best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I seriously doubt anyone who has the expensive tools to do that would actually be stupid enough or bored enough to try and recover some unknown drive (provided you already did a LLF/zero fill) in hopes of "scoring big" with sensitive data.

So I think that's just a bit paranoid there.
Then again, coming from you, maybe not.

My opinion doesn't matter. Rather, it's the guarantees that we make to the business/agencies who donate the items to us. Can't risk someone being clever enough to inquire: "And, what happens if the drive doesn't spin up so you can wipe it? Or, what happens if a sector gets remapped on or before you overwrite it? How do we know that our data is still safe? How do our patients, partners, clients, suppliers, contractors, etc. know that THEIR data -- in our custody -- is safe??" Show them the mangled drive so they can see we've addressed that possibility.

[We used to shred the drives-to-be-destroyed but that left a window where they are in limbo as we would wait to have a few thousand pounds of drives before shredding. As such, you have to keep them "secured" while waiting. We also tried drilling the platters but that takes a lot of time/labor and risks someone getting injured (mindless, repetitive task). We can "snap" drives within minutes of determining they are defective -- all day long!]

We invite donors to try to recover anything off of any of the drives after they've been "processed" (and, they have the right to do so by way of spontaneous audits). We sure don't want to risk losing all of those thousands of FREELY DONATED machines just because someone was sloppy in wiping a drive (or NVRAM inside a machine)!

[There's still a window of coincidence in which a "wiped drive might opt to fail after wiping and before an audit. In that case, the good will we've earned by our procedures gives us the benefit of the doubt -- hasn't happened, yet...]

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

have you seen a "ramset" ??
that would "solve" your drive problems.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

My opinion doesn't matter. Rather, it's the guarantees that we make to the business/agencies who donate the items to us. Can't risk someone being clever enough to inquire: "And, what happens if the drive doesn't spin up so you can wipe it? Or, what happens if a sector gets remapped on or before you overwrite it? How do we know that our data is still safe? How do our patients, partners, clients, suppliers, contractors, etc. know that THEIR data -- in our custody -- is safe??" Show them the mangled drive so they can see we've addressed that possibility.

[We used to shred the drives-to-be-destroyed but that left a window where they are in limbo as we would wait to have a few thousand pounds of drives before shredding. As such, you have to keep them "secured" while waiting. We also tried drilling the platters but that takes a lot of time/labor and risks someone getting injured (mindless, repetitive task). We can "snap" drives within minutes of determining they are defective -- all day long!]

We invite donors to try to recover anything off of any of the drives after they've been "processed" (and, they have the right to do so by way of spontaneous audits). We sure don't want to risk losing all of those thousands of FREELY DONATED machines just because someone was sloppy in wiping a drive (or NVRAM inside a machine)!

[There's still a window of coincidence in which a "wiped drive might opt to fail after wiping and before an audit. In that case, the good will we've earned by our procedures gives us the benefit of the doubt -- hasn't happened, yet...]

I do understand the possibility of someone stealing data, likely with intent to leak it on to the internet and give it to a third party. But, something with the magnitude being like the Equifax hax, is unlikely. (Unless an HDD has a lot more than some kilobytes, if not more than some megabytes of bad sectors!)

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

have you seen a "ramset" ??
that would "solve" your drive problems.

In addition to posing a problem storing the "loads", that yields the same sort of problem that the disk shredder caused; you have to stockpile drives for someone trainer/authorized to "shoot" them to process.

The advantage of the "snap them in half" ("run them over") approach is that it takes no skill/training on the part of the folks who place the drives to be destroyed in the forklift's path -- they just have to make sure they aren't standing in the way when the forklift comes along! And, you always have the forklift operator (trained, certified) to make sure he doesn't accidentally run anyone over!

If you[re doing a few/dozen/score drives, you can typically bear the cost of the labor to "secure" the drives. But, when you're doing hundreds at a time, you really want a process that dumbs down the labor significantly -- and increases the throughput!

E.g., the disk shredder requires an operator to sit there and feed drives to the beast one after another. It's the type of work that leads to folks getting bored/careless -- not a Good Thing with a machine that can shred metal!

