best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Some dud laptops. Unsurprisingly, both ASUS, both AMDs.

ASUS A75DE - A8-4500M APU/ 7670M - powers on for a split second or so and then goes D E A D
ASUS X73B - E350 APU / 6470M - no power.

Neither have HDD, or RAM, X73B is missing the battery and A75DE also has a cracked screen.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Welp, the results are pretty disappointing:

- A75DE - still haven't figured where the short comes from. Even disabled the 7670M completely but short still present.

- X73B - dead ENE KBC chip - will completely replace the mobo and display.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

More scores today:

- SIL0680 ATA133 PCI controller - hopefully will work with a VIA MVP3 mobo I have.
- Athlon XP 2400+
- a pretty sadly looking ASRock K7VTA2, harvested its BIOS chip and probably back in the trash it goes
- a quite beefy Cooler Master S370/462 cooler.

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

What, you're not gonna take an old MOT and feed various rails 2.4kV and watch it go BANG??

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

......no? I was going to harvest the caps (UCC KZE and Ruby MBZ) but finally decided against it and just chuckled it in the nearest bin I could find on my way home, not before harvesting the SST BIOS chip for older 486/Skt7/P2/P3/early Athlon mobos.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

My wife has been at it again; Salvation Army store scores. Some new in box beige bay coolers.

These inclose bay coolers are stellar, I have some in builds around here that I bought new in the 90's....and here's 2x new-old-stock ones....I remember them well! These are all metal construction & bulletproof!!





These AOC ones were pretty common; at least the fan portions. I've never seen this model with the big heavy aluminum heatsink bodies!!





I think I better keep her around!! She pulled them from a bin marked 50% off....so there's $15 in all 4 pieces.

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

sweet deal those are perfect for filling 5.25 bays where the beige bezels bust or are missing from old age.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Just got around testing the ASUS GTX670 I posted about earlier, and to which Uranium-235 and momaka suggested to run a 3D test on it and load test as well.

Ran Furmark with ONLY ONE fan strapped on the heatsink with two long af screws. Maxed out at 65*C (I replaced the thermal paste with MX5 beforehand though, the original one was literally stone dry) yet no artefacting whatsoever. Guess it's a win! Now to start searching for a better heatsink and it should be replacing my aging Gigabyte GTX650 1GB just fine.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Yesterday I cleaned out a back room of a guy that does security systems and other weird stuff....

Bunch of DVR's full of hard drives, a label/badge printer, 17" beige CRT (rescued from a dumpster), bunch of monitors & TV's. Metal enclosures, and a couple of interesting laptops....







Laptop one is an AsusPro P53E; I3 2nd gen, 8gb RAM 500gb spinner. I stuck a SSD in it and tossed win10 on it. Someone will give me a couple hundred for it. The barrel plug for the charger was cracked from the board. Repaired that, fired right off. Battery is good.



Then there's this! Old Compaq Armada 1530DM, Pentium classic 133 w/ 32mb RAM. 1.4GB HDD. Had a 'power-on' password on it, wouldn't boot without knowing or clearing it....had a hell of a time clearing that off...but I got it....just to find the OS hosed. Probably win95, I couldn't tell.



When is the last time anyone got to do this?!



Win98SE installing. I probably should have done NT4....but ohh well.



Now here's a first for my PC career. Ths is the first laptop I've ever seen where the charger/power supply was internal, not a brick. Just plug in mains voltage, and shazam!





Finished installing.....



The glorious Cirrus logic GPU in 800x600 @ 256 colors... ...but hey, the battery is good!!



In the bottom of the bag, I found an iphne with a smashed screen.......




That's it for today

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

^I used to have the PII version of that Compaq armada. Good laptop indeed... also used no brick. Dicked the screen like always... killed it and another nice PII/PIII laptop (Micron) that way. Shame. Ran XP like a dream... then again the Dixon core PII was the best PII ever made (due to on board cache like a Mendocino or Coppermine).

