best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

well that wont be helpful in making it last as bumpgated chipsets have to be kept below 60°C if u want them to last. just have to use it for basic office work and basic web surfing. no video watching for the novideo chipset! hahaha!

Depends at what level I keep the laptop. It also reaches that temp because of the battery Acer decided to put - who thought a regular 4400mAh battery would be enough for a 17" screen, a Turion 64 X2 TL-60, 4GB of RAM and 2 HDDs.

Anyways, so far it seems that's the normal operating temperature of the nForce 610M. I always keep eye on the temps, though it hasn't shown any signs of going bad again over the span of this week. I really need to find a more potent battery (at least 4800mAh) and also look in finding a board that has a MXM slot (the current one doesn't have one soldered in, it's just the pads.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Fixed the other one that had a MXM slot too! Apparently both the 8600M GT I have (Aspire 6530 and 5520) are dead. It does work fine with a Radeon Mobility X1400 128MB, although the VGA BIOS version string displays garbled text and is detected as a 0MB card in BIOS, but that's because it came from a Advent laptop.

The only thing left to fix is the WiFi card, which for some reason doesn't get detected.

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

TCL 65S401 televison with cracked LCD. Trying to find replacement panel. Will part out if no replacement panel is available.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

given a LG 37" TV and some dell vostro desktop PC. I don't know anything else about them yet.

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

100' HDE15 M-M. I'm curious how well it works! (then I'll see if I can imagine a use for it)

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

...and some dell vostro desktop PC.

It's a vostro 220. PSU needed recapped, working now. Has a C2Q 2.6GHz + 2gb RAM + 250gb HDD.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored these freebies:

Epox EP-8RDA3I w/ Athlon XP 1700
HP original charger for NX7300
Gigabyte 8400GS 512MB

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I bought a SONY Trinitron KV-1981R 19 inch TV, it was built May 1985 in Sony's San Diego plant. It has stereo speakers and composite video which is fairly rare on a 1985 set. My uncle picked it up for me so I brought my Nintendo with me to my grandmas and played a nice 18 hole of Nintendo golf with the fam for thanksgiving.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

given a LG 37" TV and some dell vostro desktop PC. I don't know anything else about them yet.

Computer is done & working. Latest BIOS on it and reloaded. Not going to upgrade it unless I find something laying around....I'll just re-home it as it is, clean install of Win7.



The TV was as expected...bad caps in the PSU....





Recapped.



First testing....


The culprits....



...and done!

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Computer is done & working. Latest BIOS on it and reloaded. Not going to upgrade it unless I find something laying around....I'll just re-home it as it is, clean install of Win7.



The TV was as expected...bad caps in the PSU....





Recapped.



First testing....


The culprits....



...and done!

Nice Restore! what brand were the badcaps? I blew the picture up but still couldn't tell. TV seems to have nice contrast and doesn't look washed out.

[alandicade]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Nice Restore! what brand were the badcaps? I blew the picture up but still couldn't tell. TV seems to have nice contrast and doesn't look washed out.

looks like samwha but i could be wrong

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

looks like samwha but i could be wrong

I believe you are correct. I'll have to dig one out of the garbage to be sure, but I think they are.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

It's a vostro 220. Has a C2Q 2.6GHz.

wow speak of the devil! that should be a q6700! u could now try that in the dell gx745 polymer eternal life pc in that other thread and see if it works there!

just wow topcat! didnt expect divine intervention to help u that quickly to drop a q6700 at your door just when u needed one for free! i guess it must be due to all your good deeds saving trash picked computers. karma's NOT a bitch for you for sure!

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

wow speak of the devil! that should be a q6700! u could now try that in the dell gx745 polymer eternal life pc in that other thread and see if it works there!

just wow topcat! didnt expect divine intervention to help u that quickly to drop a q6700 at your door just when u needed one for free! i guess it must be due to all your good deeds saving trash picked computers. karma's NOT a bitch for you for sure!

I thought the same thing at quick glance at the POST screen.....but when I looked, it turned out to be an e7300; 2.66/1066fsb C2D....darnit!

looks like samwha but i could be wrong

I put one under the magnifier (the print is small), and they are indeed Samwha.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

My workplace was doing some warehouse cleaning, so I managed to save some computer stuff this and last week.