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I do understand the possibility of someone stealing data, likely with intent to leak it on to the internet and give it to a third party. But, something with the magnitude being like the Equifax hax, is unlikely. (Unless an HDD has a lot more than some kilobytes, if not more than some megabytes of bad sectors!)

Note that an SSD has the potential of ALWAYS having many megabytes of "erased" data still present in the overprovisioned quota.

You're not concerned with the magnitude of the "leak" cuz your what you might consider a "small leak" could be a HUGE leak in the eyes of the donor who gifted the machine to you with the understanding that there would be NO leaks.

A colleague routinely shares stories of "stuff" he's stumbled on by browsing disks in machines (PCs, copiers, etc.), paper files left in file cabinets, etc. that he's purchased at auction: lists of department staff, SSNs, pay amounts, etc. While it is only of interest to him from a voyeuristic point of view, I'm sure the folks involved would consider it more than a "little leak". Ditto rescued cell phones...

Of course, most of this is just a result of bad practices in disposing of the kit... How often do you sort through ALL of the paper in a file cabinet to determine what should be shredded vs. simply discarded? Do you shred it ALL as a matter of principle??

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Three Dell 3007's. These are a PITA to use. But, I'll probably keep one as a spare and pull the electronics from the others before sh*tcanning the display portion (too damn big to keep on hand).

And, another dozen WD Black 1T SAS drives with low hours. I've seen a lot of these, lately, (small groups like a single shelf-worth) so I suspect someone has been incrementally updating a small server farm...

[brethin]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

WD drives can be reset to appear 0 hours and reset smart to 0 in all with the appropriate Software, no special interface required. So use caution when buying WD drives.

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

WD drives can be reset to appear 0 hours and reset smart to 0 in all with the appropriate Software, no special interface required. So use caution when buying WD drives.

First, I don't "buy WD drives"; I buy scrap metal (5c/lb) that happens to bear a striking resemblance to various disk drives, servers, displays, etc.

With this in mind, there's little incentive for the "seller" (scrapper) to deliberately reset the PoH total to entice me into buying a "low hours" drive.

Second, there's no way to examine the SMART data at the time of purchase. So, again, no incentive to altering the values "pre sale".

Third, the source of the drives is not the party that receives the (paltry) payment -- having donated them to the scrapper!

Fourth, it would seem odd that someone would reset the PoH to represent a year's worth of use (and not considerably less!) given the option to set the value to "whatever".

[Of course, someone could have gone through the enterprise and upgraded the firmware in all of the drives at about the same point in time -- leaving them with the approximate same PoH since the upgrade]

A more likely scenario (Occam's Razor) is that someone pulled the drives from a 2U server (6 drives for such a server is pretty commonplace) OR a small drive shelf (though those tend to have 15-16 drives) in favor of upgrading to larger capacity (6T wouldn't be much for a server, esp if configured for an advanced RAID topology).

Its equally likely that the drives are just packed into boxes that can only hold 12 drives (esp given that I keep seeing these "loads" pretty regularly) so the source of the drives may be a boatload of one-drive desktop machines; multidrive servers; shelfs; etc.

Regardless, at a few pennies per terabyte, they're a very reasonable investment!

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Note that an SSD has the potential of ALWAYS having many megabytes of "erased" data still present in the overprovisioned quota.

Well, I have been wondering about SSDs, while with my previous post, I was talking about spinners.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

You're not concerned with the magnitude of the "leak" cuz your what you might consider a "small leak" could be a HUGE leak in the eyes of the donor who gifted the machine to you with the understanding that there would be NO leaks.

Well, if they're was a leak, I would be shitting my pants!

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Well, I have been wondering about SSDs, while with my previous post, I was talking about spinners.

It's always foolish to assume your "anonymity" is any sort of protection (i.e., how will <some_bad_guy> find MY particular hard disk?)

He may not care who's data he finds. He may just be an oppportunist (like dumpster diving and hoping to stumble on something of value).

Or, you could be directly targeted without ever knowing!

Many years ago, a client used to have me go to local auctions to pick up "surplus" kit for him. I thought this a silly use of my (expensive) time as he could have a technician or damn near anyone else go in my place. His supposed rationale was that I would be able to identify the machines that were useful to his engineering efforts, not the more mundane activities of "office staff".

