best cheap/free scores 1.1

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Is it the kind that has the motherboard flipped upside down? IIRC there are some Compaqs that are relatively standard ATX, but the mobo is flipped upside down - not BTX, just literally microATX but upside down. (from what I could gather it's the SR5xx series? I've seen photos of the SR1xxx series and they're absolutely standard microATX)

HP is famous for doing this during the same era.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

HP is famous for doing this during the same era.

Gateway was the worst for this.

Is it the kind that has the motherboard flipped upside down? IIRC there are some Compaqs that are relatively standard ATX, but the mobo is flipped upside down - not BTX, just literally microATX but upside down. (from what I could gather it's the SR5xx series? I've seen photos of the SR1xxx series and they're absolutely standard microATX)

No, this one is orientated correctly; its just a uATX.

I snapped a couple pics just for the heck of it.... Older Compaq/HP sturdy case.



Yup, normal uATX.



Bestec 250w PSU and a board full of bad KZG...what a disaster!

[Heihachi_73]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Regarding this:


I had the same "junk" HP case for the Pavilion 500a (1.2 GHz Socket 370 Tualeron, 256MB SDRAM, crippled to death by having an i810 chipset which meant no AGP).

While the PC was a pile of crap, the keyboard was awesome, just a shame is was still ye olde PS/2 despite being Christmas 2002 when I got it (manufactured in 2001).

Of course though, the PC still wiped the floor with the Pentium 166 it replaced, but got old very quickly, especially when I tried gaming on it (24-bit GDI/DirectDraw, 16-bit Direct3D/OpenGL, no 32-bit graphics support whatsoever so basically zero games supported it unless I manually dropped down to 16-bit to enjoy the color banding).

My PC didn't have that monitor though, it had a newer(?) style 17" gray HP monitor and tiny egg-shaped Polk Audio desktop speakers (not monitor-mounted).

I also saved another one of those HP cases from the e-waste ~15 years ago, but it never had the front part covering the CD drives, it was a Pavilion 8800 which was a Duron 850 rather than a Celeron/P3, and actually had AGP IIRC.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

OK, I have a question for you all "free scorer's"

There's a guy on my local Craigslist offering 2x Precision 390 workstations and 1x Precision 490 - all priced together for $20. Functional, but without HDDs. The 490 has 2x CPUs, IIRC.
Should I go for them?
These are big, heavy iron machines. I'm a bit reluctant, given how much space they take. But for $20, just the optical drives and the coolers would be worth more. The guy's not too far away (maybe 30 minute drive... without usual Northern Virginia traffic )

I bought a Precision T7400 in November that seems to work OK, but something is wrong with the PSU's 5V rail (too low.) Recapping it didn't rectify the issue, so I have to dig deeper. I wonder if I should grab these 3 WS just to get the PSU out of one of them to get the T7400 running?

IDK, what's your take on these big old workstations? Worth saving anymore or just a big pile of scrap metal at this point?

Bestec 250w PSU and a board full of bad KZG...what a disaster!

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1647536673

But which one is it? The ATX-250-12E or the ATX-250-12Z.
The latter are pretty good with an IC switch for the 5VSB... and after a recap, of course.
The former is the "motherboard killer" if you don't replace the critical cap or do everell's DM311 5VSB mod.

In regards to the motherboard: is that socket 939?
I'm guessing probably it is by the ATI Xpress 200 chipset. These are pretty durable from what I have seen. Unfortunately, they are just at this age now where they are not cool/old enough to be considered "retro", yet also not new enough to be useful for more modern tasks/computing.

This load really is just a lot of crap. TONS of power cords....probably about half my stash of them.

Yeah, seems like there is no shortage of power cords in this world.
Well, I do remember some (10) years ago when I just barely had enough power cords to connect my main PC and a 2nd PC, and then a spare cord for testing. If I needed another, I had to unplug one of my PCs.

