best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Curious.George]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Three T7400's (dual quad 3.0GHz Xeon's) each w/32G of 5300F and four 146G SAS drives.

I'll probably replace the drives with larger (and less power-hungry) SATA drives in two of the boxes as I'd rather the capacity than speed.

Quadro FX5800 and Quadro SDI Output in one; FX6000 in another (haven't yet pulled the cards from the third). I'll move the 6000 to the Z800 ESXi box and leave the 5800/SDI and faster SAS drives in one of the 7400's for multimedia authoring. The other 7400's will probably get dual GeForce 7800's as I have a stack of those (and I'd rather have the extra display real estate than the video horsepower)

Fitting (freebie) CA200's to each of them, today, to make media card access a bit more convenient. And, a PERC 5/e in each to tether to the MD1000's that I recently rescued...

(no idea what I'll do with ~100T of spinning rust, though...)

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I got some cheap PS3 games last week: Uncharted 1, 2, and 3 all for less than $12 total... that's including delivery to my door, lol.

Funny how quickly the value of games depreciates. As long as you're willing to wait for a few years for a game to stop being popular / in demand, you can often get it for very cheap.

I'd say go for it on the Antec case, that's cheap...and I've always liked Antec cases. They're always roomy and sturdy, 2 qualities I find to be quite a luxury with a case these days.

Yeah, I find Antec cases are indeed quite decent and made with thick steel. Cooler Masters are so-so, and the cheaper Thermaltake tend to be quite thin (though formed decently, so they don't warp like a cheap case).

Now, I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden, all of those postings disappeared from my local CL, lol. Some were deleted, others expired. There's only one remaining, and it's for a cheap ($10 "special" ) CompUSA generic Mid-tower ATX case. Looks quite dated and with very poor ventilation. Has only a single front USB, too . But surprisingly, it's black, despite being that old (I'm pretty sure they had a version of that in beige too.) Think I might pass that one, unless I don't find anything else. I'm hoping the other expired postings get re-posted, though. Happens quite often, so I will wait a bit.
On the other hand, I could get it and put my CompUSA PowMax PSU in it

I also like cases that are anything but black....and those are getting hard to come by.

Well the Antec I saw was actually black - as in the side and top panels. But it did have a silver-faced front and unpainted steel innards and back.

M... most of the <$50 cases are pretty flimsy these days though

Very true, unfortunately.
Though if you shop around, you may get a $50 case for like $30 with rebates. Back when I was working in the PC shop last Spring, I did several builds with the Corsair Carbide 100R and 200R cases. These are fairly simple $50 cases, but built quite well. And they cable-manage decently too.

OEM cases have definitely gotten cheaper/flimsier over the last few years though).

Yeah, the low-end HP and Dell cases are absolutely horrendous: lightweight tin cans with a laptop motherboard inside and a chipset heatsink for the CPU cooler. They used to come back / get returned very often.

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I pulled a hat trick: 3 scores for $25 a pop:

• Barely used Netgear R7000- In box with all accesories and antennas. Power cord still tied up.
• Linksys EA7500: Same condition as above
• Old Wooden desk- same form factor as my steel desks, only made from solid wood (other than the laminate desktop). B condition

I gave the EA7500 to my parents as it's not DD-WRT friendly from what I'm seeing.

The R7000 will become my main router at my new (to me) home. I was on a R6300, but hopefully I can flash this R7000 and just save and copy over the settings since AFAIK they're similar hardware (R7000 is AC1900 with 3 external antennas, R6300 is AC1750 with internal antennas.

Good Scores?

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Awesome PSU scores.

The Powerman PSUs are actually FSP / Fortron Source - good stuff.
Yes, they will need a recap. Knowing FSP, they are probably full of cheapo Teapo and CrapXon.

I took one of them apart and recapped it. They were all OST. None appeared bad, but recapped it anyway. The heatsinks were rather wimpy for a 460W PSU, but I suppose the 120mm fan blowing on it makes up for that. PSU worked fine after recapping it (I did not pre-test it). 6 more to go.

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Three T7400's (dual quad 3.0GHz Xeon's) each w/32G of 5300F and four 146G SAS drives.

Dang!
That is some serious hardware. Where are those dumpsters you go to?

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Let me guess... OST RLN?

Anyways, don't throw those OST caps away just yet. Could use them instead of packing peanuts when shipping to me. Speaking of which, I haven't forgotten about the SCSI card. Rather, I am just finalizing the list of caps I also need to buy from you. I found some old caps in my stock that I forgot about, so have to account for those before I order. But should be sometime this month, I think.

[ratdude747]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Three T7400's (dual quad 3.0GHz Xeon's) each w/32G of 5300F and four 146G SAS drives.

I'll probably replace the drives with larger (and less power-hungry) SATA drives in two of the boxes as I'd rather the capacity than speed.

Quadro FX5800 and Quadro SDI Output in one; FX6000 in another (haven't yet pulled the cards from the third). I'll move the 6000 to the Z800 ESXi box and leave the 5800/SDI and faster SAS drives in one of the 7400's for multimedia authoring. The other 7400's will probably get dual GeForce 7800's as I have a stack of those (and I'd rather have the extra display real estate than the video horsepower)

Fitting (freebie) CA200's to each of them, today, to make media card access a bit more convenient. And, a PERC 5/e in each to tether to the MD1000's that I recently rescued...