<shrug> OK. There may be some logic in that...

Some years later (10+), our paths crossed and we opted to catch up over lunch. As I'd moved away, I let him pick the place.

Midway through our meal/chat, he abruptly stopped talking. When I asked if he was OK, he just held up a finger to silence me. A few moments later, his attention returned to me and he apologized, offering the explanation: "Many of the engineers from <Competitor> take lunch at this place. And, engineers just LOVE to talk about what they're working on! So, I gently eavesdrop on their chatter to get a feel for what new products are in the works and the problems they might be facing, etc."

I was stunned -- but had to admire his "tactics"! I told him so.

He went on to add, "I used to buy surplus equipment from firms like these with an eye towards equipment that the engineers (!) would likely have used. They were typically pretty negligent in cleaning off their disks so it was usually quite easy to retrieve emails, product specifications, cost information, employee lists, etc. But, they seem to have wizened up and no longer dispose of their surplus at 'public' auctions..."

Belatedly, the reason behind my being (overpaid!) to pick up all that surplus kit fell into place... someone less qualified wouldn't know what to look for to identify "machines useful for his engineering tasks" (i.e., machines that had likely BEEN used in HIS COMPETITOR'S engineering tasks!)!

[Amusingly, I have noticed a couple of guys who periodically visit one of the scrappers that I frequent. Always coincident with a certain company having dropped off a fair bit of kit a day or two earlier. I suspect they work for said company and thus know when the "good stuff" is being scrapped and conveniently arrange to be there at those times! So, I have folks call me when they see them on-site so I know when there is likely "good stuff" to dig through!]

SSDs are problematic because the erased data can still be present (depends on the algorithm used to scrub the blocks before reprovisioning). Naively relying on a user not having the technical expertise to access the circuit "at the chip level" is a recipe for disappointment! We just shred the SSDs rather than risk someone getting hold of something they shouldn't...

Note that the same sort of problem exists in "live" systems. The physical memory ("RAM") in most modern OS's is allocated to applications in much the same way that sectors are allocated to files on a disk. A particular memory block (page) may hold data (or code) from one application and, a moment later, may contain data/code for an entirely different application. Or, some portion of the OS itself!

If the OS (the entity usually responsible for managing those pages of physical memory) doesn't ensure that the contents of each page are "scrubbed" before being allocated to a new use (application), then an application could just randomly poke around portions of that memory (now that it "belongs" to that application!) to see what remnants of data might be recoverable, there.

But, sanitizing each page before allocating it to a new "use" eats up CPU cycles. And, if the page was going to be completely (or even partially) overwritten before the new use had access to it, then erasing AND overwriting is obviously wasteful.

Smart algorithms scrub only what they absolutely have to in order to maintain that expected level of separation (isolation) between "uses".

[jiroy]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Free scores for last week :

1- 5 PCChips motherboards M863G V5.1 , Socket 462 , Sempron Cpus , all shining like never used before , except ..all The four kzg capacitors 3300mf 6.3v bulged like hell , lol ..
Sempron and DDR1 , what to do with those ? .. Let's see what Momaka would say ...

2 - A lot of 10 different Nvidia VGAs , mostly GeForce 7600 and 8600 , 265mb and 512m .. Spending some hours recapping and addressing the many missing SMD capacitors usual problem proved fruitful , and 9 out of 10 are perfectly working now ..The tenth makes artifacts on full resolution , then FULLY tilt the PC , so i'm gonna do a full reflow ..During the process , one old IBM monitor gave up on me and died , sadly , lol ..

3- 2 Much TV Cardbus for notebooks . Both working , so i let one to my own Dell latitude D520 Carbonized (4GB Rams and core2 duo enhanced, lol ) ..The gang is formidable ..

4 - 3 laptops HP G62 , YEP , It's raining HPs now ..

5 - One MSI 915G Combo with a E8400 CPU .

