best cheap/free scores 1.1

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

the arcade units dont use the laser - they have an external IDE drive
http://www.system16.com/base.php#3

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

It's a retail machine though, so nothing special

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

same pcb

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

A couple old desktops...

Not bad.

I like the PSU in desktop #1. It may be branded by Dell, but it is actually made by Delta. Does it come with all Japanese caps? I know many Newton PSUs did. They are rock-solid PSUs. The motherboard also seems to have beefy CPU VRM filtering.

All in all, that's a cool retro system. Just swap the GeForce FX-5200 for something better, and it will play oldschool (mid-2000's) games all day long.

I don't know how much you can push that Sempron CPU in terms of overclocking, but I can tell you that the Athlon chips based on the Newcastle core can be under-volted a lot. I underclocked my 3200+ from 2.2 GHz to 2 GHz. Performance difference is negligible. But I was able to push down the voltage from 1.55V to 1.325V (real voltage about 1.31V), which in turn lowered the load temperature from 53°C to 44°C. Idle temps also saw similar results with 44-46°C at 1.50V and down to 36-38°C at 1.325V.

As for desktop #2, it's nothing to write home about. Just a good old desktop in a pretty decent case. The 400W FSP PSU is probably overkill for that system... as is the case IMO (mATX motherboard in a full ATX case, lol.) The Prescott 530 is just a 64-bit version of the socket 478 Prescott, but a tiny bit more efficient. If the motherboard can take a better CPU, go for it. A Pentium 4 631 wouldn't be that much of an upgrade, but it will run cooler due to better throttling/speed-step.

Than the chinese come and start making no-name sticks for few bucks.

Ugh. I hate cheap no-name RAM. You never know what you are going to get. While most modules will work "alright", I've noticed that some crash a lot under heavy memory use (such as gaming). And I've had many cheap modules not be able to meet their specs (like not being able to run at 400 MHz DDR, for example, but only 266 MHz or 333 MHz and at very loose timings).

[Behemot]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

They sometimes use slower chips, this is usually the case with DDR SDRAM, but mostly not and the rating is correct. Even than the slow chips can often run fine at full speed, it's all BGA made on new processes, very cheaply, that's why those are still brand new chips, no decade old stock, mostly SK Hynix or Nanya, only cheaply put on no-name PCBs. They can run anything upgraded to these lower nm silicon processes (compared to those which have been used 10 years ago). For the price it's great. For example my laptop, just upgraded to Phenom II X2 N660, does not complain having some cheap 4GB Nanya or Hynix fleebay modules in it (don't remember), it does not support more than DDR3-1066 anyway. The Athlon II X2 P340 which was there before run them hapilly too.

Other laptops are also running fine to my knowledge so far. Yeah there was about 10 % incompatibilities or bad modules back than with the high-density DDR SDRAM, but since than nothing.

I myself ditch these crappy 775 chipsets which can only run these stupid 600 or 500 Prescotts, it's useless. Now some of the 800 series which do support Pentium D can be of some use, such dual-core costs 5-10 bucks and can still have some kick, having two cores. I still have not upgraded my Press-hot 478 P4, but with all the 945/965 chipset boards I have here practically for free, all supporting Core 2 Duo, there is no reason to use those single-core Press-hot craps. I initially wanted soem AMD system, but all those boards were dead or sold to a corporation customer who ordered some exact configurations for game testing.

Any of these 945/965 boards will be 5 times faster, especially when I have several dozen CPUs to choose from, from E2140 all the way to E6400, with the E4x00/E5x00 being the best choice as I can just switch to 1066 MHz FSB and overclock them easily without putting any stress on the boards. Or buy Q6600, just discussed those 2day with mockingbird who notified me these things now cost 10-15 bucks with shipping! For quad-core! What sane person would use those crappy Press-hots when you can have quad core, about 6-8 times as powerfull with same or even lower power draw??

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

They sometimes use slower chips, this is usually the case with DDR SDRAM, but mostly not and the rating is correct.

Generally, that is indeed the case.
The problem with no-name RAM is they often use reject chips. That's why memory issues are much more prevalent. Heck, even "established" no-name brands such as Patriot, Buffalo, and more recently GoldKey (for DDR4) still have tons more issues that OEM RAM that comes with Dell, HP, and other OEM PCs.

Even than the slow chips can often run fine at full speed, it's all BGA made on new processes, very cheaply...

That sounds a bit scary. I sure hope they are not using DDR2-spec chips on DDR modules with DDR voltages. Going up from 1.8/1.9V for DDR2 to 2.5V for DDR is considerable. Most DDR2 chips are rated for 2.3V absolute max. in their datasheet.

I myself ditch these crappy 775 chipsets which can only run these stupid 600 or 500 Prescotts, it's useless.