---

Not sure if it's a score, but an ex-coworker gave me a Vizio E60-E3 60" 4K TV for free. Backlights are toast (blue hue of doom, cracked LED filters), so may or may not be worth fixing. My 1st 4K ever though...

[BigTroll]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

probably a iphone 4 or 4s, also looks like you have a name badge maker in the truck bed, we threw one like that away this year.

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

probably a iphone 4 or 4s, also looks like you have a name badge maker in the truck bed, we threw one like that away this year.

nobody needs name badges anymore, when only criminals dont cover their faces!!!
this world is so fucked at this point!

some guy even got shot last week in india for going into a bank without a mask!!
how fucking backwards does that sound!!!!

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

She was at it again! 6x new-in-sealed-box Vantec 'Vortex' HDD coolers. Very well made. Bless her heart, she thought the "light colored" ones were beige, but in reality they were silver....I confess, it was hard to tell from the pic on the box......but 4x silver and 2x black. $15 on the sticker, and were on a 50% off table.



Yup, silver.



Since open in back, can obviously take a 3.5" of any interface.



Little 'squirrel cage' fan in there moves some decent air.



Not bad!

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Not sure if it's a score, but an ex-coworker gave me a Vizio E60-E3 60" 4K TV for free. Backlights are toast (blue hue of doom, cracked LED filters), so may or may not be worth fixing. My 1st 4K ever though...

LED tester came in, yup, backlights toast. At least it's a cheap (enough) repair, although a bit tedious. Will go to my parents if it works out (better fit for their usage than mine).

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Not sure if it's a score, but an ex-coworker gave me a Vizio E60-E3 60" 4K TV for free. Backlights are toast (blue hue of doom, cracked LED filters), so may or may not be worth fixing. My 1st 4K ever though...

I wonder if it's "fake 4K". How to tell? This concept only exists on LCDs, not OLEDs! LCDs with LED backlighting, has the "RGBW" pixel structure. "RGBW" is a red flag for LCD TVs! (regardless of backlight type)

While OTOH, normal for OLEDs.

Also, how to tell, is if it looks brighter on an LCD in "4K" mode than at 1080p.

"fake 4K" / "pseudo 4K" TVs, can only do 2K at max, most likely. Every certain pixel is skipped, making the fonts look wonky!

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I wonder if it's "fake 4K". How to tell? This concept only exists on LCDs, not OLEDs! LCDs with LED backlighting, has the "RGBW" pixel structure. "RGBW" is a red flag for LCD TVs! (regardless of backlight type)

While OTOH, normal for OLEDs.

Also, how to tell, is if it looks brighter on an LCD in "4K" mode than at 1080p.

"fake 4K" / "pseudo 4K" TVs, can only do 2K at max, most likely. Every certain pixel is skipped, making the fonts look wonky!

It's listed as a 2160... which would be a real 4K indeed. Nothing I've read has indicated otherwise.

Also apparently has a chromecast built into it (how they implemented it as a smart TV)... neat. One less thing I need to buy...

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

how does 4000 fit into 2160???

btw, japan now has 8k
probably to compensate for something else being smaller

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

how does 4000 fit into 2160???

btw, japan now has 8k
probably to compensate for something else being smaller

3840 x 2160...

Just like 1080 is 1920x1080... only with 4K marketing gurus figured out that "let's use the bigger number, not the smaller number since bigger is better!". 4K is literally 4 times the pixels as 1080 (double both dimensions).

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

so a fraud

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Today's freebie was a Macbook 13" (model MC516LL/A). It's a C2D @ 2.4GHz, 2gb RAM and a bad 250gb hitachi HDD.

I tossed 8gb (2x 4gb DDR3 modules) and a SSD in it. Even though it came with the original install disks, I don't really care for OSX....so what better than Mint! I've read any UEFI boot version of Windows (Win8 and newer) can also be installed on this....but I didn't try.



Box & goodies....





...and up & running!!



This post of course created from it....not sure what I'll do with this...it's not worth much....but it was fun to tinker with for a couple hours!