[jiroy]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Yeah, VGA sockets... that's not going to happen anymore - not with HP or anyone else. It's actually already hard to find modern laptops with CPU sockets as it is. Problem is that everyone wants a very thin laptop today, and sockets/connectors take space. So we are just going to see more and more SMD & BGA stuff until laptops are no different than tablets inside. It's sad, but that's the direction in which I see things going right now.

So yeah, it's good that you're still accepting those old laptops. Even if outdated, I still think they have more potential than any of the new stuff.


Ouch, that is sad.

I guess if I need parts for my Compaq v7000, I know who to ask. That reflowed GeForce 6150 chipset/IGP is still working somehow... though I will admit I haven't used it too much. This old Dell Latitude C600 (P3 700 MHz ) is indestructible!! CPU always runs at 70C by default, and the whole laptop bottom regularly gets burning-hot. But it still runs after 17 years! Dell just made some really quality stuff back then.

I've seen many new laptops without fans , CPUs/GPUs integrated , already broken plastic parts , and I Can say clearly it's B.S. , They're simply killing this industry , and they gonna regret it . People ain't that much stupid as they think ..
I have now for example two Dells I core5 with such descriptions , i really don't even use them .. No need for such one year's life laptops ..

In case you need anything Momaka , just ask

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I just tried the Samsung monitor yesterday (all lights turned off in the room), and it was very bright. This is actually the first monitor for which I had to turn the brightness all the way down to zero in order to make it look properly. Before that, black was just gray, and all other colors were diluted. Now it's a lot better, though it's still a bit too bright for my tastes. And like the cnet reviews pointed out, the red is a bit pinkish.

Gee! Even my LG 49UH6100, isn't that bad with the factory settings, IIRC.

To me, your symptoms scream the backlight being too high! If not an overdriven array of backlight LEDs!

And that sounds similar to the LG UH6100 series, more likely in 4K mode! Because the LG UH6100 series, is an LCD, and uses RGBW in 4K mode!

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Got an cheap machine, any ideas what to use it for?

Case: unknown but it's some stupid gaming stuff (that looks just ugly on the outside, shame as it's nice inside) that you'd expect to see in some Disney comedy sitcom from around 2007-2010

PSU: Frontier LC-B400ATX - badcaps, will be in for my special treatment - currently replaced with a (nearly) brand new LC-B350ATX I had as testing PSU

MB: ASRock K8Upgrade-NF3 (quite a unusual board, I know)

GPU: Chaintech SA5500T4-256D-MC85 - GF 5500 256MB

HDD: some Hitachi drive on IDE, 80GB

ODD: HL-DT-ST GSA-4167B IDE

CPU: Sempron 3000+

Came with Windows XP, and had lots of music (including our trademark "manele" music) but other than that was pretty empty. Also stupidly divided in 3 partitions for no reason. God I hate that partition scheme.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

My opinion doesn't matter. Rather, it's the guarantees that we make to the business/agencies who donate the items to us. Can't risk someone being clever enough to inquire: "And, what happens if the drive doesn't spin up so you can wipe it? Or, what happens if a sector gets remapped on or before you overwrite it? How do we know that our data is still safe?
...
We sure don't want to risk losing all of those thousands of FREELY DONATED machines just because someone was sloppy in wiping a drive (or NVRAM inside a machine)!

Yes, from that point of view, it does make a lot of sense what you are saying.

As a guy who likes to reuse almost anything that can be reused, I guess it just bugs me on the inside how good usable stuff gets junked because of the small tiny (really statistically non-existent) possibility that something could go wrong (in the case of the HDDs, have someone recover data from a drive that's been DoD / zero filled, but had remapped sectors). The whole problem is that people didn't care about how their stuff was disposed, and that lead to a lot of cases of recovered data that shouldn't have been recovered. And now because of this awareness, its 180 degrees the other way around, where companies are really too paranoid about that.

From what I know when I was working as a tech in a fairly large store that did (and still does?) a lot of data recovery for customers (or rather, just ships the HDDs to a 3rd party company that specializes in the data recovery)... they told us that once the MFT is wiped along with a few sectors of the data here and there, rarely anything meaningful can be recovered (meanwhile, the prices for that get close to a 4-figure number and there's still no guarantee).

