best cheap/free scores 1.1

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

scored a FREE quality HP laserjet 6p with only 1400 pages on the odometer, two new cartridges and a original cd, plan to use it with my 95 rig and since it has a local talk port my 68k macs as well!

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Today's score:
BIG box of TDK 15V, 7A, open-frame PSUs. Forgot to pickup the box from the shop when I left today. Hope it doesn't get thrown out tomorrow, as I won't be going there. But will definitely take it Friday.

These really are nice PSUs. Not sure what I'm going to do with so many of them (maybe 20-30??), but better than scrapping them for their metals - which there aren't that many in them. Would have gotten maybe $5 for that box, if even that much from the scrappers my workplace uses. And each of these PSUs is built like a tank - Japanese caps and all quality parts inside.

As for the Soyo, nice score. Be sure to recap it. With new caps, you have a nice OC board right there, Soyo's boards were quite known for that.

Awesome! Good to know.
I might not do a full recap, as the board has quite a few caps on there... but the CPU VRM should get at least 4 new Rubycon MFZ caps of almost twice the capacity... so I think that will hold up well enough. The rest of the board, I'll probably recap whatever is only important.

Not exactly electronic, but still a good deal. I picked up a Simplicity Regent 12 Lawn Tractor for $60

That looks very clean and workable.
Most lawn tractors I see around here are typically super-rusty and beaten to death (mostly from having been stored outside and never taken care of.)

I can't even begin to tell you how many boards I received for repair with stab wounds on them from this kind of mis-handling.....people are stupid.... I've never stabbed one in all my years and many hundreds of ZIF sockets used...

Yeah, it's quite common, I suppose. Been told of many stories of people not putting the heatsinks right and burning their CPUs - especially them AMD socket 462 CPUs. Unlike Intel, AMD didn't come up with any mechanism to prevent core meltdown probably until the AM2 or later CPUs.

As for stab wounds... I've only slipped once, but managed to recover the "slippage" before it hit the board hard and damaged something.

These old boards are tough, though. I honestly don't know how people end up breaking components on their stuff sometimes - you really actually have to try.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored an Acer Aspire 7741Z for real cheap today - $10.

Came with 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD (with a b0rked 7 install lol), and a Pentium P6100. Replaced the Pentium with a i3-330M and it's been great so far.

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

scored a FREE quality HP laserjet 6p with only 1400 pages on the odometer, two new cartridges and a original cd, plan to use it with my 95 rig and since it has a local talk port my 68k macs as well!

I have a pair of them -- one on each internet. They are slow (esp for complex pages) but are kind to the AC mains so can be left on 24/7/365 -- not true of many of the "better" printers I've had!

I discarded all of my color laser, phaser and inkjet printers -- in addition to the high speed monochrome laser -- in favor of these little things. And, toner carts seem to last FOREVER (I recently scored 4 or 5 NOS "genuine HP" carts which will probably take me well beyond my need for paper output!).

If I have a big print job -- or, want color -- I'll walk to the local Kinkos and pay them for maintaining THEIR printers so they're available for me, when needed. Or, the local library for 10c color prints/copies.

[Per Hansson]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

^ That's a damaged SMD array resistor for you. :|


Yup... that's four individual SMD resistors to the rescue. I know... but it worked!

Nice save!
Is that just a shadow or is C254 & C255 not soldered properly?
Shows up even better in the first photo than the second.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored a dead Acer Aspire 6930G. T6600, 2GB RAM, Radeon HD4650 1GB. When plugged, power LED flashes once, and at the same time I can hear a tick. Then, it's DEAD. Nothing happens unless I remove the AC adapter.

Any ideas what to check for? Laptop otherwise looks PRISTINE.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

especially them AMD socket 462 CPUs. Unlike Intel, AMD didn't come up with any mechanism to prevent core meltdown probably until the AM2 or later CPUs.

Looked like Thoroughbred and Barton had a working sensor as well as later socket 462 motherboards (mostly 2003 and 2004, maybe some in late-2002)

But, I never let them get to the shutdown point.

I received words that Palomino, had a faulty sensor and the processor was still fried. Was that demonstrated on Tom's Hardware? I'm not sure. T-birds, of course, didn't and had the highest temp. recorded, when the heatsink was taken off during high load, in a video from the early-2000s, IIRC.

And in the same video, Pentium IIIs were demonstrated and they crash (just halt) instead of shutting down. They just freeze.

The Pentium 4 throttled, looking like a 486 or similar with L1 disabled!

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Picked up those 15V 7 Amp PSUs on Friday - all 25! Most of them are still brand new in boxes.

Nice save!
Is that just a shadow or is C254 & C255 not soldered properly?
Shows up even better in the first photo than the second.

Thanks.
Yeah, it's just shadows / the way my (phone) camera took the picture. Probably because the board uses shiny Leaded solder. Most joints are super smooth. None of that RoHS nonsense here.

Looked like Thoroughbred and Barton had a working sensor as well as later socket 462 motherboards (mostly 2003 and 2004, maybe some in late-2002)

They do indeed have a working temperature sensor that can shut down the CPU - but only if it has a heatsink and the temperature creeps slowly (i.e. if the fan is dead, or something similar.) Without a heatsink, they'll go up in smoke in seconds.

T-birds, of course, didn't and had the highest temp. recorded, when the heatsink was taken off during high load, in a video from the early-2000s, IIRC.

