best cheap/free scores 1.1

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

That said, 250 Watt is still plenty of power, even for a modern entry-level PC. Just do your CPU and GPU TDP calculations before stuffing it into any PC.

Given how efficient CPUs and GPUs (especially Pascal) have gotten you could probably run a decent mid-level system on that as well, something like a recent i3/i5 (51W-65W TDP) and GTX1050/RX460 (75W TDP) would be well with in the safe limits of such a PSU (even with its fairly weak 16A 12V rail). That being said, since you can pick up a good 500W PSU for less than $50 these days it probably doesn't make sense to do so.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Given how efficient CPUs and GPUs (especially Pascal) have gotten you could probably run a decent mid-level system on that as well, something like a recent i3/i5 (51W-65W TDP) and GTX1050/RX460 (75W TDP) would be well with in the safe limits of such a PSU (even with its fairly weak 16A 12V rail).

Indeed.

That being said, since you can pick up a good 500W PSU for less than $50 these days it probably doesn't make sense to do so.

It depends.

I've seen quite a few "decent" modern PSUs stop working for no reason (or at least not something simple like bad caps). Even worse, some of them use good cap brands almost everywhere, so they are not a simple fix when they stop working.

A PSU like the above HiPro, on the other hand, is much more simple to troubleshoot and generally just needs a recap to get it going. I have yet to replace any of my old-gen 250 Watt HiPros and Deltas - they just keep on going! No APFC non-sense to worry about going bad either.

[Hondaman]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

500 MB SATA-2 drive. Approximately 82 start-stop cycles, 28000 hours running time.

Whoops. I meant to say 500 GIG drive on that E-machines T5010. Sorry. Also, this was not the original drive.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Good score today! A long-time client sent me a goodie box of old hardware, including an Abit BH6 in its original box....of course it needed caps (which it got). This was the very board back in the late 90's that truly launched the enthusiast overclocking genre of the time. It was the very first to have CPU settings controlled by a BIOS instead of jumpers....as well as many tweaks to CPU, RAM, and AGP timings that were also controlled by the BIOS. I had one way back when....this brought back some memories.

Also included were a shitload of P2 & P3 era processors, to include a VERY RARE P3 1000/100 cumine slot-1 configuration. They go for 100 bucks all day long in ebay it seems. I need to find one more for my P2B-D retro box. There were also a matching pair of Alpha slot-1 heatsinks with dual 60mm fans.

I don't know why I like old crap like this, but I do!!

Thanks you, Rich!

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Good score today! A long-time client sent me a goodie box of old hardware, including an Abit BH6 in its original box....of course it needed caps (which it got). This was the very board back in the late 90's that truly launched the enthusiast overclocking genre of the time. It was the very first to have CPU settings controlled by a BIOS instead of jumpers....as well as many tweaks to CPU, RAM, and AGP timings that were also controlled by the BIOS. I had one way back when....this brought back some memories.

Also included were a shitload of P2 & P3 era processors, to include a VERY RARE P3 1000/100 cumine slot-1 configuration. They go for 100 bucks all day long in ebay it seems. I need to find one more for my P2B-D retro box. There were also a matching pair of Alpha slot-1 heatsinks with dual 60mm fans.

I don't know why I like old crap like this, but I do!!

Thanks you, Rich!

I have a BH6 at my parent's house somewhere I think (maybe I rehomed it, IDK). Not brand new, but never had the nerve to toss it. Original caps, not bloated, IIRC still runs. Also some more slot 1 goodness; an old dell case with a PIII Coppermine 800MHz (IIRC) with RIMMs (Intel VC820 board) and (formerly) a 7000 series 3ware card (Twin IDE, 2 drives max ) that used to be my file server. Only replaced when I found a newer system for less, which too was replaced (but it's emachines, nobody wants that )

I also have a Slot A (gateway) board with no lytics (all tantualum caps) and retrofitted twin 60mm fan cooler over there (same as the one Momaka used to play with).

And the mother of all of them, a sadly dead (and modified to remove a non-functional LAN port pre-death) AMI dual coppermine board (only 300ish ever made?). IIRC it has twin 733's for CPUs. Kinda bizzare in that it's a RAMBUS chipset with dual SDRAM converter chips going to four slots (which was a ton back then as we all know).

I doubt you need more, but if you do, I am coming your way in a few weeks (and if you want any of it, it's yours as I have no plans for such).

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

^
Don't forget that BP6 too. I have a pair of 300A's waiting for it. I have something for you to take back too.