Then I did a few small box pickups on CL from IT cleanups... and now I have more than enough power cords to set up a mini cyber-cafe (which might happen someday, actually. - at least for my nephews.)

The only one I really contemplated not scrapping was the big Samsung in the right front corner.....but it just had too many things wrong with it. I got it to print, but the drum was wonky and some motor in it was making a horrendous racket and bogging it down....and it wasn't jamming....and the final nail was being black only. If it were color, I'd have been a little more motivated....but its page count was 600k+....it was all done.

Wow, 600K+... yeah, it's lived past EOL, as far as anyone is concerned.
If a motor was making a racket, there's probably nothing you could do about it either, other than replacing the motor in question. I've had this happen on an old toy RC car when I was a kid - drove it almost every day after school for about 1-2 hours... and after 2 years, the sleeve bearing on the drive motor just started seizing up. No amount of oil would keep it running good.

I did swipe about half a ream of paper out of it....that's one thing printer dropoffs are good for; they're almost guaranteed to be full of paper!!

Well, if you print a lot, that could be useful.
After college ended for me, my printers have been sitting mostly idle. They get used maybe a few times a year max - tax season being probably the "most demanding". LOL.

Those are analog satellite receivers from the 70's and 80's.

Ha, I wouldn't have guessed that.
Sure fooled me into thinking it was some kind of "cheap" 80's audio gear.
Could probably house a modern amp in one of these.

I'll keep my eyes peeled, I get inkers all the time....I usually toss them directly into the gaylord....no passing go, no collecting anythiing....except me collecting any paper that might be in it. I keep the power bricks as well....but the HP ones are always really strange voltages; like 31v....wtf....

Thanks, appreciate it!

There's really nothing much worthwhile inside those printers anyways. Just a heap of ABS plastic. Though on that note, if you do make a plastic shredder, I do wonder if that can be turned into a worthwhile business - shred ABS plastic and smelt into pallets / blocks or sell as is. With the 3D printer market, you'd think it would be... but who knows.

I know someone that had some Fisher speakers from probably the 70's that are just completely trashed. Been in a barn, exposed to moisture & critters. Paper cones gone, wood is all delaminated.... I'd have thrown them in a brush fire if it were me. He put them on FB marketplace, some bozo gave him $300 for them. No joke! They were complete trash, he offered them to me for free. The only things that looks like they survived were the pot metal 'fisher' emblem on what was left of the grille cloth and the speaker connector terminal block on the back. I never understood the 'audiophool' mentality.

Yeah, I scraped a pair of Genesis Physics II speakers some years back for the same issue: cabinets were rotten to hell and stunk terribly of mold. Someone had tried to repaint them with a roller & latex paint, making them look even more horrible. The original woofers were burned and replaced (judging by the burn marks / fire marks inside one of the cabinets ) Surprisingly, the replacement woofers appeared to be of decent quality, so I saved those. The passive radiators were re-foamed terribly... but I saved those too. Both of these just needed a ton of cleaning and soaking with chlorine-soaked wipes to "soften-down" the mold smell (this stuff really gets into everything - even metal!) The inverted-dome tweeters were also goners (though I saved them as well, as I know I can get new VC for them.) And lastly, I also saved the terminal blocks + filters. So essentially, I got rid of the cabinets and grilles only... even though the cabinets were still holding up well and pretty solid.

The box full I got are all 3-pin. I'm a nice kid, I share my toys....just let me know if you want a few.

Thanks, I think (off top of my head) that I'm good for now. But will do if I do.

I've mothballed all of my computer "project" builds for the winter, so once the weather warms up and I start taking things out of storage to work on them, I'll probably resume work on them again.

A couple HP's dropped off...from one end of the spectrum to the other.

First is a 4th gen i3-4170 @ 3.7GHz with 8gb RAM. The guy said he went to turn it on one day, and it just never came back on. When I checked it, indeed; it wouldn't POST....no beeps, no nothing. I did the basic first, pulled CPU & RAM and cleaned contacts....and bam! Away it went! HDD is missing....but seeing the screw scars on the 3.5" mount not the 2.5" mount, the guy did me a favor by getting rid of the slow spinner in it.

