best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Been a while since I posted here.

Anyway that's a Coolermaster ATCS 200 Case.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Cool...=1089&biw=1920

All aluminum IIRC. Actually wanted one back in the day but it was just so expensive.

Yea, I've got a build for it as well....just one of those projects I've collected but haven't completed yet.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored this PC today:

- Gigabyte 965P-DS4 mobo (ain't a P35-DS4 as I would have wanted, but I guess this will work too.)
- 4x512MB DDR2 (lmao)
- Core 2 Duo E4600
- Geforce 7300LE, OEM'd by Winfast for Fujitsu Siemens (figured it was Winfast/Foxconn from their LR PCB number)
- LC-Power LC-420H-12 420W PSU (made by Huntkey, fron what I could find. 300W max as it's pretty gutless unfortunately - it does have room for improvements so that's quite the big plus. Also, I think it uses ViPER22A for the 5VSB so yay)
- no HDDs
- white bezel Samsung SH-182D DVDRW (rare - unfortunately broken as it does not read any kind of disc, typical failure for those ole 182Ds.)
- MS-Tech white case that looks pretty gorgeous and simple

Will probably run it through a lot of upgrades - I'd like to swap in a better Radeon in it (thinking of a HD6670, or a 7850 if I can source a slightly better PSU), add a 771 Xeon, two 250GB WDs (a blue and an OG Caviar SE) and up the RAM sticks if I can.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Cheap score = X9DAi motherboard w/ 64gb RAM in it and a single E5-1660 v2 in it. Up'd the CPU's to E5-2667 V2's, Octa-cores @ 3.3GHz. The only faster CPU this could take was the E5-2687W V2 @ 3.4GHz, but a pair of them is $200. I got the 2667's for $38 shipped for the pair. 100MHz speed increase hardly seems worth $160. Same core/core count, cache size, and QPI speed. These seemed the best 'middle ground' for cores versus clock speeds... Just a fun workstation tinkering.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Gigabyte 965P-DS4 mobo (ain't a P35-DS4 as I would have wanted, but I guess this will work too.)

not much difference between the 965p and p35 boards. just extra 2 more usb ports and they have more of the usb ports on the rear io panel instead. both all also limited to 8gb of ram max and pci-e v1.1. p45 chipset supports up to 16gb of ram and pci-e v2. p35 just has a cooler tdp of 16w compared to the 19w of the p965 chipset.

also which revision of the 965p-ds4 do u have? its on the top left hand corner of the board. rev 1, rev 2 or rev 3.3? i think yours is the rev 1 judging by the straight up ide connector. rev 2 and rev 3.3 have a right angled ide connector. i have the rev 3.3 of the 965p-ds3. the all polymer cap design works great for making it last as long as possible. rev 3.3 is also better optimised for quad-core cpus with better higher power mosfets.

Will probably run it through a lot of upgrades - I'd like to swap in a better Radeon in it (thinking of a HD6670, or a 7850 if I can source a slightly better PSU), add a 771 Xeon, two 250GB WDs (a blue and an OG Caviar SE) and up the RAM sticks if I can.

psu probably needs an upgrade as the 12v rail only has 15a which is too little to run a 12v heavy system with cpu and gpu upgrades like those. certainly up the ram to 8gb if u wanna run a 64-bit os or 4gb if u wanna run a 32-bit os.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Yes, it's indeed a rev 1 board.

Most of the GB boards I have had were Rev 1.0s (and not just the 965P) except for a few AMD mainboards which were rev 3 or 3.1. (e.g M68MT-S2)

Is it true that the 1.0 would hinder a quad Xeon? I was aiming for a 5450 or 5470 for that matter.

As for the PSU... I'll check up my dad's scrap stash to hopefully check if I can come up with some ghetto rigging action to get the Huntkey enough to handle a quad (I was thinking 2x16A on 12v - the 15A rating is honest as it is now - there's a 16A 200v part on the 12v rail.).

The PSU does have PPFC (haven't checked if fake but I doubt it.).

