best cheap/free scores 1.1

[tmcw]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I've recently gotten some cool stuff that was being thrown out at the college I work at, including about 12 23-24" Dell and HP monitors (there were about triple that, but the rest, all of which were donations, were poorly transported and had cracked panels), but the best in a while has been a microscope/camera/monitor setup.

The monitor is a very nice Sony PVM-1440QM, still has a really nice picture. Then the microscope is an Olympus BH2 with trinocular head for attaching a camera. There were no objectives or eyepieces on the microscope, they were harvested for re-use in the lab, but I have a couple of sets from a couple of other rescued microscopes. The camera is a Panasonic F15, hooks up directly to the monitor via s-video, but I might have a bit of fun connecting it directly to a PC. The camera was initially missing the power brick, but I tracked down the person who discarded it, and managed to get it, the whole setup would have been unusable without it.

Also included is a little box that connects between the camera and the monitor feed to add shapes to the image, so that portions of the magnified image can be highlighted or pointed out.

I was told that it was being discarded because they were getting an updated system, I shudder to think how much they'll need to spend to replace it. I was looking online at the various component parts, and for the camera adaptor alone (Olympus MTV-3), I saw some place wanting $300 for one.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Not expecting much but I might pull the trigger on a retro ASUS P2B kit, complete with 40GB HDD and a Pentium II chip. Not holding my breath though since those classifieds disappear like they appear, almost.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Not expecting much but I might pull the trigger on a retro ASUS P2B kit, complete with 40GB HDD and a Pentium II chip. Not holding my breath though since those classifieds disappear like they appear, almost.

Go for a P2B-D, a lot more fun!

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Yeah, tell that to my wallet... I'd have to pay a good premium to find one

But really, the price for a P2B-D would be insane here, unless I find it at a car boot sale. This one was from a classified, and it's at a low price because it's sold as untested. Will call the seller up Saturday to check if he still has the board, and then buy it. Hopefully it will make a good replacement for both my (now dead unfortunately) Acorp 6VIA81P (VIA 693) and the Jetway J-7BXAN Rev2.1 I have (which has a downright HORRIBLE ACPI implementation for anything that's Windows NT based). Not an ABIT (I still dream of getting any kind of ABIT board from the Slot 1/Slot A/Socket 370/early Socket A (KT133 or 266A) mobo) but at least I'd have one worry in minus, as all caps are Rubycons, with a few Sanyos near the CPU.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Well, a new and pleasant surprise for me (and maybe for Topcat too), regarding that P2B kit:

I WON IT!

I have talked with the seller just today and he's preparing it for shipping on Monday. So for about $30 I have won:

- a Pentium II 400MHz (no idea what SL spec it is, but it uses a similar retention mechanism found on my Pentium III 650MHz (Coppermine, SL3XK) so it's a Deschutes for sure)

- ASUS P2B Rev 1.02 with some wires attached on the CMOS holder (will replace it so that's no big issue)

- 40GB IDE HDD with Win98SE preloaded

- Matrox G200 8MB AGP (is this thing even worth anything in terms of 3D? Or do I have to replace it with a Riva TNT2 or GF2 GTS?)

- backplate (which is again surprising for boards of this era)

Board is rather dusty around CPU slot, but nothing a good ol' brush can't fix. Caps are Rubycon everywhere except a few Sanyos on the VRM.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

^
Very nice!! That G200 is shredder food for 3D. 2D isn't bad, but anything 3D, forget it. If you want 3D, find a voodoo2 (or pair for SLI), they will work well with that card....and it'll be spot-on period specific!

Yesterday's freebies for me were:

1x Sony 32" LCD TV - untested but screen not broken
1x Samsung 43" LCD - Bad caps in PSU, fix & works
1x HP 24" 16:10 LCD computer display - works (but probably needs to be checked for bad caps)
1x Sony 32" 4:3 CRT TV - works
1x Sony 27" 4:3 CRT TV - works
2x Sanyo 19" CRT TV's - work
1x Sony 13" CRT TV - works
-- All came with remotes.