I agree.

Running a Pentium 4 on a socket 775 is a big waste. At least go with a Pentium D or a Pentium Dual Core (low-end Core 2 Duo). On that note, the Pentium Dual Core will run circles around any Pentium D at half the power consumption. Use Pentium D only if you have a really beefy PSU and your house is too cold (the 8x0 Pentium Ds are rated for 130 Watts TDP, 150 Watts max - that is no joke, folks.)

I still have not upgraded my Press-hot 478 P4, but with all the 945/965 chipset boards I have here practically for free, all supporting Core 2 Duo, there is no reason to use those single-core Press-hot craps.

Agreed x2 here.

I initially wanted soem AMD system, but all those boards were dead or sold to a corporation customer who ordered some exact configurations for game testing.

IMO, AMD was only worthwhile during the socket 754 and 939 days. But 754 does not offer dual cores, so that only leaves s939. But go find a dual core 939 CPU - they cost an arm and a leg, especially the high-end ones. You need to follow eBay auctions to get one for a decent price. AM2, on the other hand, is quite cheap. But quality of the AM2 boards is not as good, IMO. And AM2+/AM3/AM3+ is considerably worse, especially AM3+.

Any of these 945/965 boards will be 5 times faster

Yes, i945/i965 motherboards are pretty good and cheap, especially i965. While the i945 chipset do no support Core 2 Quad at all, i965 does. It's only a matter of finding a board that implements that support, though. From what I remember, OEM HP motherboards based on i965, no matter who they are made by (whether ASUS or Intel) will not run C2Q, even with BIOS microcode update and whatnot. Dell, on the other hand, are okay with C2Q most of the time.

Or buy Q6600, just discussed those 2day with mockingbird who notified me these things now cost 10-15 bucks with shipping! For quad-core!

Yeah, I know. Prices are insane cheap for an older quad core these days. I got me a Q6600 last year around this time for $4 shipped from eBay! Granted it was mislabeled as a Core 2 Duo in the auction... but still.
If you follow CPU scrap auctions on eBay, sometimes you can grab decent AMD and Intel CPUs for real cheap - like $1-4 a pop for high-end dual-core and mid-end quad-core CPUs.
Then this year at work, I saw Core 2 Quad systems in our recycles bins multiple times. Even saw many 6th gen i5 and i7 PCs. I myself pulled many of these for the shop to use as a test PC or a bench PC. Even setup a cool 6-core AMD rig for one of the techs. But the icing of the cake: Dell XPS Studio with 12 GB of RAM, 6th gen i7, and GTS250 video card. Grabbed a spare SSD from another recycled machine, and boy did that thing fly!

What sane person would use those crappy Press-hots when you can have quad core, about 6-8 times as powerfull with same or even lower power draw??

Fair question.
Well, I just love the socket 478 Pentium 4 Prescott HT and socket 939 Athlon CPUs. Both are just so damn reliable. But more that anything, I am just amazed how such old chips are still able to be used to browse the net today fairly alright with a few tweaks and workarounds, especially the P4 Prescott HT CPUs. YouTube Flash Player add-on for FF was one of those workarounds that I mentioned in the other thread here, which is why I got so upset when YT did an update and broke the add-on.

[dmill89]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Not bad.

I like the PSU in desktop #1. It may be branded by Dell, but it is actually made by Delta. Does it come with all Japanese caps? I know many Newton PSUs did.

It is mostly Japanese with a few Taicons thrown in.

As for desktop #2, it's nothing to write home about. Just a good old desktop in a pretty decent case. The 400W FSP PSU is probably overkill for that system... as is the case IMO (mATX motherboard in a full ATX case, lol.) The Prescott 530 is just a 64-bit version of the socket 478 Prescott, but a tiny bit more efficient. If the motherboard can take a better CPU, go for it. A Pentium 4 631 wouldn't be that much of an upgrade, but it will run cooler due to better throttling/speed-step.

The board can take up to a Pentium D 9xx series, not sure how much it is worth upgrading, but since you can get then for about $5 shipped on eBay these days I might just for the heck of it.

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

The board can take up to a Pentium D 9xx series, not sure how much it is worth upgrading, but since you can get then for about $5 shipped on eBay these days I might just for the heck of it.

Not really worth it, unless you are going to use the PC online. P4 is fine for watching DVDs and up to 720p MKV movies. And more than plenty for router/file server/mp3 player/word processor/image editor (with older versions of Photoshop and/or equivalent software).

[dmill89]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Not really worth it, unless you are going to use the PC online. P4 is fine for watching DVDs and up to 720p MKV movies. And more than plenty for router/file server/mp3 player/word processor/image editor (with older versions of Photoshop and/or equivalent software).