For the RAM and GPU, I'll look for a while as it seems both the pair of 512 sticks and the GPU came out of a Fujitsu Siemens unit. (or at least the GPU does... I suspect the ram being Lenovo but didn't paid enough attention to check.) My dad has a 6670 (or 6570, not really sure which) that I could swap for a 3450 I have (he uses Linux so no big problem) that I could drop onto this machine. It needs a helluva lot of cleaning though. That, or I could find a cheap 5770 though not sure how useful it might be.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

More scores:

- ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 w/ CM212 EVO, missing two bolts for the retention system
- ASUS B85M-E - missing retention mechanism, not sure if 12v is shorted or 1150 ASUS boards won't turn on without CPU installed. (though I think it's just that, had a 1155 that would appear shorted until I installed a CPU in the socket o_O it then powered on and ran fine)
- Raidmax RX-500 (KY-600ATX) - classic Sun Pro goodness, looks much sturdier than the LC Power but the fuse is a total joke

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Is it true that the 1.0 would hinder a quad Xeon? I was aiming for a 5450 or 5470 for that matter.

not really. what i said only applies to the ds3 model which is a middle-end part compared to yours, the ds4, which is a mid-high end part. u can see the differences between the revisions of the two models at these two links:

GA-965P-DS3 (rev. 1.0)
GA-965P-DS4 (rev. 1.0)

rev 1 of the ds3 only had 3 power phases and 5 cpu vrm output caps; rev 2 and 3.3 both have 6 power phases and 9 cpu vrm output caps. while all 3 revisions of the ds4 all have 6 power phases with 10 cpu vrm output caps and an 8-pin eps cpu power connector for added power to the cpu compared to the ds3 which only has a 4 pin atx 12v connector. so power wise, it wont cripple a quad.

but unfortunately, after typing all that, i looked up the cpu support for rev 1 of the 965p-ds4 and it looks like it wont support ANY fsb 1333 cpu *at all*. rev 2 supports all the 1333 fsb conroes and some c0 stepping penryns (core 2 45nm) but not e0 stepping; rev 3.3 supports all except the fsb 1600 qx9770.

so sorry about all that killjoy, it looks like it might not work... but if u are adventurous. u can try adding the microcode for the xeons into the bios and see if it will boot and stress test okay. i think gigabyte just didnt bother to update the microcode in the bios for the older boards? it could also be that the earlier stepping of the p965 chipset didnt overclock well. i've read reviews of the early versions of the p965 boards. the reviewers complained it didnt overclock well past 370-380 mhz fsb, so running it at rock solid 100% stable at 333 mhz might be sketchy.

so u can give it a try anyway, if u already have the xeon 5450 or 5470 cpus on hand. if u have to buy them, its another matter because the x5470 is quite expensive at US$40-50 a plop. the e5450 is cheaper at around 15-20 bucks.

The PSU does have PPFC (haven't checked if fake but I doubt it.)

thats the only reason and redeeming quality of it to ever keep a junk/lousy psu. ppfc doesnt cook and slowly kill the primary caps like apfc does if the primary cap isnt 450v rated, so ppfc is less prone to failure and worth keeping. the 12v rectifier does indeed need an upgrading to a more beefy part, if u wanna stuff a high speed quad in there.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

not really. what i said only applies to the ds3 model which is a middle-end part compared to yours, the ds4, which is a mid-high end part. u can see the differences between the revisions of the two models at these two links:

GA-965P-DS3 (rev. 1.0)
GA-965P-DS4 (rev. 1.0)

rev 1 of the ds3 only had 3 power phases and 5 cpu vrm output caps; rev 2 and 3.3 both have 6 power phases and 9 cpu vrm output caps. while all 3 revisions of the ds4 all have 6 power phases with 10 cpu vrm output caps and an 8-pin eps cpu power connector for added power to the cpu compared to the ds3 which only has a 4 pin atx 12v connector. so power wise, it wont cripple a quad.

but unfortunately, after typing all that, i looked up the cpu support for rev 1 of the 965p-ds4 and it looks like it wont support ANY fsb 1333 cpu *at all*. rev 2 supports all the 1333 fsb conroes and some c0 stepping penryns (core 2 45nm) but not e0 stepping; rev 3.3 supports all except the fsb 1600 qx9770.