Three Dell 3007's. These are a PITA to use. But, I'll probably keep one as a spare and pull the electronics from the others before sh*tcanning the display portion (too damn big to keep on hand).

Whaaaa? So you can't resell those like the HDDs?

Gee! Even my LG 49UH6100, isn't that bad with the factory settings, IIRC.

To me, your symptoms scream the backlight being too high! If not an overdriven array of backlight LEDs!

Uhm... not sure from how long ago you dug out that message/quote. But if I am not mistaken, it's from really really far back when I was talking about a Samsung SyncMaster 19" CRT monitor that I picked up for free back then. (close to 10 years ago - holy ancient quote revival, batman! )

So yeah... ain't no backlight or LEDs in that beast. Just a hot-running glass tube. FWIW, that monitor still works and I still use it. Still way too bright, too. I'll probably get it open some day and turn down the G2 on the flyback.

Got an cheap machine, any ideas what to use it for?

Case: unknown but it's some stupid gaming stuff (that looks just ugly on the outside, shame as it's nice inside) that you'd expect to see in some Disney comedy sitcom from around 2007-2010

0.o
Ricerr... err.. sorry I mean "gaming" case? May we see some pictures? Curious to see how (tacky) it looks.

PSU: Frontier LC-B400ATX - badcaps, will be in for my special treatment

Well, that's a great start. An amazing-looking case with an amazing reliable PSU.

MB: ASRock K8Upgrade-NF3 (quite a unusual board, I know)

Okay, that is actually not a bad thing at all.
Indeed those older AsRock motherboards are unusual, to say the least. They are from back in the day when AsRock truly was an experimental brand for ASUS, and they actually had some pretty interesting mobos. Overall they weren't too bad either, save for bad caps (mainly OST with Chemicon KZG around the CPU once in a while).

I have their 939Dual-SATA2 mobo, and it has everything from a (now legacy) compatibility standpoint: floppy, PATA, SATA I, SATA II, AGP 4/8x, PCI-E 16x (gen 1), PCI-E 1x, PCI, legacy serial + parallel ports, USB 2.0, 8-ch audio (I think S/PDIF too), and support for AM2 CPUs / DDR2 memory with a special add-on card (which I also have!), aside from supporting the usual s939 CPUs and DDR (1) RAM.

That said, these older motherboards are not terribly useful anymore these days. But they are still very cool to keep around, as I think their value will go up even more eventually due to their "oddness" (they still always sell on eBay for $15-30 right now - or at least when I see one get listed / put up for sale).

CPU: Sempron 3000+

Of course.
These things must have been growing on trees at some point, as that's probably the most common s754 CPU I see. Same with Athlon 64 3200+ in socket 939 mobos.

Came with Windows XP, and had lots of music (including our trademark "manele" music) but other than that was pretty empty. Also stupidly divided in 3 partitions for no reason. God I hate that partition scheme.

I should ask one of my cousins if perhaps he owned this PC - he used to love partitioning his HDD like that too (usually one partition for movies + music + pictures, one for games, and one for windows and documents).

On some of my computers, I still do two partitions - a small one for Windows and the rest for everything else. That way if something happens to the OS, I can easily reinstall without wiping files off of the PC. But more than 2 partitions (especially on a smaller HDD) doesn't make sense. So I'm with you on that one.

Hey, at least you got some free music!
I have collected over 100 GB of that stuff from found PCs / HDDs now. Also discovered artists (and styles) that I never knew or would have found before.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The supermicro tree dropped another X8SAX and another X8DAL-i on me. I sold the last X8SAX for $175 bucks, I guess they thought I needed another one. The X8DAL is now the 3rd. I sold one, and still had one left....so now I have 2. Been seeing a lot of the recyclers getting LGA1366 stuff.... It boggles my mind why, still an awesome platform.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

1- 5 PCChips motherboards M863G V5.1 , Socket 462 , Sempron Cpus , all shining like never used before , except ..all The four kzg capacitors 3300mf 6.3v bulged like hell , lol ..
Sempron and DDR1 , what to do with those ? .. Let's see what Momaka would say ...