Anyway...

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1647399637

Oh, I know all of these all too well.
Used to refurbish and re-refurbish them in Microcenter all the time. Nothing wrong with them really... but the slow spinner HDDs combined with Windows 10 is why they'd get bought by the customer, tested, and returned in a few weeks... essentially keeping me in an endless cycle of cleaning and "refurbishing" these for re-sale.

Well, it was those and similar equivalent Dells.

The second HP is a skt370 celeron. Complete system with KB, MS, and monitor WITH it's side-mounted speakers! The speakers are usually long gone 20+yrs later....

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1647399637

There's another guy on my local CL selling just the side speakers (Polk Audio) for $10. In beige. If you ever find an old system that needs these for completeness, let me know. I can grab them and send them your way. They've been posted and re-posted for many months now.

The problem with this one is the lame Asus OEM'd board in it....no AGP (has blank, but no slot)....this complete setup would make a neat retro gamer except the junk board....but I have something in mind... Hold my beer!!

*sigh* OEM boards with missing AGP slots.
Yeah, I have no remorse whatsoever if you gutted that board and sent it to e-heaven. I still have the original in my HP Pavilion 8756c, and it's probably the dumbest board ever - no AGP, can't take more than 384 MB of RAM without turning off ACPI in BIOS (no idea why ), and "forced" Intel i810 chipset graphics with half a meg of VRAM. Can't go past ATA Mode 2 (33 MB/s) on the HDD either. Horrendous!!! Unreliable board too, despite having good caps - can't tell you how many times it's decided to go on a boot-loop until reseating parts a few times.

Funny enough, those "short" HP cases can actually fit a full-sized ATX motherboard inside. They may not look like being capable of it, but at least with my Pavilion 8756c, the PSU is on the side of the case and not on top. So when I opened it somewhat recently to test some hardware on it, I was surprised that it can take a full ATX mobo. Could definitely make for an interesting "sleeper"... except yours is probably better fit for that than mine. On mine, the plastic in front of the CD drives is missing, making for a very ugly case.

While the PC was a pile of crap, the keyboard was awesome, just a shame is was still ye olde PS/2 despite being Christmas 2002 when I got it (manufactured in 2001).

Yeah, seems most HPs of that time did actually come with really good KBs.
I still don't mind PS/2, even today.
You know there are cheap USB-->2x PS/2 converters. Not that I'd overly-recommend them, as they tend to drop KB input if you hold 2 keys at once for more than 2 seconds (no idea why)... hence, no good for any kind of gaming or usage where you have to press more than 1 key continuously.

Of course though, the PC still wiped the floor with the Pentium 166 it replaced, but got old very quickly, especially when I tried gaming on it (24-bit GDI/DirectDraw, 16-bit Direct3D/OpenGL, no 32-bit graphics support whatsoever so basically zero games supported it unless I manually dropped down to 16-bit to enjoy the color banding).

Yup, been there done that with mine.
The most "advanced" 3D game I could get to run was Counter-Strike 1.6 with Steam. This was a little over 12 years ago, when Steam could still somehow manage to run on a system with Windows XP SP2 and less than 512 MB of RAM. But anyways, Steam wasn't the problem, once it got running. It was the lack of any 3D modes, like you described. I found that running CS 1.6 on "Software Render" (i.e. 3D render through CPU without DirectX or OpenGL) at least gave me somewhat "playable" FPS (if 15-20 FPS @ 640x480 windowed mode can be considered playable.) But hey, better than 4-5 FPS with Direct3D/DirectX. And OpenGL - forget it!
Surprisingly, Need For Speed High Stakes ran pretty well with software rendering too @ 512xWhatever.