[Jackoo]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

This years best dumpster find for me was a 47" Westinghouse 1080P LCD TV - On curb for trash, boxed up like the day it came from the store. First time I powered it up, only had the amber light and would not boot. Thought I might have to start to troubleshoot but found a forum that recommended updating to a custom firmware. I gave it a try, and its been sitting in my living room ever since, no problems at all. Easiest fix ever.

recommendation is good but Westinghouse support is horrible

[Dan81]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Just yesterday I was called by a friend (just as crazy as me when it comes to PC and smartphone stuff) and got back home with a ATX case (which I had to throw back in the trash - it reeked of something weird that wasn't cat piss or nicotine, and the front panel was pretty bare) and a Biostar P4M80-M4 motherboard.

The motherboard just needed a recap. Somehow the culprit wasn't the 16v KZGs (I replaced them anyways with 1500uF 16v MBZs) and it wasn't the Rubycon MBZs on the low VRM side (yes, mine came factory with Rubies as opposed to KZG that show up on Google).
It was nothing else but 8 drued G-Luxon LZ 1000uF 10V caps (Teapo SC equivalent.)
I replaced them with G-Luxon SM series of the same value (General Purpose by the way) from a dead ECS motherboard (BIOS socket broken to smithereens). (my other choice was OST RLG from a Socket 754 motherboard made also by Biostar)

Two questions though:
1.Will the G-Luxon SM be more durable than LZ, for the reason they're GP caps?

2. How does ECS manage to make motherboards work with GP caps? I have an nearly similar motherboard with the broken one (Matsonic MS8137C+ - the only difference to the broken one (Syntax SV266A) is a DIP32 BIOS chip instead of PLCC)and it has exactly the same G-Luxon SM caps.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Some more stuff I got:

2 L&C LC-B350ATX PSUs (one gutless and one with actually decent heatsinks that was only missing the input filter - maybe due to the additional filtering PCB on the AC receptacle?)
Hitachi Deskstar HDS728080PLAT20 82.3GB ATA/IDE HDD
Hitachi-LG GSA-4167B DVD-RW drive (white bezel)
Palit Geforce4 MX440 64MB (AGP8X version)
MSI P4MAM-L
Celeron 2GHz (Northwood)
2x256MB DDR400 RAM sticks
Sony CRX300E DVD-ROM drive
ABIT Siluro FX5200DT 64MB AGP8X/4X
generic IC+ chip based PCI NIC
CMI8738 PCI Soundcard
WD400 HDD with XP SP3 on it
Sony floppy drive

and an awfully crappy Deer case that only had one sidepanel removable (the so called "SJA" series) that I actually threw away in the garbage with the most powerful force possible

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I recently got two free HDDs: a 500 GB WD and a 160 GB Samsung HDD, both SATA and in good working condition. Also a 1st gen low-end Phenom X4 AM2 CPU... but no Am2/AM2+ motherboard to run it in.

As for non-free stuff, I just got a EVGA/Intel nForce 780i SLI (one of those cool socket 775 3-way SLI boards) a few days ago. It was fairly cheap ($20 shipped) due to being broken/non-working (seller said his PSU blew up in a spectacular fashion when this happened). Typically, these go for a lot more when working, so I figured it's worth trying to repair it. Already found several bad components. If that's all the board needs, it should be good. Means at least I don't have to deal with a bumpgated nVidia/nForce chipset... or so I hope.

I don't know why I like old crap like this, but I do!!

Good!
Because we definitely need to save more of this "old crap".

I work in an electronics retailer right now, and I am fed up of seeing new PCs getting more and more shitty every day. The quality nowadays has totally gone out the window (or 10 Windows, to be exact ). If you think an HP or eMachines from a decade ago was bad... think again. Some of the desktop "boxes" I see are actually exactly that - they are made of super-thin cheap steel and lighter than an Echo Star PSU without the dummy weights inside - no I am not exaggerating! Even Deer cases were never that bad! And then the "contents" inside that desktop are literally a tiny-ass laptop motherboard (regardless of how big or small the case is) with a soldered CPU half the times and a shitty heatsink over it.

So yeah, if you buy a "modern" Dell or HP, that's exactly what you are going to get.

Thus, I am all for saving old hardware now. Although those older motherboards had crap caps on them, at least the rest of the motherboard was build well. Can't same the same about many of the new motherboards that have chipsets that run scorching-hot and likely to get BGA issues within a few years. But hey, who cares about quality when you got shiny LEDs!