so sorry about all that killjoy, it looks like it might not work... but if u are adventurous. u can try adding the microcode for the xeons into the bios and see if it will boot and stress test okay. i think gigabyte just didnt bother to update the microcode in the bios for the older boards? it could also be that the earlier stepping of the p965 chipset didnt overclock well. i've read reviews of the early versions of the p965 boards. the reviewers complained it didnt overclock well past 370-380 mhz fsb, so running it at rock solid 100% stable at 333 mhz might be sketchy.

so u can give it a try anyway, if u already have the xeon 5450 or 5470 cpus on hand. if u have to buy them, its another matter because the x5470 is quite expensive at US$40-50 a plop. the e5450 is cheaper at around 15-20 bucks.

thats the only reason and redeeming quality of it to ever keep a junk/lousy psu. ppfc doesnt cook and slowly kill the primary caps like apfc does if the primary cap isnt 450v rated, so ppfc is less prone to failure and worth keeping. the 12v rectifier does indeed need an upgrading to a more beefy part, if u wanna stuff a high speed quad in there.

Kinda strange for the 5450 to not work... I remember testing a E7600 in a ASUS P5B and it did POST. Unfortunately the E7600 itself was bugged, as the internal CPU thermistor showed 100*C no matter what.

On second thought - I did check up and it seems it CAN do 1333. Not officially, but it'll do it. (there's a turkish man who got it to work on Youtube, and he did assure me it will run fine on the DS4)

Kinda funny - Gigabyte didn't list any 1333 for the DS4, but ASUS' P5B (which is 965P as well) lists 1333 just fine, with a note saying that a BIOS update would be in order. I do have to flash a Xeon microcoded BIOS to get the Xeon to work anyways so...

And to top it all - Gigabyte used to do cheap tricks like making a mobo revision compatible with newer CPUs but not the others - I had this happen with a 880GM-UD2H where FX support wasn't available until 1.5, but I had rev 1.0. The fix? I just swapped in two 16Mbit flash chips I harvested from some dead laptop mobos, flashed them both with the FA bios version from 1.5 and bang, had fully working FX support. Don't really see why it wouldn't be the same case with this 965P-DS4, unless there's anything else that would physically hinder 1333FSB chips from running (like VRMs or such)

As for the PSU - not really junk, but just undersized - considering it had to power a E4600, a 7300LE, a DVD-RW and a HDD though, I'm not really surprised - at best I'd guesstimate a 180W max load with all that.

Its redeeming qualities wouldn't only be the PFC. It has a DM311 for 5vSB, and the transformers do appear to be beefy enough (35 size transformer, plus the driver and auxiliary transformers are taller than the Raidmax RX-500 I bought the other day) so the only issues it would have are the missing filtering on the PCB (which is actually not a issue - the PFC coil sits close to that area so Huntkey/LC-Power decided to have the filtering directly on the receptacle), the undersized main sillicon (35 size trafo but 13007s.... ) and the kinda thin secondary heatsink... Oh, and the missing PI coils - those wouldn't be much of an issue though as I guess I can harvest some from another dead PSU.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

More stuff:

- Husk "450W unit w/PFC coil
- Spacer 250W unit
- GB 880GM-UD2H r1.4 w/ Sempron 145
- MSI (HP OEM) MS-7336 mobo w/ E4300 and a nice cooler that screws in w/backplate
- 500GB Seagate Pipeline, 160GB Barracuda 7200.10 SATA, 1TB Samsung HD103SI
- Sapphire Radeon HD6670 1GB GDDR3
- Sony-NEC ND-3500A DVDRW
- AVC fan
- SweeX Multi-Card USB reader
- internal case speaker from a hp dx2300 (where the MSI board came from)
- a buttload of various screws
- SATA cables

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Another score for today, a Gigabyte Z68P-DS3 rev 1.0 + i3-3220.

Funny thing, this revision of the Z68P-DS3 still uses classic Phoenix-AwardBIOS, and not the newer UEFI AMIBIOS, which I think got introduced with rev 2.0 for this mobo.

[whatamidoing]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Another score for today, a Gigabyte Z68P-DS3 rev 1.0 + i3-3220.

Funny thing, this revision of the Z68P-DS3 still uses classic Phoenix-AwardBIOS, and not the newer UEFI AMIBIOS, which I think got introduced with rev 2.0 for this mobo.