Heh, truth be told, I have no idea.
It's not like they have anything special going for them - no ISA slots or crazy over-clocking features. Just a run-of-the-mill socket 462 mATX mobo with cheap SiS 741 chipset. Should still be very reliable though (after a recap, of course), even with the unimpressive SiS chipset.

As for what to use them... maybe advertise them as retro/classic early 2000's gaming hardware?? Though the success (or lack of) selling those will depend a lot on what your local market is like. Here, the classic stuff from the PII, P3, and early P4 era / socket 462 is starting to not be as abundant as they once were. Meanwhile, I do see folks getting back into classic rigs somewhat more than before. So the demand (and thus prices) have started to go up slightly on some of this old hardware. In time, as they get more rare, their price should go up too. So it may be worth keeping them and recapping them at some point.

But by far, you'll have most success if you find good classic AGP video cards, like nVidia GeForce 3, 4 TI, 5 (high end models only), 6, and 7 series - these fetch a pretty penny on eBay right now ($20-30 for GeForce 3, $30-50 for the TI 4400 and 4600 cards, around $30-50 for the 6800 GT/ultra, $40-70 for the 7800 GS, and $50-100+ for the FX 5800 / FX 5900 / FX 5950)

2 - A lot of 10 different Nvidia VGAs , mostly GeForce 7600 and 8600 , 265mb and 512m .. Spending some hours recapping and addressing the many missing SMD capacitors usual problem proved fruitful , and 9 out of 10 are perfectly working now ..The tenth makes artifacts on full resolution , then FULLY tilt the PC , so i'm gonna do a full reflow ..During the process , one old IBM monitor gave up on me and died , sadly , lol ..

Not bad.

These cards still support hardware H.264 acceleration for most online video websites (much better than ATI from the same era), so they would be a good upgrade to a Core 2 Duo/Quad PC with onboard graphics.

The 8600 GT cards have a TDP of around 45-50 Watts, though, so you may want to find better coolers for them, otherwise they probably will start artifacting over time - especially if they are overclocked variants (which sometimes will consume up to 60 Watts).

I've seen many new laptops without fans , CPUs/GPUs integrated , already broken plastic parts , and I Can say clearly it's B.S. , They're simply killing this industry , and they gonna regret it . People ain't that much stupid as they think ..

Agreed.

We had a ton of complaints from customers while I worked in that big brick-n-mortar store, about new laptops just breaking too fast. Granted the average person here doesn't usually take very good care of their computers (not just the OS, but the physical condition too) - they get left in hot cars, crunched in backpacks full of other stuff, take the occasional fall (like pet knocking it down or someone tripping on the charging cord), and so on. But still, newer laptops just don't last at all compared to older gear. And even these average customers are starting to notice and complain.

In case you need anything Momaka , just ask

Thanks.
I can't think of anything at the moment, even though I have a truck-full of stuff that needs fixing and parts of some sort and could probably come up with a big list if I really sat down and wrote everything, lol.
So let's say all good for now.

**EDIT**

Been seeing a lot of the recyclers getting LGA1366 stuff.... It boggles my mind why, still an awesome platform.

Welp, I got a Xeon LGA1366 E5520 CPU if you're interested. Came from a lot of other CPUs (as I think I mentioned here a few pages ago). Nothing special about it - just a low-end, fairly low power quad core. But a quad core (with 8 threads), nevertheless!

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Welp, I got a Xeon LGA1366 E5520 CPU if you're interested. Came from a lot of other CPUs (as I think I mentioned here a few pages ago). Nothing special about it - just a low-end, fairly low power quad core. But a quad core (with 8 threads), nevertheless!

Thanks, but I've got a bunch of those. Infact I used a pair of them in the x8dal to test the spectre firmware patch from supermicro for their 5500/5600 series xeon boards (microcode update for the processors)....and I didn't brick them....if I had, it wouldn't have been any loss, they're probably worth more dead than alive anyway.

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

CPU: Sempron 3000+

Of course.
These things must have been growing on trees at some point, as that's probably the most common s754 CPU I see.

At one point they were practically giving those away (when 939 had been out for awhile, but 754 was still in production for "budget" boards), I remember when they were selling for around $20 new (and often "free" with the purchase of a motherboard). This made them very common in low-end "budget" systems.