More than likely the Asus P8P67 Pro from my previous post will be going in that case. I might throw the parts I pull out of it in one of the spare cheap mATX cases I have laying around just for the heck of it, but wouldn't be anything but something to play around with.

All in all, that's a cool retro system. Just swap the GeForce FX-5200 for something better, and it will play oldschool (mid-2000's) games all day long.

I might throw a 754 Athlon64 in it and toss XP on it for some retro stuff, I already have a retro/legacy games/software PC (below), but I have Win 98 (for stuff that doesn't "play nice" with NT based OSs) as well as Win2k and Win XP, and 98 won't boot with more than 1GB ram, so I have to pull some of the RAM out when I use 98. So it would be nice to just have a separate system for XP and leave the P3 system for Win 98/2k since they perform just fine with less than 1GB RAM.

Here's my current "retro system" (note: I did buy the Motherboard/CPU on eBay but the rest was all stuff I had laying around or got for free)

CPU: Pentium 3 Tualatin 1.26 GHZ
Motherboard: ASUS CUV4X-E
RAM: 1.5GB PC133
GPU: GeForce fx5500
Sound: SoundBlaster Live CT4830
ODD: DVD-ROM (IDE)
HDDs: 120GB Western Digital Caviar WD1200 (IDE, WinXP/2K), 80GB Western Digital Caviar WD800 (IDE, Win 98/DOS)
Case: Unbranded (Apex I believe)
OSs: DOS 6.22, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP pro
PSU: Delta DPS200-PB-103 (Compaq Branded) 250W (the DPS200 model number would make you think otherwise, but the label does say Max Power 250W) 100% Japanese caps.

[Behemot]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

I got Tualatin Celeron in my retro machine, on modified 440BX chipset, running on 133 MHz FSB However, truth is I have not even turned it on for years, FX-8150 @4.2 GHz running 7 can still play many of the old games through Steam…

momaka: I see no prob with AM2-AM3+ systems. They may have slightly higher power draw than comparable Integrated Electronics chips of that time, but still nice power. Also the K8 ones can by nicely tweaked via RMClock. As for 939, the X2 3800+ ones are usually pretty cheap from fleebay. I also got couple dozen of Opterons 180 back than quite cheap, when most likely some super computer was ditched, also made some nice money on reselling them I think I've extended the life of many 939 machines in this country by considerable margin

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

I might throw the parts I pull out of it in one of the spare cheap mATX cases I have laying around just for the heck of it, but wouldn't be anything but something to play around with.

That's what I use all of my spare rigs for - either backup file stations, hardware test machines, software test machines... whatever comes my way that I don't think is a good idea to connect or try on my main or secondary rig.

At work, I did the same with many of the recycle machines: had one specifically for testing DDR3 RAM, another for testing PSUs, one for testing video cards... and finally one with test images for testing TVs and monitors.

I might throw a 754 Athlon64 in it and toss XP on it for some retro stuff, I already have a retro/legacy games/software PC (below), but I have Win 98 (for stuff that doesn't "play nice" with NT based OSs) as well as Win2k and Win XP, and 98 won't boot with more than 1GB ram, so I have to pull some of the RAM out when I use 98. So it would be nice to just have a separate system for XP and leave the P3 system for Win 98/2k since they perform just fine with less than 1GB RAM.

Yup, that's how I like to see retro systems done as well.
For me, Pentium 3 is the pivot point between 9x and NT. Depending on the needs, I may set up a Pentium 3 with XP or 9x. But anything older than Pentium 3 typically is better suited for Windows 9x. And newer than P3 is typically better with XP. Likewise, Core 2 Duo / Athlon X2 is my pivot point between XP and 7. I find that using too new of an OS on old hardware is generally not a good idea. Same goes for the opposite (using old OS on much newer hardware).

By the way, nice retro rig!
Speaking of P3 Tualatin CPUs, how much faster would a 1.2 to 1.4 GHz Tually run compared to a Pentium 3 at 933 MHz? I know someone who ordered a bunch of Tually CPUs, thinking he can just drop him in his mobos. Then he realized he couldn't, so I'm thinking of making him an offer for one of them.

I got Tualatin Celeron in my retro machine, on modified 440BX chipset, running on 133 MHz FSB However, truth is I have not even turned it on for years

Well, here's an idea : a dedicated PC for Badcaps.net browsing
After all, you don't need much to do that. And it's probably a heck of a reliable PC, so you can use it in any room, no matter how hot.

In the summer, I tend to use my retro PCs a lot more than my new builds.

Also the K8 ones can by nicely tweaked via RMClock.

Or CrystalCPUID.
(I get voltage and multiplier control in the OS)

As for 939, the X2 3800+ ones are usually pretty cheap from fleebay.