And in the same video, Pentium IIIs were demonstrated and they crash (just halt) instead of shutting down. They just freeze.

The Pentium 4 throttled, looking like a 486 or similar with L1 disabled!

Oh, I know exactly what video you're talking about! (Think I even have it saved somewhere on my older main PC.) Brings back memories and nostalgia. I think this was possibly even before Youtube was still a thing.

**EDIT**
Found it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06MYYB9bl70

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Picked up those 15V 7 Amp PSUs on Friday - all 25! Most of them are still brand new in boxes.


Thanks.
Yeah, it's just shadows / the way my (phone) camera took the picture. Probably because the board uses shiny Leaded solder. Most joints are super smooth. None of that RoHS nonsense here.


They do indeed have a working temperature sensor that can shut down the CPU - but only if it has a heatsink and the temperature creeps slowly (i.e. if the fan is dead, or something similar.) Without a heatsink, they'll go up in smoke in seconds.


Oh, I know exactly what video you're talking about! (Think I even have it saved somewhere on my older main PC.) Brings back memories and nostalgia. I think this was possibly even before Youtube was still a thing.

**EDIT**
Found it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06MYYB9bl70

I've watched that video probably a few dozen times... oh how far we've come in computing.

Still wish motherboards today had loads of configuration jumpers and things like that.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I've watched that video probably a few dozen times... oh how far we've come in computing.

Indeed.

Though you could take that to have both a positive and negative meaning.

For one, I do myself as well like how many options modern motherboards give you - especially in terms of booth sequence/devices and fan control. The latter one has especially improved - you can even draw fan curves / cooling profiles on some mobo's now (as in, the last 3-4 years, if not more.)

But then modern mobos also appear to have more complicated problems when something goes wrong. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a modern mobo with intermittent or just straight mysterious issues - especially related to BIOS.

That's the one thing I like about old motherboards: simplicity. And a lot of times, with that came better reliability... bad caps aside, of course.

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

intel are the worst,
if the section of the bios containing the spyware (ME code) is wrong it will reset the board after about 30 seconds!

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

intel are the worst,
if the section of the bios containing the spyware (ME code) is wrong it will reset the board after about 30 seconds!

Sounds similar to an NES!

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

intel are the worst,
if the section of the bios containing the spyware (ME code) is wrong it will reset the board after about 30 seconds!

I thought it was 30 minutes.

Sounds similar to an NES!

Yeah, the NES just locks out the CPU and refuses to boot.

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

but on the nes you just lift a pin!

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Yeah, the NES just locks out the CPU and refuses to boot.

It does that cycling thing, looks like every 2 seconds or similar.

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I have a pair of them -- one on each internet. They are slow (esp for complex pages) but are kind to the AC mains so can be left on 24/7/365 -- not true of many of the "better" printers I've had!

I discarded all of my color laser, phaser and inkjet printers -- in addition to the high speed monochrome laser -- in favor of these little things. And, toner carts seem to last FOREVER (I recently scored 4 or 5 NOS "genuine HP" carts which will probably take me well beyond my need for paper output!).

If I have a big print job -- or, want color -- I'll walk to the local Kinkos and pay them for maintaining THEIR printers so they're available for me, when needed. Or, the local library for 10c color prints/copies.

awesome! glad to hear about the good experience. I even tried printing with the IR port with a laptop, it worked but large photo prints would not complete. otherwise a great printer that lasts practically forever.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Found a eMachines E525 near my local trash cans. Brought it home, had a small blotch of black (probably liquid crystal being bad). Replaced the LCD with a spare 15.6" Samsung LCD I had and now works fine. Also upgraded the sorry excuse of a Celeron M 900 CPU to a nice Core 2 Duo T6600.

Amazingly, this thing runs Win10 Enterprise pretty smooth, and the battery holds a strong 2-3 hours!

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

awesome! glad to hear about the good experience. I even tried printing with the IR port with a laptop, it worked but large photo prints would not complete. otherwise a great printer that lasts practically forever.

The 5p and 6p are notoriously underpowered when it comes to their internal CPUs. Complex pages often take minutes for them to print!

You can make sure you've added as much RAM as you can find (IIRC, 72pin). I have 66MB in each of mine -- though the Windows driver only lets you *tell* it about 26 of those). You can query the printer directly by depressing both the RESET (orange/rear button) and GO/OK (blue/front button) buttons simultaneously. The printer will emit a configuration page summarizing its current settings and resource inventory.

[Pressing just the OK button gives you a silly one-page advertisement "test page"]

Also turn on page protection in the driver.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored a free Samsung LE40M61B.

I think I might be looking at a really big ass window.

It's working fine for now (though there's a faint hissing, might need to crack it open some time when I have the power to bring it down, it's heavy as all hell) and the colors are absolutely stunning.

[rodtoo40]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I was coming back from Hardy`s and saw a 50 Vizio E50U-D2 sitting next to the road with it`s back to the road so you could not see the screen. I figured what the heck . I stopped and picked it and plugged it and the screen was not broken but doing the ghost rolling thing. I was able to fix it with the paper trick on one of the ribbons leaving the T-con board going to screen. Now it`s in my living room and it`s great wireless all the bells and whistles . I fixed a 600 tv with a 1/8 wide piece of paper . I am so pleased with myself