*sigh* that moment when you realize your CPU gives you better 3D performance than the onboard "GPU"

I only tried gaming on that PC as a meme, though. I knew it would suck and I had a "better" system. But just wanted to see if it was even possible. Well, it kinda, sorta, maybe... is?
FWIW, DXBall ran well on it.

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Could have sworn I posted earlier this week but I guess I didn't.

From this week:

-$35: Sharp MX-C310W Color Laser AIO. Needs Magenta toner. Otherwise seems to be a good unit. Not sure how it stacks up against my HP LaserJet Pro 200 Color MFP; I'll likely rehome this one. But too cheap to let go, especially considering the build quality.

-$6: ViewSonic VG2021M 20" 1400x1050 LCD. Yes, this is one of those super rare large size high definition 4:3 resolution LCDs. Powered up no problem; too lazy to test the VGA and DVI inputs. Don't have a use, but as rare as these are, I figure I or someone I know may need it. (Yes, 9 years ago there was a BOLO out on these, but that was for 22"+ units... why do I remember such things?)

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

IDK, what's your take on these big old workstations? Worth saving anymore or just a big pile of scrap metal at this point?

Are you out of your mind?! Grab 'em!

But which one is it? The ATX-250-12E or the ATX-250-12Z.
The latter are pretty good with an IC switch for the 5VSB... and after a recap, of course.
The former is the "motherboard killer" if you don't replace the critical cap or do everell's DM311 5VSB mod.

I'll have to look, I don't remember.

Wow, 600K+... yeah, it's lived past EOL, as far as anyone is concerned.
If a motor was making a racket, there's probably nothing you could do about it either, other than replacing the motor in question. I've had this happen on an old toy RC car when I was a kid - drove it almost every day after school for about 1-2 hours... and after 2 years, the sleeve bearing on the drive motor just started seizing up. No amount of oil would keep it running good.

I serviced a Lexmark MS811DN not long ago, page count was 797,XXX! ...and still printed as good as the day it was born...it belongs to a pharmacy, they apparently print a lot! It had gone through a few drum assemblies. It was printing streaky when I got it. It really just needed a good cleaning and electrical contacts swabbed.

Well, if you print a lot, that could be useful.
After college ended for me, my printers have been sitting mostly idle. They get used maybe a few times a year max - tax season being probably the "most demanding". LOL.

I do print a decent amount....invoices, shipping labels; lots of stuff like that.

I've mothballed all of my computer "project" builds for the winter, so once the weather warms up and I start taking things out of storage to work on them, I'll probably resume work on them again.

There better be some build threads!!

Oh, I know all of these all too well.
Used to refurbish and re-refurbish them in Microcenter all the time. Nothing wrong with them really... but the slow spinner HDDs combined with Windows 10 is why they'd get bought by the customer, tested, and returned in a few weeks... essentially keeping me in an endless cycle of cleaning and "refurbishing" these for re-sale.

The #1 best upgrade for any PC or laptop today is a SSD. Win7 will do ok on a decent 7200RPM spinner, but 10 is agonizing on anything but a SSD. I'm glad when people snatch drives out of computers before they bring them to me, I doubt they're worth the electricity it takes to run my disk station to wipe it.

*sigh* OEM boards with missing AGP slots.
Yeah, I have no remorse whatsoever if you gutted that board and sent it to e-heaven.

I did just that....I didn't think you'd be too upset with me....but I didn't junk the rest of it.... Get a load of this silly thing!

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...58#post1121158

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

But which one is it? The ATX-250-12E or the ATX-250-12Z.
The latter are pretty good with an IC switch for the 5VSB... and after a recap, of course.
The former is the "motherboard killer" if you don't replace the critical cap or do everell's DM311 5VSB mod.

Its the ATX-250-12Z, not the "E". I remember seeing a lot of boards that the "E" version roasted. Thanks for the clarification; I always just lumped all the 250W bestec's in as the junkers....I probably scrapped a lot of good ones.

