best cheap/free scores 1.1

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Toshiba did it in the core days, dont know if they still do.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I don't remember seeing Toshibas being locked down on WLAN/WWAN cards. At least not on my L505, L650 or A300. The L505 is a C2D T6600, the L650 is a i3-380M, one of the A300s is a P8600 (if I remember correctly) and the other is an Turion RM-72 I think. (it's a Griffin S1g2 machine, that much I can assure you of, the power rating is kind of a dead giveaway, they rated a S1G2 + HD3470 card to a blazing 6.3A instead of the standard 4.7A - so this machine theoretically eats a whopping 120W worth of power!)

Also Fujitsu didn't lock their WWAN cards AFAIK, at least not on the Esprimo Mobile D9510 I had (which was about the only machine I've seen that shipped with a Intel WiFi Link 5300 card.). I do also have a Pi 3620 and a 3710, but none include a WWAN slot, as far as I know, with my only WWAN enabled machine (and which even has a card for it) being a HP Probook 4525s (upgraded, Turion P540 w/ RS880M iGP, 2x2GB PC3-10600, 320GB HDD, Win 10 Enterprise LTSC. Might need a new battery tho.)

[RJARRRPCGP]

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

SOB! Reminds me of my Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB that I got in August, 2020, IIRC. Ironically, it never got used even once, until the RX 5600 XT became a fancy paper weight!

It works fine, but the junction/T-junction? temp pretty much hits the roof! Easily at 80C and often fluctuates between 80C and 79C. This is even when I changed the TIM, SMH!

That high temp is only with heavy graphics, but I don't remember that being the normal!

This made me goaded to going ahead with installing the Radeon RX 6600 XT sometime later, before a brand new Ubuntu Jammy installation.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

More scores today!

-ASUS P5B Rev 1.03G
-Sony Vaio VPCEB1M1E - i3 330M, HD5650. Needs a whole new display assembly, HDD, battery and DVD drive. Hope it works though, or it's getting gutted.
-eMachines G420 - depending on how the 9100M G inside it performs , it will either get a Turion upgrade or will be gutted in favor of a Acer 7730ZG.
-PS2 SCPH-75004b - needs a new laser ribbon, and possibly a new laser altogether

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Updates:

-ASUS P5B - works fine, so does the E6600 it came with. Not sure what can I really do with a E6600 if the board supports as far as E5xxx Xeons with slight mods, but considering I paid peanuts for it, I'm not even complaining.

-Sony Vaio EB1M1/E - needs a LVDS cable for the inverter and the front bezel. Technically I'd need the WiFi antennae too but I can rig them up using Toshiba sticky antennae (you wouldn't believe how lifesaving those can be!)

-eMachines G420 - gutted since it was missing the heatsink on the chipset. Palmrest was adapted onto my Acer 7730ZG at the expense of having to remove the subwoofer. Not pretty but I have other units with better woofers anyways.

-PS2 - pretty rusty. I replaced the DVD drive and it started reading all discs. Does need new switch for the disc drive - the one on the power button is gone.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored another Vaio, this time a VGN-NR11M.

Nice little machine (albeit running on a rather old X3100 IGP) but goodness gracious it's picky as all hell with RAM.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

More scores!

- Altec Lansing VS2221 - needs soldering on the main PCB that's enclosed in the woofer - the control port has some bad solder I suppose, since it moves around kinda.
- HP G6-1169ea - for parts - HM55 literally ripped off (Quanta R18, soldered i3-370M), its casing has now been transplanted into an A6-3420/HD7400 Quanta R23 mobo. Still need some missing parts but it looks much much better now.
- ASRock G31M-VS - untested, came with a E8400 and a Spire cooler that looks in a pretty nasty state.

[Danut Bajenaru]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Nice, i would do the same 😎

[desert-rat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

A guy gave me about 11 old PC s . So far about 6 work . They have windows xp on them. I was able to get Linux Mint to boot on one. I had it on an old hard drive.

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Another cartload of fun at the goodwill outlet.

In what weighed in as a $25 cartload, I scored:

• A Dell s2230mxf 21.5" 1080p slim monitor (works, found a compatible wall wart (12V 2A) nearby, some light scratches on screen but is otherwise good and sleek looking!)
• A crapload of Panduit and Hubbel wall/floor keystone plates, dummy insers, and CAT5e/CAT6 inserts
• A half-used (missing) stack of Verbatim BD-R's
• A very long (and tangled yet intact) Cat6 cable (100ft?)
• A 60GB CMS Firewire 400 external hard drive (labeled by the PO as having snow leopard OSX on it!)
• A lightly used pocket USB 2.0 Hub
• A barely used RJ45/RJ11 cable tester (actually RJ12 too... go figure!)
• An Amazon mini USB charge+ethernet adapter (good for bay trail tablet if you need wired access!)
• A 25ft 12 gauge 5-15 extension cord (HEAVY, but at $1.66 per lb still worth it!)

