best cheap/free scores 1.1

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

will do a few reboots before POST'ing....easy mistake for the layman to make I suppose. I've acquired a few this way.

Like a UEFI-BIOS update on recent motherboards. (normal)




I got words that this also can happen as a symptom of bad RAM, when attempting to use XMP/AMP with bad RAM. Then it most likely will reboot to "2133", meaning RAM training failure.

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

some bioses reboot 3times if they have a bad checksum.

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

some bioses reboot 3times if they have a bad checksum.

My MSI MS-7850 motherboard will reset itself 5 or 10 times before resetting back to defaults in case of a bad overclock attempt.

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored a Gateway-2000 486 system from mid-June 1993. It's rocking an 80486-DX2/50 CPU and 8MB of RAM. It POSTs, but I haven't been able to hook up a keyboard to it because I didn't have an adapter. More to come.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored a Gateway-2000 486 system from mid-June 1993. It's rocking an 80486-DX2/50 CPU and 8MB of RAM. It POSTs, but I haven't been able to hook up a keyboard to it because I didn't have an adapter. More to come.

That would probably run a DX4 100MHz CPU which can be had for peanuts. Toss a little more RAM in it, and bam! Great NT4 or 9x box!

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Welp, didn't score much today... other than a 14 inch LCD to repair my (pretty beaten up unfortunately) Armada E500.

And sweet Jesus, never make the mistake to remove the polarizer on a 20+ years old LCD display. The vinegar smell it can emanate is literally worse than any smoker machine. Not even kidding.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Was given a Panasonic TC-P50X5 Plasma. Stand is missing....no idea if it works or not.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored an ASUS M50VC. Core 2 Duo P7350, Geforce 9300M GS (G98 core), 4GB worth of DDR2, 320GB HDD that's slower than molasses (though that's to be expected of Hitachi drives of 2008 vintage.). Runs Win 10 (no idea what edition) and has a 1440x900 screen, much to my surprise.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

some bioses reboot 3times if they have a bad checksum.

Do you mean CMOS checksum error? (and not the BIOS per se, the BIOS chip, would be a ROM checksum error)

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

That would probably run a DX4 100MHz CPU which can be had for peanuts. Toss a little more RAM in it, and bam! Great NT4 or 9x box!

Yep, but don't forget to get a heatsink, LOL. Mine was super hot without a heatsink! (back in 2000, IIRC)

That was when I also got 20 MB of RAM for it, it was a system from 1993, IIRC, came with a 486 SX 25 MHz. And the sucker (486 DX that I popped in the upgrade socket) was still hot, even when underclocked to 75 MHz, I think, because I was afraid of touching that jumper again, because it failed to boot with the jumper changed, when I only had the built-in 486 SX. I should have changed the jumper, after I popped in that 486 DX!

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Yep, but don't forget to get a heatsink, LOL. Mine was super hot without a heatsink! (back in 2000, IIRC)

That was when I also got 20 MB of RAM for it, it was a system from 1993, IIRC, came with a 486 SX 25 MHz. And the sucker (486 DX that I popped in the upgrade socket) was still hot, even when underclocked to 75 MHz, I think, because I was afraid of touching that jumper again, because it failed to boot with the jumper changed, when I only had the built-in 486 SX. I should have changed the jumper, after I popped in that 486 DX!

So far, I've clipped off the Varta poison pill of doom and verified that the motherboard itself seems to work reasonably properly. The onboard 80486-DX2/50 has a heatsink, but no fan. It's got an empty socket next to it, not sure what that's for. More than likely an upgrade socket. If it is an upgrade socket, I'll drop an 80486-DX4/100 or an Am5x86/133 in there. I also plan on maxing the RAM out at 64MB (or is it 128MB max?) and plopping NT4 on there.