Some beige P4 custom PC in an Aopen case with beige Element LCD monitor - Monitor works, PC motehrboard full of bad caps.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Well, I guess I better hunt another GPU then. Unsurprising since AFAIK Matrox didn't intend their cards for 3D gaming.

[brethin]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Ok I got the 2 racks home, I pulled 1 6u and opened it to find a Supermicro X11DPG-QT board and 6 Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti cards, not great but not bad I guess, 2 full 52u racks with 6 6u each so that 12 motherboards and 72 video cards for $500 a rack plus my hauling the entire lot with my tractor and box trailer which cost me $1200 for fuel food and boarding. I'll dig more into them when I have time.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I'd take a few of those 1080ti's.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scores today:

- MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR in incredibily pristine condition (and with original OST caps) - this is one nice board (up there with my ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe and Epox EP-8RDA6 Plus) and will be a perfect candidate for a XP 2800+ I have around.

-2x256MB PC100 SODIMM - these are useful for my i440BX based Compaq Armada E500 (P3 650 Coppermine model) which only had 196MB. Apparently sourced from a parted FSC laptop of roughly the same era, which had a removable Socket 495 CPU. (mine is soldered, if my memory serves me right) 98SE runs much better now and doesn't the slightest complain about the RAM limit (probably because of the amount shared for the onboard ATI Rage LT). Micron branded, PC100, CL2.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Since I couldn't edit my previous post anymore, got some more news. I'm also going to be given a free Gateway GP6-400. It's quite dirty and missing a bay cover, but otherwise is in working condition. It's the desktop version, not tower. Will make a good house for the P2B kit I am going to receive.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Update on the Sony 32" from above, it seems to work, all inputs. It's a 1080p, not bad for a 32", most that size were 720.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

ASUS kit came in today.

Results, for now.

- mobo was pretty dusty. Cleaned it as best as I could, though some spots do still have dust left. Also CR2032 holder needs to be replaced as it's basically KO.

- CPU is a 400MHz Pentium 2 SL3EE, surprisingly fanless although it does feature spaces for a fan

- GPU is a Matrox G200 AGP, nothing too special. I think paste was still somewhat good as it came out quite creamy.

- not sure if I can reuse the backplate, looks like it came from an OEM board or something. I'll do try and see if it fits on the GP6-400 but seeing as the GP6 does come with a standard board it'll probably end up in the bin

[brethin]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Pulled another 6u from the second rack it had the same setup so I sold the 2 racks with 5 6u units in each rack for $7k, it more than covered my costs and now I have 2 mother boards and 12 video cards left to play with.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Pulled another 6u from the second rack it had the same setup so I sold the 2 racks with 5 6u units in each rack for $7k, it more than covered my costs and now I have 2 mother boards and 12 video cards left to play with.

....and still no pics...






Back to reality, a walk-in yesterday older lady brought in a Dell Dimension 8400 that belonged to her deceased husband....she's moving/downsizing and needs to part with it....not wanting it to be destroyed at the recycling center (apparently it was his pride & joy PC). He was a photographer, so it had the better GPU & CPU for the time (3.4GHz Prescott + Geforce 6800) and 2gb RAM. In great condition.... Needed a recap. Polymodded the VCORE caps and lytic'd the rest. Given the condition, made into a decent older XP gamer....albeit not worth too terribly much; I'll probably just regift it when I find someone that wants it.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Today's dumpster finds:

- ASUS GTX670 DirectCU II - 90% sure it might be dead, fans are missing.
- SB Audigy 2 ZS - perfect for my P2B machine

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Re on the 670 - it works, it POSTs just fine. Welp, time to hit the classifieds for an Accelero.

[Uranium-235]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Re on the 670 - it works, it POSTs just fine. Welp, time to hit the classifieds for an Accelero.

Should find some temporary fans to tie around it and see if it renders without crashing

[tmcw]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

My place of work upgraded their security camera system last week, and they threw 15 (yes, fifteen) security cameras out. It seems they snipped the wires, unscrewed the jubilee clips holding the cameras to the posts, and chucked them in the skip. Full housings as well, decent aluminum enclosures with brackets, and a little heater for the lens/window.