I did successfully convert an Award BIOS 970A-DS3 1.0 to UEFI just by flashrom'ing the AMI UEFI from the 970A-DS3P 1.0. The USB 3.0 controller was different but thankfully the USB 3.0 toggle in the BIOS just acted on the PCIe lane the controller was attached to and did not use any chip-specific commands, so everything works 100% as if it were a proper DS3P.

I wouldn't be surprised if you could do the same on your board.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I know of GB's practice. If anything, the rev2.0 UEFI BIOS should work. There's also the 880GM-UD2H that can be added FX (Zambezi, and I think Vishera too? I have a FX8300 at home and will check in a few weeks.) support to pre 1.5 boards by just programming the rev1.5 FA BIOS on two 16Mbit SPI chips and replacing the old 8Mbit chips with the freshly programmed 16MBit ones.

ASRock also did this with my 890GX Extreme 4. The original Extreme 4 uses legacy AMIBIOS, the R2.0 uses a bigger 32MBit flashchip w/ UEFI BIOS. An salvaged 32MBit SPI flash later and I was running FX chips on that board with no issues whatsoever.
I do prefer keeping it at the stock Award BIOS, especially since I haven't seen many legacy BIOS-based 1155 boards in a really long time.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

- LC-Power LC-420H-12 420W PSU.

PSU looks like a socket 478-era piece of junk!

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Welp, more testing has resulted this, regarding most of my scores:

- 775 PC w/ the LC-Power unit works fine - PSU does need a bit of work but for what is supposed to be a Huntkey, it's still a step above most gutless units. Instead of a X5450, I'll probably settle for a quad core Kentsfield or Yorkfield, if either are supported. (Q6600 more likely, not sure about the 9400 I have.)

- ASUS B85M-E - shorted 12v side apparently. Tried a i5 4570 with no dice - CPU was tested working twice, first before I got it, then at a service using some random GB 1150 mobo after it didn't work on my board, just to rule out it is still alive. I have a bunch of FETs from a dead P8P67 Rev3.1 (bad socket on that one) so it's gonna be set aside until I get home. Would be a shame to throw away - it's compact enough to make a nice carrry-along build w/ a Stinkworld mATX case I have (which used to house a criminally gutless Stinkworld unit and a Pentium E2160.) and a HKC PSU - a i5 4570, 16GB worth of DDR3 and a HD7850 should be adequate to run them off a HKC PSU (which I can trust, as I have personally rebuilt it properly.)

- ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 - also sidelined - had a myriad of knocked off SMD caps in the EPU section... managed to get them back enough to get it beep. It won't POST with a good known Phenom II 550 (tested working absolutely fine on a 880GM-UD2H rev 1.4 my dad used to have, which eventually came back to me.) but will emit RAM missing beeps with a Sempron 145, of all things. Socket plastics are pretty nasty so it'll have to also sit aside until I get home (in about 2 weeks from now, give a day or two.)

- MSI Z77A-G45 - stupidly killed the SIO chip (a Fintek chip) which also killed the Z77 PCH. Oh well, it had other issues anyways... at least I got a i5 3450 and a spare stock HSF out of it (which I like the fins on it but hate the copper-less base)

- Gigabyte Z68P-DS3 - works most of the times, but needs to go through a nicotine cleanse process as per Topcat's guide. Out of the 4 DIMM slots, only 2 and 4 work - 1 and 3 just power cycle - I cleaned the RAM slots and no change, so defo need to soak the board enough to get the nicotine off. Does POST most of times so that's a big plus.

- MSI 946GZM OEM/MS-7336 - tested fine, accidentally broke about three or four thin traces on the backside while trying to pry off the HSF's screwing plate (since it uses screws, apparently.). Will probably try and flash the retail 946GZM bios on it, if I can - it's (thankfully) a socketed PLCC chip, which makes my life magnitudes easier to tinker with BIOS images.

- CPUs all work fine - so far got a Phenom II x2 550 (Callisto core, unlocks to X4 B50, Propus core), a i3-3220 (Ivy Bridge), a i5 3450 (also Ivy Bridge), a i5 4570 (Haswell, one of the OG pre-Refresh chips AFAIK), two Core 2 Duos (E4300 and 4600, both Conroe), and a Sempron 145 (Sargas, rumored to unlock to Regor Athlon X2 4500e but I figure that's gonna be a royal PITA to get stable...)

