best cheap/free scores 1.1

[lti]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Schiit Modi 2U DAC and a Loxjie P20 headphone amplifier

Are you the first forum member with audiophile schiit now?

Seriously, if that DAC is just a plug-and-play USB device using built-in OS drivers, it's nice to have. I have a Behringer UCA202 for that (and the line-in since some modern computers only have a microphone input).

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Very similar to that! Isn't that the case that housed the first Badcaps.net server?

No, it was my daily driver for a decade...and a NAS for a while... Had several systems in it. It's empty now.

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Are you the first forum member with audiophile schiit now?

Seriously, if that DAC is just a plug-and-play USB device using built-in OS drivers, it's nice to have. I have a Behringer UCA202 for that (and the line-in since some modern computers only have a microphone input).

Plugged it in, flipped the switch, saw the output device switch over to the DAC. Plug and play!

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

So...

Yesterday's free score was a PC with either a Pentium 4 or an Athlon 64 of some sort. Not sure exactly, because it was dark and I just saw the thing by a public dumpster. Looked like it was possibly an OEM system back in the better part of its life, but hard to tell - system is/was so badly mutilated that I couldn't even tell it was a desktop PC at first. It's missing all of the case covers, plastics, and front IO / faceplate. Really, this "PC" is now more of a metal tray with just a motherboard in it (and a PSU, as if by some luck). If this was back in the US, I'd probably not even bother (or maybe I would, knowing the hoarder in me ). Well, I'm currently in Bulgaria, and this is about as good of a free score as I can get here. Last summer, I found a 19" Samsung LCD with a few missing front buttons, scratched LCD, and... bad caps, of course (probably why it was thrown away.) Gave it a quick recap and it worked. I think that's the best thing I've found around here next to a dumpster. Otherwise, just about anything with even the slightest bit of metal in it is usually beaten to death by the gypsies so that they can extract only the metal parts from it. The remaining mess is then left by the dumpster. But in the case of this PC find, I think it possibly came / was thrown out in the condition I found it, because the CPU cooler was still on there, and that's a good chuck of aluminum. No sane gypsy / trash picker around here would miss taking it. Trash truck came just an hour later, so I saved a few components from hitting the landfills. Most notably, the motherboard had Japanese caps. If any of these are OK for reuse, that alone makes it a good enough score, LOL. CMOS battery is acceptable too: 2.8V. And the PSU looks intact. If anything, the two 200V caps it it are also worthwhile extracting.

Anyways, I'll see if I can snap some pictures later today or this week for comical effect. Certainly it's not a "best" free score. But hey, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

There were some 'big box' systems (couple HP's and couple Dell's) as well, but nothing really noteworthy or good to save.... P4 era stuff with no graphics expansion abilities.... I'll gut those.

If it's anything with Intel i845 chipset or worse or Via / SiS... yeah, no tears shed. But if it's i865 chipset with onboard video (Intel "Extreme Graphics" 2), those are actually not bad for Windows 98. i865 onboard graphics are about on par with Radeon 9000/9200 and GeForce FX5200/5500 video cards. They'll run many late 90's games maxed out. Stick two sticks of 128 or 256 MB in those mobo's, and off they can go to Ebay as a "Windows 98 retro PC". I was browsing last week or so and somehow ran across a few Optiplex 170L PCs like my (still) main PC - all complete and working, minus an HDD (and thus, no OS). One seller had sold 7-8 of them for $50 BIN. If you got the time and nerves to list on Ebay, you might make a little more out of these nowadays than simply scrap metal.

It's a non-issue as the board misbehaves and it's most certainly not worth the effort to troubleshoot, but in my opinion if someone needs/wants an overkill 9x box without going either poor or mad with hacks upon hacks to make the system behave, a 754 K8M800 system with a good Sempron or a A64 and Win ME (yes, I said it) is a solid solution.

+1
I see people snatching similar boards on Ebay for this purpose somewhat more often now. $10 for a tested board or $15-20 for board + CPU + RAM should sell easily (though, maybe not quickly, due to time irregularities in retro PC demand.)

Motherboard was an Intel SAI2 serverworks that has native support for Tualatin CPU's. There's a pair of 1.26GHz S-versions in it.
...
That said, not much of a board...having no AGP, in spite of Tualatin support, it's not much of a retro gamer....

