaq workstation with a green phosphorous CRT. The display circuit was separate from everything else with its own power supply operating on 5V. It's like one of those displays from the movie Brazil!

Found way too many gadgets to count. Came across a bag full of cell phones and digital cameras! Some people replace their gadgets whenever a new one comes out. So whoever threw it out- thanks!

[momaka]

Originally Posted by kc8adu

well the box held a quadcore alienware desktop and the flatscreen is an acer 24".

Rich neighbourhood or WTF?!?!