- 2x 128 GB SSDs.
Got these from a shipment from another warehouse of ours that didn't bother to inventory everything they sent us. So these were tossed in a box destined for "junk/scrap". Since we don't have any equipment that uses these anymore... finder's keepers!

- 2x Pentium 3 800/256/100/1.75 socket 370 CPUs
Found these in a pile of dust when cleaning some of the workbenches. Anything we found on that bench got tossed for scrap, so I saved these (and also a slew of other cables, wires, connectors, and misc. hardware that I'm not even going to bother listing.) What's cool about these two CPUs is supposedly they can overclock to 1.13 GHz by just upping the FSP to 133 MHz (as they are 100 MHz CPUs with 8.5x multiplier) and no need to bump up the voltage. We will see about that, though. I don't have a P3 motherboard here that has OC capabilities, so it might be a while before I try this. Only the P3 Gigabyte mobo at my uncle's house overseas can OC stuff.

- 3x 60x60x08 mm 12V PC fans (3-pin.)
Should come in handy for my GPU heatsink mods.

- a bunch of open-frame PSUs. Various voltages and power ratings. All from quality brands and all have good quality Japanese caps in them. Definitely not the cheap eBay knock-offs with garbage caps.

And now for some stuff I could NOT save:
- 8x sealed car-sized (not sure what model/size exactly, though) 12V Lead-Acid batteries from decommissioned UPSes we had. Most of these were from 2014-2015 and most if not all should have held a good charge. Unfortunately, the scrap place where we bring these gives a receipt of what was recycled, so I couldn't just hand cash to our manager and take them. Sad, because the scrap place only paid us about $10 per battery, and most of these were likely in decent condition. Could have made a nice "portable" welder with 3-4 of these in parallel.

Update on the Acers:

- the 7220 was actually a 7520 as well.

Anyways - as I said, a reflow on the non-MXM 7520 brought it back to life. I can see why it died though - fan was dusty as hell, heatsinks had literal gray crust, which in turn made the chipset go bad.

Reflowed it at 350*C, replaced the crust with MX2, cleaned the fan thoroughly, and it works fine now. The chipset does run pretty hot, in the 70-80 range, but that's nVidia for you. At least the fan does know when to ramp up and when to settle down.

Hate to say it but.... R.I.P.
That chipset will be dead again very soon.
Once a BGA chip fails, you really have to keep it cool if you want it to last. Usually under 60C to last any reasonable time, and 50C if you want even longer. Above 60C, it won't take long to go bad again. Few months at most (with moderate use), if lucky.

Finally, some specs on the working 7520:

17" WXGA 1440x900 LCD panel (it's BIG in comparision to anything else I have)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK-57 1.9GHz
2x2GB DDR2-800 RAM
Geforce 7000M/nF610M iGPU w/256MB shared
320GB WD Scorpio Blue + 80GB Fujitsu
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (on 80GB Fujitsu)

Not bad at all.
Machine like that is still viable today for online use and work, despite being quite outdated. Maybe it won't do 1080p YouTube smoothly or without running hot, but who cares. To me, 720p is decent enough. Besides, it's not like 1080p will make much of a difference on that screen resolution.

The TV was as expected...bad caps in the PSU....

Wish I had that kind of luck.

All of the TVs I've found so far did not have bad caps issues - especially those Samsungs. On two of them, I get 2-sec-to-black backlights. And on a Visio, I get some vertical lines, possibly because it was left in the rain, which ruined the LCD bond tabs. Got an LG monitor like that too. Oh, and I also got from work a monstrous 21.5", 4:3, 1600x1200 resolution LCD monitor (Samsung 213T, I think?) But they way someone threw it in our dumpster made it land screen down... so the screen is busted. WHAT A SHAME!

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Six WD Black 1T 3.5" drives, three WD black 500G 2.5" drives and ~10 pounds of RAM (I didn't have time to dig through it so just took it home to sort; prolly too new for the machine I'm looking to "enhance").

And a pair of 32GB uSD cards.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I thought the same thing at quick glance at the POST screen.....but when I looked, it turned out to be an e7300; 2.66/1066fsb C2D....darnit!