Sadly, that is true.
Sure PCI video cards exist... but most are too weak. GeForce FX5200/5500 is pretty standard and easy to find. It would be a massive under-utilization for these CPUs, though. Radeon X1300 would be better, but these are harder to find now. Probably the best bang-for-buck would be GeForce 8400 GS PCI - these will run just about any game from the early XP era (~2003-2004 timeframe)... which is where the CPUs will start to struggle too. And PCI GF 8400 GS cards are still not that hard to find. Usually about $25-30 BIN prices on Ebay. Only issue is, this would have to be a Win 2000 / XP PC and not Windows 98 due to nVidia drivers not being very compatible with 9x after the 6 series.
So yeah... not a great retro gamer option.

Sharp CD-Q5 micro component system. Curbside find from last night.

Tape only works one way (it's a digitally controlled auto reverse deck, likely some mechanical issues), screen backlight is dead.

Everything else works fine. All the controls, the CD player, the tuner all work. Amp good on both channels, no issue with the two speakers and it sounds quite good for its size. It's also got an aux input so I can plug the TV, PC or phone into it.

Looks like a "plastic-fantastic" system from the 90's, but not a bad score.
Deck probably needs new belts at this point. I found an early 2000's silver "plastic-fantastic" system last winter, and it too had problems with the tapes in one direction but not the other... until I ran a few tapes, and then it just completely refused to work. Upon inspection, belt just slips too much on startup and cannot engage the mechanism properly, so it just quits.

As for the Aux input - you can get cheap (~$5) Blutooth to 3.5 mm / RCA adapters now, so you can stream from your phone too.

Also got a free NFS U2 copy with the Xbox

Nice!
That's one of my favorite NFS games (despite the 2F2F / ricing fad in it), along with NFS 4 (High Stakes) and 5 (Porsche Unleashed). Just a fun game to drive in all-around.

I have quite a few VP6's and BP6's here, I grab every one I find on ebay that's either live bidding with low openers, or low BIN's. As a rule, I won't spend more than $50 on one....and they do pop up once in a while. Several with $200+ BIN prices, I laugh.....but I have sold a couple of them I refurb'd (and marketed as so), live bidding they'd go for 125~150.

Ha! I think that's the reason why I stopped looking for these dual-socket AMD boards - too many people bidding and prices often going close to or above the $100 range, at least whenever I saw any... so I figured they're not for my cheapskate ass.

Not sure where they all hang out....if it's VOGONS, I just never warmed up to that site. Nothing against them, they're a great resource.....I just never got the warm fuzzy feeling about it as a whole.

Vogons is one place, but not the only one. Even Youtube is starting to see quite a few channels with people dedicated to retro / old PCs. So the retro PC community is definitely beyond BCN and Vogons now.

I've been finding/reading more and more threads on Vogons related to old games and hardware (whenever I try to run something and it doesn't seem to run right), but still don't have an account there. Kind of feeling the same way as you - nothing against the place... but just a little too big for me (threads often get too many replies, and sometimes the technical discussions get diluted.) And it seems not as many people are into fixing old hardware at any possible cost, especially PSUs... which is why I still stick to BCN (it's just a little more electronics repair -oriented )

Not sure if this one is worth saving. Screen has a couple small blips on it....but it's still here.

I have a 21" Sony Trinitron E540 CRT with a huge gash on the screen. Not sure what happened, but it tore not only through the AR coating, but also scuffed up the glass pretty badly. I think it was hit with a heavy metal PC box or similar. Anyways, I have used that monitor on my desk as a main monitor, and surprisingly it never bothered me. Once the picture came on, it was hardly visible. Now if that 15" screen of yours has color hues on it due to getting magnetized from something, that I think would be more annoying (I have a few CRTs with imperfect landing around some of the edges, and that's more bothersome than scratches, IMO.)

I enjoy the retro stuff even more than modern stuff.....I can't explain why.

I think part of it, at least for me, has to do with the build quality. Sure old stuff aren't without issues and often plagued by bad caps... but bad caps really was the main weakness for the most part. As long as the electro caps are in shape, the thing works. New stuff... not the case.

Also, the quirkiness of old hardware. Motherboards didn't all look the same and with the same standard features. I feel like there was more diversity and character to a lot of the old stuff. New stuff, especially on the consumer side nowadays, is all just RGB barfage, standard USB ports, and a motherboard PCB color and layout that looks exactly like the next one.