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Not sure if this counts, but here goes:

Just won an eBay auction (sniped) for a Lenovo T460s. $125 shipped. Has an i5-6300u and no SSD or power cord. (I have the latter with the T440s it's replacing; see below of the plans for the former).

So, I kinda ruined the deal by buying (or deciding to buy) some upgrades:

-$48: 16GB DDR4-2400 module (the CPU only runs at a 2133 speed), to max out the RAM at 20GB (the stock 8GB ain't gonna cut it, per past experience
-$?? (depends on if a deal I found is actually what they describe, not what the stock image is, asked seller to clarify) 500GB Hynix Gold P31 NVME ssd; per a view of T460s motherboards on google images, unlike the other T460 variants, the T460s will accept a modern 4x PCIe SSD like that!).

Why? Because My t440s has a bad headphone jack and for the gaming I do on it, it wasn't quite cutting the mustard. And my church is needing a "newish" laptop/AIO for the tithe counters (to replace the old iMac G5 they gave up on years ago)... they won't need a working headphone jack for that, so it's a win-win. Sure, I could have given them my even older Latitude E6430 I don't even use anymore, but that one's "special". This one, aside from a WD blue SSD, a 1080 screen, and a meh dual-core haswell i7, isn't special. Not to mention none of four batteries for it are in particularly good shape.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

16-bit Direct3D/OpenGL, no 32-bit graphics support whatsoever so basically zero games supported it unless I manually dropped down to 16-bit

Same with i815. Also the same with Voodoo 3, at least for Direct3D.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Are you out of your mind?! Grab 'em!

Thanks for the reply / confirmation.

Yeah, I figured they were a good deal, even just for the DVD drives and PSU in them (if nothing else). I just didn't want to be hoarding in on stuff that someone else might really need (or more so than I do, as I tend to be pretty lame about selling any computers I get.) Looking at the post, it's been up for about 20 days now, so perhaps no one really wants them after all? Either that, or they were sold and the post was not taken down / updated. I suppose I'll send the guy a message and see what happens. Really hoping someone bought them, though... because otherwise I've seen people junk stuff when they get tired of trying to sell something.

What worries me more is where I'm going to put them.
mATX cases I can always clear enough space for to hide/stash the occasional arrival. But these are a bit... BIG.

There better be some build threads!!

Oh, there will be... -some day-. I'm just very slow. There are pictures of machines / WIP PCs that I've been meaning to post for 2-3 years now.

The #1 best upgrade for any PC or laptop today is a SSD.

Absolutely concur.
Though when it comes to reliability / data backup, I still like the older <500 GB HDDs.

Win7 will do ok on a decent 7200RPM spinner, but 10 is agonizing on anything but a SSD.

You know, Windows 10 isn't actually too terrible on a rust-spinner... but it depends on a lot of things, of course.

I put a "test" install on a 250 GB 2.5" 7k2 RPM server SATA HDD (about 100 MB/s read/write), and it boots rather quickly - about as good as my fastest Windows 7 machines even. Of course, this is on older hardware with older drivers, so that might be part of the reason why. Also, while I was installing Windows 10 on this test system, it was indeed painfully slow... and doing the updates afterwards even slower (I did the install with a Win10 2017 version, which was, as one might imagine, quite behind on updates.) But after about 8-10 restarts/reboots/fresh boots, I guess Win10 "learned" what it needs to preload to make the system start faster. So it's OK now. Bummer it's only a test install with no license (only 30 day trial, IIRC), so I'll have to wipe it eventually. But that's OK - it's Windows 10. And I decided to try the Home versions because... figured less features = less stuff to load. Now that was pretty dumb, as Win10 Home does not support dual processor configs. It does see both my CPUs in Device Manager, but refuses to work with the 2nd - purely a software limitation. I didn't know this about Win 10 Home. Oh well , live and learn.

I'm glad when people snatch drives out of computers before they bring them to me, I doubt they're worth the electricity it takes to run my disk station to wipe it.