- Raidmax RX-500 still isn't alive, but thanks to a russian forum (rom dot by) I have managed to uncover its failure and a strange one at that - snubber caps dried up, the D209Ls failed shorted silently, fuse didn't blow but nothing else apart from 5vSB. Really bizzare failure mode... but at least gives me enough incentive to bring it home and do surgery on it.

three of the harddrives I have are now up for sale locally - namely, the 500GB Seagate Pipeline and two 250GB WDs I extracted from a PC bought shortly before departing home for college.

-the Spacer unit got gutted - I'll probably keep the case as one of my Spire units (an AT-2005B Sun Pro that's beefy enough) is in desperate need of a overhaul, with the casing being a must. We'll see how that goes, I guess.

-the Husk unit, albeit pretty skimpy, does its job well as a quick testing PSU.

And for now, that's pretty much it. My dad also said he's got a Dell Latitude E6510 to give me in return (I gave him my Lifebook E751) shortly before I leave for home, so I'll keep you guys updated - I know you love business laptops so I guess this would be a good replacement for my rather aged HP Probook 4525s (w/ Turion P540, 4GB DDR3 and a Toshiba drive that needs to be replaced as it's illegally slow.) considering it somehow sports a Core i7 chip (1st gen, possibly a Clarkdale but not fully sure until I check it out.)

- the Hyper 212 is a EVO model and I can proudly announce I have managed to replace the strange nuts it usea with standard bolts (6mm I think, not fully sure. I'll drop by the place I got them later today and check the diameter.)

That concludes most of my scores for now. Will keep y'all posted if anything new comes up - I'm trying my best to be active here during this period of exams, unlike other thimes when I'd rarely drop by. And a huge thanks to Th3_uN1Qu3 for making his comeback on these forums - it's the reason I'm now feeling more motivated to be as much active as possible on these forums. (and keeping my sanity in check - you don't want to know how bad my mental and physical health were at certain points of 2022)

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Today's freebie came in a box full of other random computer junk, not sure of the origins....someone just dropped it off, but given some of the other things in the box it was probably scrap from an EDU....but the pick of the box was a Supermicro 370DL3 dual P3 sevrerworks board w/ 2x 1GHz P3's and 1GB reg/ECC memory. I used to recap these now and then WAY back in the early days of BCN; 20 years ago. It works, but will need a recap. Of course the IO shield is missing and goofy, I don't have anything that fits it....but ohh well.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Honestly, the I/O shields are probably the last thing most of us might worry about. I have a bunch of mainboards here, and apart from a HP OEM MSI that uses standard layout, the rest all are missing their custom I/O shields.

Anyways, to continue the thread. I got the above mentioned Dell E6510. Specs are an god-awful 320GB Toshiba drive (which I can tell isn't original to the Dell in any kind of way), 8GB worth of DDR3 which I sniped for the time being (yeah, not gonna slip up some good Samsung and Kingston sticks.), a i7 620M (which I genuinely wonder why does it exist in the first place...), Intel HD Graphics, and a Windows 7 install that I can't for the life of me get to boot. Oh well, it's getting Duke Nukem'd anyways - I'm thinking of trying a customized server version of 11 just for the laughs of it, especially since the Dell has TPM, as far as I know. By customized, this means a lot of unneeded crap removed, Classic theme brought back to the highest extent possible, as well as classic 9x/2k icons.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

65 nm Quads are power-hungry.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Honestly, the I/O shields are probably the last thing most of us might worry about.

My OCD won't allow me to ever assemble a system without one. Cheap & shoddy. If I can't find one, I'll make one.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

65 nm Quads are power-hungry.

The 7xx series CPUs that the Latitude E6510 shipped with are all 45nm.

[brethin]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

My OCD won't allow me to ever assemble a system without one. Cheap & shoddy. If I can't find one, I'll make one.

Im the same way, I can even remember paying like $10 for a I/O shield before I just made them, now with a 3d printer you can make all of them fast and cheap.