Speaking of looks, I also miss colored PCBs on mainstream motherboards. Everything now black, with the occasional brown or dark-blue board. I miss the red PCB MSIs, orange aBITs, and dark-green with light-green traces Intel/Foxconn.

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

just got a dusty qosmio g30 laptop.

anybody got a couple of harddrive frames and / or the huge charger??

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I work in an electronics retailer right now, and I am fed up of seeing new PCs getting more and more shitty every day. The quality nowadays has totally gone out the window (or 10 Windows, to be exact ). If you think an HP or eMachines from a decade ago was bad... think again. Some of the desktop "boxes" I see are actually exactly that - they are made of super-thin cheap steel and lighter than an Echo Star PSU without the dummy weights inside - no I am not exaggerating! Even Deer cases were never that bad! And then the "contents" inside that desktop are literally a tiny-ass laptop motherboard (regardless of how big or small the case is) with a soldered CPU half the times and a shitty heatsink over it.

So yeah, if you buy a "modern" Dell or HP, that's exactly what you are going to get.

X2, it is almost comical with the towers these days that have nothing but a mini-ITX motherboard with a laptop CPU in them powered by a laptop power-brick. Seriously who do they think there kidding, if they're going to use a mini-ITX motherboard with an embedded laptop CPU and no expansion slots at least put it in a SFF case and save the space, the big empty metal boxes with nothing in them make no sense whatsoever.

Speaking of looks, I also miss colored PCBs on mainstream motherboards. Everything now black, with the occasional brown or dark-blue board. I miss the red PCB MSIs, orange aBITs, and dark-green with light-green traces Intel/Foxconn.

X2 as well, I personally miss the blue Gigabyte and Red MSI boards the most, I'm not sure where the "black trend" came from, but it would be nice if it would die off already.

[Behemot]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

They are chust cheaping it out. It obviously did not last, expecting similar crap to last is, well…strange.

Why don't you jsut put at least low-ESR caps in, though old? I have plenty caps like Rubycons YXG 1000/6.3 from older boards (when this was the best available), more than good choice for such replacement. (otherwise I put them to power supplies, displays as they are current low-ESR series good for such application) Don't tell me you don't source such…

[lti]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Thus, I am all for saving old hardware now. Although those older motherboards had crap caps on them, at least the rest of the motherboard was build well.

I saw a lot more unstable computers back then than I do now, and I don't think it was just the caps or the software.

Can't same the same about many of the new motherboards that have chipsets that run scorching-hot and likely to get BGA issues within a few years. But hey, who cares about quality when you got shiny LEDs!

Speaking of looks, I also miss colored PCBs on mainstream motherboards. Everything now black, with the occasional brown or dark-blue board. I miss the red PCB MSIs, orange aBITs, and dark-green with light-green traces Intel/Foxconn.

I see black or white boards with silly ricer crap all over them. Even Supermicro does that.
http://www.supermicro.com/products/m.../C7Z270-CG.cfm
Other Supermicro boards look almost normal, but they still have the big metal blocks bolted on around the CPU.

I've only seen one normal-looking current generation motherboard, and it's a low-end Asus board.

[Dan81]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

They are chust cheaping it out. It obviously did not last, expecting similar crap to last is, well…strange.

Why don't you jsut put at least low-ESR caps in, though old? I have plenty caps like Rubycons YXG 1000/6.3 from older boards (when this was the best available), more than good choice for such replacement. (otherwise I put them to power supplies, displays as they are current low-ESR series good for such application) Don't tell me you don't source such…

I actually tried to use 1000uF/6.3v caps on a Biostar U8668D (another Biostar with 1000uF/10v caps) and it didn't POST anymore,not even when I put the 1000uF/10v back.

It might sound weird but I haven't had problems with using G-Luxon SM or OST RLG caps.

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

you just know i had to get one of these!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281841150844

now i just need to wait 2-3weeks to try it.

[diif]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

you just know i had to get one of these!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281841150844

now i just need to wait 2-3weeks to try it.

That looks like an interesting piece of kit even if they can't decide which way round it should be used, keep us posted.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

scored an oldie but a goodie off fleabay a couple of weeks ago. a s939 athlon 64 x2 4800+ was being mislabelled in the listing title as a 4400+ when the pics in the listing clearly show it as a 4800+. scored it for US$22 in all including international shipping. a s939 a64 x2 4800+ typically goes for over 50 bucks on fleabay!

[RukyCon]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Just a couple of things i got off of the side of the road today.

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

the 6disk unit is a curse, you probably need to re-sync the mechanism.
they used to jam if you bumped them while loading / unloading.