(no idea what I'll do with ~100T of spinning rust, though...)

Where are you located in the world? If you don't have a use for the SAS drives Topcat and I are always using them for things (for example, if my X7DWA hardware ever gets reused, I'll want to run SAS drives in the build).

I have 8 of such drives (15K) in my main rig. Old but fast... and somewhat loud. Fits me well .

[stj]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

probably gonna outlast a sata drive several times over atleast too.

[CapLeaker]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

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.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Let me guess... OST RLN?

Anyways, don't throw those OST caps away just yet. Could use them instead of packing peanuts when shipping to me. Speaking of which, I haven't forgotten about the SCSI card. Rather, I am just finalizing the list of caps I also need to buy from you. I found some old caps in my stock that I forgot about, so have to account for those before I order. But should be sometime this month, I think.

They were RLP. Shipping one to you? Is that a hint that you want one of these PSU's? I can spare one if you do. I bought the lot for the 3 antecs in it, the powerman units were just a bonus.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

No, I was just expressing interested in the old caps you pulled, in case they were headed for the bin (if they aren't there already ). Thanks for the offer, though. I actually have a few decent PSUs here that are waiting for a recap as well. Just did a 350W Delta yesterday that I got for free. Was full of bad caps Ltec LTG, to be exact. The Ltec LZG were okay, but I didn't take any chances. I pulled them all and put the "okay" ones in my "spare test caps" bin. Yes, I know I shouldn't re-use bad caps. But for a temporary test repair (to prove the device works), they've been okay. Hence why I inquired about the OST caps above.

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

^ I'll take some broken microwave and TV parts. From the tube TVs, especially Sony, you will find a few useful general purpose caps and BJTs in those. The yoke also has a lot of Copper wire if you do Copper recycling. And from the microwaves... if it's an oldschool microwave with a line transformer and big cap - those are definitely worthwhile taking out. If it's a newer microwave with an SMPS inverter, they usually have expensive IGBTs driving the inverter traffo. Ironically, though, that's what usually goes bad with them if it's not the magnetron.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

^
You're in luck....I just emptied the bin before recapping this PSU and a few motherboards...so there wasn't much in it. Yours if you want them.

[stj]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

cant you re-task the timer from a microwave?
i would think all you need is bypassing the door switch and maybe adding a solid-state relay.

[CapLeaker]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

^ I'll take some broken microwave and TV parts. From the tube TVs, especially Sony, you will find a few useful general purpose caps and BJTs in those. The yoke also has a lot of Copper wire if you do Copper recycling. And from the microwaves... if it's an oldschool microwave with a line transformer and big cap - those are definitely worthwhile taking out. If it's a newer microwave with an SMPS inverter, they usually have expensive IGBTs driving the inverter traffo. Ironically, though, that's what usually goes bad with them if it's not the magnetron.

I’ve got already parts like that, there is only so much a person can need of general purpose parts and transformers. 4 years ago I would find power supplies, computers (at least a core duo), game consoles, stereos, LCD TV’s, battery chargers, etc. These days’s, IF I find something it has been gutted, or its junk. Like I said old tube TV’s and microwaves are plentiful. Heck the last few PC’s I found were P4’s single core Celerons. Just old junk around here.

[jwillifixit]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Three T7400's (dual quad 3.0GHz Xeon's) each w/32G of 5300F and four 146G SAS drives.

I just saw an add in my Facebook feed from Dell who are selling remanufactured T7500's for $1,300 I scored a two T3500 and a T5400 not long ago. I've sold one of the T3500's and still have one and the T5400 that I just started thinking about using to build a new machine for myself in. The cases are well engineered and a dream to work in.

[jwillifixit]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Last week...

[jwillifixit]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Got these little gems yesterday...

Dell Dimension XPS D233 although I'm a bit confused on the Processor Speed. Machine says it's a 233, cmos battery was dead and bios had a p/w on it so I changed the battery and changed the jumper to config and cleared the p/w. While doing that it said it was a 233 but the main screen in setup is showing it as a 133. Regardless - it's pretty nice and boy was it CLEAN. I've never seen a machine this old this clean! I had to look inside the main case fan to even find a speck of dust.

Then there's this oscilloscope... looking at the manual on line and it describes this 30 lb monster as "light weight"! I see a few completed sales on fleabay in the past months that would suggest somewhere between $150 - $300 and there's a wiki page for this thing that had this chart of cost over time.

[jwillifixit]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Forgot the cost table

[momaka]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Got these little gems yesterday...

Dell Dimension XPS D233...

I have a Dell Dimension XPS R400 with a very similar motherboard. Though I've read online that my particular XPS model doesn't support Pentium 3 slot CPUs, I put one in there anyways (a 550 MHz P3 Katmai), and it worked just fine (POSTed and booted into Windows XP).

So if you have better slot CPUs, feel free to try them out.

As for your other finds.... wow that Tek scope is really nice. Probably built like a tank too, hence the weight. And the studio mixer? Someone must have paid big bucks for that back in the day. I bet it's still has a decent value today.