Not as cheap as a Core 2 Duo, and even a low-end C2D will perform close to a high-end X2 AMD.

That said, s939 boards may be easier to find than 775, so that's another thing to consider.

I also got couple dozen of Opterons 180 back than quite cheap, when most likely some super computer was ditched, also made some nice money on reselling them I think I've extended the life of many 939 machines in this country by considerable margin

Opterons are always nice. I never owned one, but I've only heard good things about them.

[Behemot]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Actually it is not that much stable, especially in summer, though since the last time I fired it up, I use air conditioner each summer. After all, having 1400MHz Celeron going to 1.862 GHz, highest overclock of such chip I have found back than, can make one somewhat unstable. BTW I got an old thread about that here https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...-RAID+overkill

[goontron]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

^ Have you ever doubled the clock of a CPU? I have. Holy fuck! 600Mhz CPU doing 1.2Ghz! And somehow stable!

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Really good day at carboot today, lots of sellers and loads of good stuff. Had to leave half way and get more cash

Logitech z-5500 5.1 pc surround sound system complete - £15
Carlsbro colt 45 guitar amp £3
M-audio midisport 2x2 - £2.50
Marshal G10 MKii guitar amp - £7
PS2 Fat complete with mem cards and 4 controllers - £7.50
Another Wii with 3 remotes, loads of accessories and games - £12
Tannoy 609 speakers - £8
Humax Freesat twin tuner 500GB - one of the new ones with touch controls. Brand new with remote no PSU though. £2
Goodmans freeview 320gb - £1.50
Load of games, psp, ps2 and wii seperate
Xbox 360 console with headset and 3 controllers - £2 (lady said it had rrod hence price, but looks to not have been opened so hopefully a thermal paste issue)
A couple of retro radios marconiphone, looked pretty cool not researched yet but at £1.50 each can't go wrong.
Box of commodore64 games - £5 maybe 20 games

Pretty sure I've missed a few stuff, well tired. Very good day if the z5500 system works. They are pricey new and used.

Humax is a HDR-1100s

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Meh. I scored another PS2 slim, model SCPH-75004 that got water (there was and ugly and disgusting orange-like splatter on the bottom metal plate and on the bottom casing as well) for $2.58 and an cover for my Galaxy S3 - one of those that flip like a book and also have compartiments for credit cards etc. for $1.29.

Testing revealed the PS2 was pretty much dead (bad fuses) as trying to turn it on resulted in it going back to standby 1 second after powering it on - however the laser was in very good shape, so I installed it in my other SCPH-75003 slim that had a bad laser but everything else working, and now I have a working PS2!

I'm also expecting to get a SCPH-30004R tomorrow along with a 8MB memory card with FMCB already in there.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Since I can't edit my old post:

I got the 30004R for free. Seems it's chipped with the oldest chip I've ever known - Magic III. Pretty basic chip, but at least it boots PS2 DVDs without boot disks and PS1 CDs as well. One key thing is that for PS2 DVDs it will only pick up burned discs from standby - trying from browser will yield a RSOD, and for PS1 discs I have to keep the power button pressed from standby for about 2 to 5 seconds, otherwise I also get a RSOD.

I installed the FMCB card in my freshly repaired slim, and it works, and it looks like I've got some saves for Ford Racing 2 and 3!

[Agent24]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I run games from an IDE HDD with FMCB and HDLoader because my laser is dead!
Faster than running DVDs though anyway.

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The ps2 I got is 50003 model, not sure if that's any good but it works perfectly well. Controllers are a pain to work on, got two cleaned up and running all buttons etc workings.

Third one having issues with a few buttons, a couple of d pad ones and left triggers. Cleaned contacts but still no good. Thinking maybe the conductive membranes have failed, perhaps some foil underneath would help?

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The ps2 I got is 50003 model, not sure if that's any good but it works perfectly well. Controllers are a pain to work on, got two cleaned up and running all buttons etc workings.

Third one having issues with a few buttons, a couple of d pad ones and left triggers. Cleaned contacts but still no good. Thinking maybe the conductive membranes have failed, perhaps some foil underneath would help?

If it's the membrane that failed, you can throw it away. I tried fixing one like that and ended up throwing it away. I got another one that despite having membrane,it at least had it glued it down on the plastic support, and worked well. Since then I always try tracking down controllers that have "H" printed on their back.

I also have two 50004s that need new lasers. I tried tweaking the pots on both but to no avail.

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

It's the rubber bits under the buttons, that have carbon pads on them. Latter revision I think, you can by a replacement set for £2.50. I think that's the issue anyway as can see ware on them. Might be the tracks on the ribbon itself though which is probably bin worthy. Shame though as pad is in excellent condition otherwise.