Right now, it's effectively a sitting duck due to the multifunction I/O card being dead. (Corrosion damage from the VPPoD)
It's got an ATi VGA card with 1MB of RAM, a network adapter, and a Soundblaster of some description. From what I've heard, it ran Windows NT 4 on it, and I think that I've tracked down its original hard disk, though it is very much not in operating condition anymore. It only has 8MB of RAM (not sure if that was the original installed RAM, bet that NT4 was painful on that).
I should do a thread on this thing...

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Was given a Panasonic TC-P50X5 Plasma. Stand is missing....no idea if it works or not.

The 5v STBY is missing. Traced it down to a FAN6755 voltage controller....had to order one...but I'm confident it will fix it.... The next battle is some scratches on the screen. Most plasma's are bare glass on the front, this one has a laminated acrylic coating on it, which has a couple scratches on it.... I'll have to break out the 1200 & 2000 grit sandpaper and wetsand it, then polish it out with jewelers rouge; much like polishing out plastic headlight lenses. A 1080p plasma is well worth saving!

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Do you mean CMOS checksum error? (and not the BIOS per se, the BIOS chip, would be a ROM checksum error)

i mean the rom,
the syscon causes a reboot if it's unhappy with the flash

[lti]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The onboard 80486-DX2/50 has a heatsink, but no fan. It's got an empty socket next to it, not sure what that's for. More than likely an upgrade socket. If it is an upgrade socket, I'll drop an 80486-DX4/100 or an Am5x86/133 in there.

I've never seen a soldered 486DX2 before. That's an odd one. The soldered CPU was usually a 486SX, and some boards didn't have the option of L2 cache, even with an upgraded CPU (the worst offender being the only '90s computer brand I know of that has fanboys - I don't remember ever seeing a 486-based Compaq that had the option of installing L2 cache).

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Nice scores these days:

- Lenovo Yoga tablet with what I can only guess is an Atom processor - unfortunately screen is broken. Not sure if it's worth repairing, though it does run Android and not Windows.

- iPad A1337 tablet - works fine, has had no account installed (not that it does now anyways.)

- Medion Akoya P6612 - this is literally poor man's Acer 6930G - 9600M GS 256M, C2D P7350, 4GB DDR2, no idea what HDD it originally shipped with though. (both units I had to work on - one for me, one for a friend - had no HDDs. One had the HDD cage, but no HDD.)

-ASUS A75VJ-TY085H - one of the few Compal-made ASUS units. And boy, it packs a damn punch - i7-3610QM, GT635M 2GB, BD-ROM/DVD-RW drive. Has had no RAM, has no back cover, and had a slightly damaged screen. Replaced the screen, dropped in 8GB worth of Ballistix DDR3L RAM, a 500GB Seagate Thin from a scrapped HP G6-2238sl and it sprung to live. Haven't tested any game but it looks pretty promising (although the case does have a few small issues.)

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Given a mint condition Sony KDF-50E2000 'Grand WEGA' DLP 720P....didn't have the heart to break it down and junk it; I've honestly never seen one up close....of course the bulb is bad.... Original owners (elderly couple) and got the manual & remote.... Probably not worth the 30 bucks, but I'm going to grab a bulb for it.

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

be interesting to try an led or even a LEP module in it!!
(LEP module probably costs too much though)

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I did test fire the Sony DLP today just to see how bad it was.... It wasn't the worst I've seen, but the bulb was definitely degraded.... Hard to tell from the pics; the flash was off....but it was definitely a lot darker than it should have been....and a white raster seemed to have a blue-ish hue to it...







Again, probably a waste of time....but I just want to see what this looks like working correctly...I've never seen one up close.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Free WD10SPZX-24Z10T1 HDD out of some random Lenovo. Had missing screws on the PCB side. I used some from a dead 160GB Seagate, and it sprung back to life happily, with just 1 weak sector.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored an ASUS N73SV-V2G-TY577V. Needs a screen, a battery and a bottom HDD cover. What I'm not sure is if the bottom cover from the ASUS X73E/SM/SC/SV fits. They're almost the same machine (the N73SV and the X73SV) except for a few ports and slots. The bottom covers do seem to look the same, but I'd rather find out myself if they're actually compatible beforehand.