The cameras inside were all GeoVision IP type cameras, mainly BX120D's (1.3MP), but a few 5MP ones as well (BX520). All working ok. Not sure what I'm going to do with them. A few years ago after seeing a fireball, I was thinking about setting up a camera system to detect them, but I'm not sure if they'd be compatible with the software already out there. If anyone has any suggestions on what to do with them, pop them on a post(card).....

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

a walk-in yesterday older lady brought in a Dell Dimension 8400 that belonged to her deceased husband....she's moving/downsizing and needs to part with it....not wanting it to be destroyed at the recycling center (apparently it was his pride & joy PC). He was a photographer, so it had the better GPU & CPU for the time (3.4GHz Prescott + Geforce 6800) and 2gb RAM. In great condition.... Needed a recap. Polymodded the VCORE caps and lytic'd the rest. Given the condition, made into a decent older XP gamer....albeit not worth too terribly much; I'll probably just regift it when I find someone that wants it.

That's a really nice story. Glad you saved it. It's actually not that worthless of a machine anymore. The Windows 98 / XP "retro" boom is continuing to pickup popularity... and as such, good AGP cards like the GeForce 6800 are worth quite a chunk these days - easily a $50 and sometimes up to $100, all depending on demand at the time. The rest of the system probably indeed isn't worth as much... yet (I imagine the Pentium 4 is going to need another 10 years or so to age more, and its value should go up further.) Still, I agree it's probably best to keep that whole system together and sell it together as a retro PC. If you make it into a dual-boot machine with Windows 98, it might gain even more value.

On a side note, as worthless as the i865 chipset integrated graphics were at the time (Intel "Extreme" Graphics 2, IIRC), that IGP is still plenty powerful to max out some late 90's games. For example, I tried Need For Speed High Stakes (1999), and I couldn't get really great FPS at 1024x768 on a Pentium 3 CPU with a Radeon 7500 AGP video card. The same game on my Optiplex 170L with just the integrated i865 IGP: 60+ FPS at 1280x960 and everything maxed out. Same deal with Half-Life. Essentially, I was getting Voodoo/Glide/3DFX FPS on integrated GPU from 2005. (Goes to show how much technology jumped in 5-6 years back then vs. now.)

....and still no pics...

Missed opportunity to use this one:


Yeah, some pics would be neat.

Should find some temporary fans to tie around it and see if it renders without crashing

+1

Just because it POSTs doesn't mean it works 100% - especially true with newer GPUs.
@Dan81: I agree with Uranium here - put some fans temporarily on it and see if the card can work with a load. If not... that DirectCU II heatsink is still a nice bonus. If you fit that on a HD4850, you could potentially OC it to 4870 speeds and still have plenty of thermal headroom (or could just make one really cool & quiet 4850 card.)

I've recently gotten some cool stuff that was being thrown out at the college I work at, including about 12 23-24" Dell and HP monitors (there were about triple that, but the rest, all of which were donations, were poorly transported and had cracked panels), but the best in a while has been a microscope/camera/monitor setup.

That's a really awesome score!
Should have enough LCDs now to last you at least a few good decades. (Or maybe a century?)

I was told that it was being discarded because they were getting an updated system, I shudder to think how much they'll need to spend to replace it. I was looking online at the various component parts, and for the camera adaptor alone (Olympus MTV-3), I saw some place wanting $300 for one.

IT/tech departments have to justify their existence and budgets somehow... so that's really the norm at a lot of places.

HDMI Switcher and PNY 9400GT today that I already cleaned up
https://i.imgur.com/4ujQ756.jpg

Might want to upgrade the cooler on that video card if you have a spare one from something else. The stock one in the pic there will barely keep the card in spec when idle (at least what sane people consider to be in-spec temperatures... don't let nVidia fool you that 70-80C temperatures for those cores are fine - they aren't.)