LOL, I'm not.
Although I've accumulated some spare HDDs, I think if I was to build out every piece of hardware that I have on hand, I'd run out pretty quickly.
At least MicroCenter is conveniently close (5 minute drive / 25 minute walk ). Thus, if I do get a worthwhile PC, I can at least set it up with the cheapest 128 GB Inland SSD (usually around $20) and have a decent running system in no time. But for most of the junky builds I get, it's not really worth getting an SSD for them.

I did just that....I didn't think you'd be too upset with me...

The death of an HP OEM board never makes me sad. That's not to mean I am an HP-hater... but I always find their boards too locked down and stripped of features to care about them too much. Dell is technically the same, but somehow, most of their boards don't feel as junky - at least the older stuff. The one thing I really dislike about Dell, however, is that they ditched PS/2 very early on - since the socket 775 era, actually... and I have a good amount of decent PS/2 KBs and mice. I'll go even as far as making brackets or populating back the PS/2 ports on such boards (if/when I get enough spare PS/2 ports - always short on these, LOL.)

Its the ATX-250-12Z, not the "E". I remember seeing a lot of boards that the "E" version roasted. Thanks for the clarification; I always just lumped all the 250W bestec's in as the junkers....I probably scrapped a lot of good ones.

Can't blame you. A lot of them (and including the 300W versions) occasionally had too much tan (conductive) glue to remove - PITA if splurged everywhere. Otherwise, I do like them - good, reliable PSUs overall, especially after a recap.

[eccerr0r]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I absolutely hate it when people physically destroy hard drives for privacy concerns ... makes me really mad. The only reason for physically destroying hard drives is if the hard drive is already nonfunctional, IMHO.

I could use a few more hard drives or other bootable medium. Just paid $60 for a new 500G SSD for a build *sigh* ... (at least I had to burn a gift certificate...)

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Not sure if this counts, but here goes:

Just won an eBay auction (sniped) for a Lenovo T460s. $125 shipped. Has an i5-6300u and no SSD or power cord. (I have the latter with the T440s it's replacing; see below of the plans for the former).

So, I kinda ruined the deal by buying (or deciding to buy) some upgrades:

-$48: 16GB DDR4-2400 module (the CPU only runs at a 2133 speed), to max out the RAM at 20GB (the stock 8GB ain't gonna cut it, per past experience
-$?? (depends on if a deal I found is actually what they describe, not what the stock image is, asked seller to clarify) 500GB Hynix Gold P31 NVME ssd; per a view of T460s motherboards on google images, unlike the other T460 variants, the T460s will accept a modern 4x PCIe SSD like that!).

Why? Because My t440s has a bad headphone jack and for the gaming I do on it, it wasn't quite cutting the mustard. And my church is needing a "newish" laptop/AIO for the tithe counters (to replace the old iMac G5 they gave up on years ago)... they won't need a working headphone jack for that, so it's a win-win. Sure, I could have given them my even older Latitude E6430 I don't even use anymore, but that one's "special". This one, aside from a WD blue SSD, a 1080 screen, and a meh dual-core haswell i7, isn't special. Not to mention none of four batteries for it are in particularly good shape.

Laptop came in. Good news: it runs well... and is in pretty good shape (one scuffed case corner, a few light lid scratches, otherwise purdy). None of the screen issues mentioned in the listing are present either. Bad news is the rear (hinge-side) battery is puffy and I had to yank it... . Posting from it using an old SSD (with an arch install) and a USB 3 SATA adapter. The real SSD won't be in until Friday... so this will do for continued testing.

All in all, good deal?

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

^

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Found an Open Box OEM battery for $42 shipped... Easy peasy. Yes I made sure it's the right one (this laptop has two internal batteries). Sucks that I had to spend more dough, but at least I'll have a brand spanking new battery. The other battery has 23% wear... not terrible, but clearly this laptop saw some use (or was left on the charger a bunch).

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Bad news is the rear (hinge-side) battery is puffy and I had to yank it... .