And lastly, old stuff just had a lot more room to "play with", despite being more limited in hardware. These days, overclocking is just a toy / gadget feature, just to say it's there. In reality, most new hardware is already running on the absolute edge of what it can and there's hardly any room for more OCing (if there is, it's often at the price of shorter-lasting hardware.)

The growing retro collection has forced a lot of newer stuff from the climate controlled inner sanctum to out to the garage.

You'd have a field day around here!!

No doubt.

I think my newest keyboard is ~2005-ish.... Logitech g-15 game keyboard.

A little over a year ago, I picked up 7 modern-ish "mechanical" (non- rubber dome) switch keyboards for about $5/ea. All were very grimy, but still a good score considering most equivalent / similar class KBs went for $20 a pop used. I gave them a wash and tried them with some gaming and typing. They are OK for gaming, but quite terrible for typing. Of the 7, only 3 that were thinner ones with old laptop-like keys were the decent for typing. I'll still take many older rubber-dome KBs for typing... and also gaming, so long as they have 3+ key rollover (most don't, though.) I think that's the only thing that makes these newer gaming keyboard more worthwhile - you can mash buttons several buttons at a time, and they don't mind.

Last but not least is a weird Ebay score. Ever since the Sencore tower shown above, for some reason broadcast grade AV gear shows up as 'related searches' at the bottom of an item listing page....and I am even blocking ads, but this function apparently still works (always has)....and these show up....

I love and hate Ebay for those - they always make me spend more than I should be on silly PC hardware.

Keyboard & touchpad. Keyboard has a nice feel to it, it's not a flimsy laptop keyboard. Touchpad is a 'glidepoint', but uses an Elan driver.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1695146004

Looks like keyboards from mid-late 90's or early 2000's Dell Latitude laptops - with good key travel and feel, and very exact. Not like flat crap on more modern laptops.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

If it's anything with Intel i845 chipset or worse or Via / SiS... yeah, no tears shed. But if it's i865 chipset with onboard video (Intel "Extreme Graphics" 2), those are actually not bad for Windows 98. i865 onboard graphics are about on par with Radeon 9000/9200 and GeForce FX5200/5500 video cards. They'll run many late 90's games maxed out. Stick two sticks of 128 or 256 MB in those mobo's, and off they can go to Ebay as a "Windows 98 retro PC". I was browsing last week or so and somehow ran across a few Optiplex 170L PCs like my (still) main PC - all complete and working, minus an HDD (and thus, no OS). One seller had sold 7-8 of them for $50 BIN. If you got the time and nerves to list on Ebay, you might make a little more out of these nowadays than simply scrap metal.

865 is also great to sell retro 98 PCs on - there's the transitional era 775/i865 mobos (ASRock and ASUS mostly, though IIRC there's a few more makers than those two who have done such things, Gigabyte included.) and getting a P4 631 w/ 98SE isn't too hard, if you do have monk-level patience like I did, more or less.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Well, I'm currently in Bulgaria, and this is about as good of a free score as I can get here.
Anyways, I'll see if I can snap some pictures later today or this week for comical effect. Certainly it's not a "best" free score. But hey, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

Bummer....hope you come back to the US soon.....but yea, make some lemonade with what you find!

If it's anything with Intel i845 chipset or worse or Via / SiS... yeah, no tears shed. But if it's i865 chipset with onboard video (Intel "Extreme Graphics" 2), those are actually not bad for Windows 98. i865 onboard graphics are about on par with Radeon 9000/9200 and GeForce FX5200/5500 video cards. They'll run many late 90's games maxed out. Stick two sticks of 128 or 256 MB in those mobo's, and off they can go to Ebay as a "Windows 98 retro PC". I was browsing last week or so and somehow ran across a few Optiplex 170L PCs like my (still) main PC - all complete and working, minus an HDD (and thus, no OS). One seller had sold 7-8 of them for $50 BIN. If you got the time and nerves to list on Ebay, you might make a little more out of these nowadays than simply scrap metal.

uhgg....win98....I hated it so much back in the day....and time hasn't healed me of it yet!! NT4 runs fabulous on P4 era hardware, the problem is usually drivers.