But, at least, it's a Wolfdale! (IIRC) (45nm lithography) 45nm Core 2s aren't the power hog that 65nm Core 2 Quads were!

Don't like that Wolfdale? Then try to get at least an E8400, but if possible, get an E8600 in there! And that's if you can't or don't pop a Yorkie in there! (Yorkfield, which are the 45nm Core 2 Quads)

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Oh, and I also got from work a monstrous 21.5", 4:3, 1600x1200 resolution LCD monitor (Samsung 213T, I think?) But they way someone threw it in our dumpster made it land screen down... so the screen is busted. WHAT A SHAME!

That is a rotten shame. 4:3 LCD's in that size & resolution are RARE! Whoever did that deserves a fist to the nose for that.

But, at least, it's a Wolfdale! (IIRC) (45nm lithography) 45nm Core 2s aren't the power hog that 65nm Core 2 Quads were!

Don't like that Wolfdale? Then try to get at least an E8400, but if possible, get an E8600 in there! And that's if you can't or don't pop a Yorkie in there! (Yorkfield, which are the 45nm Core 2 Quads)

I've always been a fan of yorkfield/harpertowns; 45nm and 12m L2. I think I've got another q9650 lingering around here, not sure I'd waste it on this system though.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I think I've got another q9650 lingering around here, not sure I'd waste it on this system though.

Bingo! (At least for the fact that you have a Q9650)
Back in 2016, I think I got a Q9450 or something like that and even for that one, based what I saw for test reports, it would embarrass an OC'ed Q6600, especially the batch of Q6600 that I received!
My Q6600 OTOH, was apparently pathetic, even for 65nm!

And it's not the first time I had bad luck with 65nm Intel, my E2180 M0 (Conroe) (65nm) acts more like it's a 90nm chip, even a meh 2.9 Ghz being a major challenge! And 3.0 Ghz apparently making it degrade before my eyes, despite that should have been for the majority, a walk in the park! Prime95 caught it flunking at 3.0 Ghz, IIRC, at 5 hours, which is actually an odd time for Prime95 to fail, as Prime95, in my experience, usually would fail at 1 hour or 2 hours, if I got a duddy chip!

I dunno why Prime95 even took that long for it to error out with air con air on it. Usually, if it acts odd, it means a heat issue, in my experience. (Like Prime95 once failing at 23 hours with my 2003 Barton 3000+ AQZFA, LOL. (I think that was in 2007 or 2006) That was clearly an overheat, because the sun was coming in the window.)

It was very odd, at 3.0 Ghz, because I ran Prime95 and then for no good reason, it failed in a shorter time, I saw it randomly fail at only 1 hour or similar! And it also did the same dang kind of thing at 2.92 Ghz, WTF!

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Hate to say it but.... R.I.P.
That chipset will be dead again very soon.
Once a BGA chip fails, you really have to keep it cool if you want it to last. Usually under 60C to last any reasonable time, and 50C if you want even longer. Above 60C, it won't take long to go bad again. Few months at most (with moderate use), if lucky.


Not bad at all.
Machine like that is still viable today for online use and work, despite being quite outdated. Maybe it won't do 1080p YouTube smoothly or without running hot, but who cares. To me, 720p is decent enough. Besides, it's not like 1080p will make much of a difference on that screen resolution.

Rarely it hovers over 60. It usually hovers in the 56-57 range, and the MB around 50. Youtube though, it goes berserk - I recorded temps in the 70 range.


Much better than a Packard Bell that had a 8400M GS. If you think that my Acer would have a short lifespan with the 610M, that Packard Bell trash of a laptop (in every aspect) was getting hot from just turning on.

It has been reflowed at least 100 times (I'm not even joking at this point, my friend literally told me the teacher that owned this laptop invested $162 for reflows AND a reball - YIKES!) without success, has had it's motherboard replaced once (and that one reflowed 100 times too, but with a weaker heatgun station), until I went literal ballistic mode, took a bigger heatgun (the automotive type of heatguns that I generally use) and set it to 400*C, and it came to life and worked as it should.

Problem is, since Packard Bell cheaped out and made a worse-than-gutless heatsink, I have no idea how much will the reflow on the 8400M GS last. G86 core, and the model of the lappy is MB65-P-030.