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Someone bought the property that once belonged to a TV repair guy that worked on them from the early 1970's through maybe early 2000's. I didn't know him, he was dead & gone before my time in this area....but the new owners of the property wanted his stuff gone...and so far, lots of sorted/organized components, vintage test gear, and an old P4 PC.....

Old Heathkit oscilloscope



CRT tester & tube tester



cards full of higher wattage resistor assortments.



Some really big diodes...



Some old bench VOM's....



Another color bar generator, CRT tester, and hefty degauss coil...



Hand-made trays of assorted 1/2w resistors





Isolation transformer and some other weird & unidentified something or other...



Variac! These are always good to have around. Good heavy old-world unit.



Yoke & flyback tester



Box of whatnots....transistors, IC's, and random components....havne't really looked through it all yet.



Lots of good usable things and lots of display pieces for the cabinets. Not bad!

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Someone bought the property that once belonged to a TV repair guy that worked on them from the early 1970's through maybe early 2000's. I didn't know him, he was dead & gone before my time in this area....but the new owners of the property wanted his stuff gone...and so far, lots of sorted/organized components, vintage test gear, and an old P4 PC.....

Old Heathkit oscilloscope

I have that model scope (Heathkit 1012). My former college professor (may he rest in peace) built it when he was 18 and gifted it to me when he lost his office space (along with a bunch of other wonderful things) as he knew I'd appreciate it. Been in my parents basement but the last time I fired it up, it seemed to work!

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

12 GB=That odd-for-anything-other-than-1366 size configuration.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

12 GB=That odd-for-anything-other-than-1366 size configuration.

I see a lot of modern laptops with this; an 8gb module and a 4gb module. I mean really, just give it 16gb! Always thought it was an asinine amount of ram for as you say; something that doesn't have 6x slots (LGA1366).

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

12 GB=That odd-for-anything-other-than-1366 size configuration.

I see a lot of modern laptops with this; an 8gb module and a 4gb module. I mean really, just give it 16gb! Always thought it was an asinine amount of ram for as you say; something that doesn't have 6x slots (LGA1366).

Allot of newer laptops (especially Lenovo, though they aren't the only ones doing this) are now coming with 4GB of ram soldered to the motherboard, and a single expansion slot (of course some laptops, mostly budget models and anything Apple, only have the soldered ram and no slot) so "odd" memory configurations are common (i.e. a 8GB stick in the slot + the 4GB integrated = 12GB total ram, or a 16GB stick in the slot + 4GB integrated = 20 GB total, and of course a 4GB stick in the slot + 4GB integrated is a "normal" 8GB configuration).

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Lenovo ThinkPad T440p, the last of the non-ultrabook T-series thinkpads.

Specs:
CPU: Intel I7-4810MQ
RAM: 16GB DDR3 1600
SSD: 500 GB Crucial MX500
Optical Drive: DVD-RW
GPU: Integrated Intel HD4600
Screen: 1366X768

Fairly well spec'ed, admittedly it would be nice if it had a dedicated GPU (Though the optional Nvidia GeForce GT730M was just barely an improvement over the integrated Intel graphics) and a better display (1920x1080 displays were optional on these).


(yes, that's a T450 touchpad, I can't stand the T440 ones so I swapped it out)

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I see a lot of modern laptops with this; an 8gb module and a 4gb module. I mean really, just give it 16gb! Always thought it was an asinine amount of ram for as you say; something that doesn't have 6x slots (LGA1366).

Because of the fact that 1366 is the only one with triple-channel and all the others dual-channel (or quad-channel with the newer ultra-high-end-segment platforms, notably Intel Xyyy, IIRC)

Of course, I didn't think of it being really odd, when my 486 PC got 20 MB of RAM in the very-early-2000s.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Because of the fact that 1366 is the only one with triple-channel...

I quite grasped that. Modern laptops with these weird numbers, not so much; especially the ones with no soldered-on RAM chips.

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Because of the fact that 1366 is the only one with triple-channel

I quite grasped that. Modern laptops with these weird numbers, not so much; especially the ones with no soldered-on RAM chips.

There's also the somewhat less common scenario of laptops with dual-channel memory but 4 ram slots (mostly workstations) where you could have an "odd" size like 12GB with dual-channel by putting a set of 4GB sticks in one set of slots and 2GB sticks in the other set.

For example the Lenovo ThinkPad W520 with 2 slots on the bottom and an additional 2 under the keyboard (though this particular example has 4 4GB sticks for 16GB):





The soldered ram + 1 stick or 2 mismatched sticks (mostly just a result of manufactures being cheap and most non-tech people not understanding the concept of dual-channel ram and just thinking bigger number = better) scenarios are much more common though.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

For example the Lenovo ThinkPad W520 with 2 slots on the bottom and an additional 2 under the keyboard (though this particular example has 4 4GB sticks for 16GB):

My precision m6400 is that way; 4 slots, 2 under the bottom cover 2 under the keyboard.