Note: the 6-cell "extended" batteries for these use 18650 cells, while the "standard" 3-cell packs are li-po so aside from the capacity benefit the "extended" batteries (68+) are much more reliable/durable and are the way to go if/when you replace the battery.

Scratch that, I missed it was an "s" suffix model with the 2 internal batteries, that does hold true for anyone who gets a "regular" (non-"s") T440-T460 though.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Oh, there will be... -some day-. I'm just very slow. There are pictures of machines / WIP PCs that I've been meaning to post for 2-3 years now.

Looking forward to it....we need more build threads here, I'm sure everyone is tired of seeing mine!!

Absolutely concur.
Though when it comes to reliability / data backup, I still like the older <500 GB HDDs.

Yup. I still keep my backups on spinners that are powered on long enough to pull the backup and then returned to their safe place.

LOL, I'm not.
Although I've accumulated some spare HDDs, I think if I was to build out every piece of hardware that I have on hand, I'd run out pretty quickly.
At least MicroCenter is conveniently close (5 minute drive / 25 minute walk ). Thus, if I do get a worthwhile PC, I can at least set it up with the cheapest 128 GB Inland SSD (usually around $20) and have a decent running system in no time. But for most of the junky builds I get, it's not really worth getting an SSD for them.

Please let me know if you need any. I've got gazillions of 160gb ~ 500gb....they need homes!

Can't blame you. A lot of them (and including the 300W versions) occasionally had too much tan (conductive) glue to remove - PITA if splurged everywhere. Otherwise, I do like them - good, reliable PSUs overall, especially after a recap.

I have a 300W 'E' version that I recapped inadvertently.....wasted good caps.

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I have a 300W 'E' version that I recapped inadvertently.....wasted good caps.

Admittedly as long as you replaced the "killer cap" with a quality one (I'm sure you did), and it isn't having any conductive glue issues, they really aren't any worse than the dozens of other PSUs from that era with a standby circuit that had a "killer" cap. Their ubiquity in OEM systems of the era (especially E-Machines) and the poor-quality original caps (usually Jamicon I believe) virtually guaranteed to fail within 3-5 years earned them the reputation as "motherboard killers".

[eccerr0r]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I need more cheap/free scores...

That motherboard I had an ATX plate printed in plastic didn't even come with the i/o shield when new. So, no build photos for it... It didn't come with an I/O shield because it's a development platform board for ETX boards.

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Laptop came in. Good news: it runs well... and is in pretty good shape (one scuffed case corner, a few light lid scratches, otherwise purdy). None of the screen issues mentioned in the listing are present either. Bad news is the rear (hinge-side) battery is puffy and I had to yank it... . Posting from it using an old SSD (with an arch install) and a USB 3 SATA adapter. The real SSD won't be in until Friday... so this will do for continued testing.

All in all, good deal?

SSD and RAM are in. So far, so good.

Man the SSD is a speed demon.

Edit- Installed Win10. Here's a novabench.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Not a bad week so far.... got a HP minitower, 7th gen i5 w/ 16gb RAM and a 2tb spinner. Motherboard is bad, found a replacement for $40 shipped so I ordered it. I'll pull the spinner. The motherboard has a M.2 PCIe slot, which I'll use instead; I have a 512gb M.2 I harvested from a junk laptop not long ago, the drive is good.



Samsung 24" 16:9 1080 monitor....the flash made it look horrible, but its actually in very good shape.



Some Asus barebones system with a core2duo in it, 4gb RAM....working.





One of the better picks is this HP Z230 Tower workstation. It's a 4th Gen I7 @ 3.4GHz and 16gb RAM. HDD's were missing but all caddies there....so no biggie.







I didn't take a pic, but there was an AZIO clicky/mechanical backlit keyboard as well as a few otehr older systems that really aren't worth mentioning....some old lenovo FM2 A10 system (bad motherboard) and an emachine pentium 4 that works but otherwise useless....