Sadly, that is true.
Sure PCI video cards exist... but most are too weak. GeForce FX5200/5500 is pretty standard and easy to find. It would be a massive under-utilization for these CPUs, though. Radeon X1300 would be better, but these are harder to find now. Probably the best bang-for-buck would be GeForce 8400 GS PCI - these will run just about any game from the early XP era (~2003-2004 timeframe)... which is where the CPUs will start to struggle too. And PCI GF 8400 GS cards are still not that hard to find. Usually about $25-30 BIN prices on Ebay. Only issue is, this would have to be a Win 2000 / XP PC and not Windows 98 due to nVidia drivers not being very compatible with 9x after the 6 series.
So yeah... not a great retro gamer option.

Another I wouldn't dream of poisoning with win98....if for no other reason the dual CPU's. ...which is an old specialty of mine. Very few single-CPU systems in my fleet.....but I digress. Win2k will scream on this....but yea. the GPU wall...

Ha! I think that's the reason why I stopped looking for these dual-socket AMD boards - too many people bidding and prices often going close to or above the $100 range, at least whenever I saw any... so I figured they're not for my cheapskate ass.

I've only got one dual AMD socket A....you're already familiar with that. I think there's a dual 940 and a dual SKT-F (LGA1207) or two....or three in my fleet.... Skt-A is definitely retro now....add in dual.

Vogons is one place, but not the only one. Even Youtube is starting to see quite a few channels with people dedicated to retro / old PCs. So the retro PC community is definitely beyond BCN and Vogons now.

I don't post anywhere else with my weird builds....it's a hobby, not a profession....but I do post them here, as quite a few do have an appreciation for them....and I always like to share that...and those that share as well....I get ideas that way for the next build....I've got one in planning that is going to be out of this world!

And it seems not as many people are into fixing old hardware at any possible cost, especially PSUs... which is why I still stick to BCN (it's just a little more electronics repair -oriented )

Probably another reason I don't frequent there....I noticed that too....and I'm an old fixer that was born with a soldering iron in my hand.

Also, the quirkiness of old hardware. Motherboards didn't all look the same and with the same standard features. I feel like there was more diversity and character to a lot of the old stuff. New stuff, especially on the consumer side nowadays, is all just RGB barfage, standard USB ports, and a motherboard PCB color and layout that looks exactly like the next one.

I think the 'quirkyness' is half the fun.... Heck, some older hardware is starting to have a retro smell....Hard to explain, but once was new hardware back when I remember it now has that 'old smell'....but it's a badge of honor!

And lastly, old stuff just had a lot more room to "play with", despite being more limited in hardware. These days, overclocking is just a toy / gadget feature, just to say it's there. In reality, most new hardware is already running on the absolute edge of what it can and there's hardly any room for more OCing (if there is, it's often at the price of shorter-lasting hardware.)

I haven't overclocked a computer since the 90's. Not much gain today....but I don't play modern games either....

I love and hate Ebay for those - they always make me spend more than I should be on silly PC hardware.

Yes, I have the same love/hate relationship with that as well....but I could make a buck on this one atleast.....but knowing me (also a master hoarder), I doubt I sell it...

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Dual CPU machines have no business running 9x whatsoever. IDEC if it's a dual socket 5, NT or bust.

Single socket machines, I don't mind.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Dual CPU machines have no business running 9x whatsoever. IDEC if it's a dual socket 5, NT or bust.

Single socket machines, I don't mind.

The oldest dual boards I have are dual socket 7 (1x Tyan S1564D and Gigabyte GA-586DX). Never seen a dual socket 5, but their list of supported CPU's would likely be the same. The Intel HX and FX chipsets were the only two of the era that supported SMP; skt7, skt8, and some very early early slot-1. Skt5 would also fit that list for early pentiums.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The oldest dual boards I have are dual socket 7 (1x Tyan S1564D and Gigabyte GA-586DX). Never seen a dual socket 5, but their list of supported CPU's would likely be the same. The Intel HX and FX chipsets were the only two of the era that supported SMP; skt7, skt8, and some very early early slot-1. Skt5 would also fit that list for early pentiums.

A google search brought me a picture of THIS absolute unit of a mobo.



ASUS PCI/E-P54NP4. 430NX, EISA, Dallas RTC + SRAM, tantalums all around. P100 and 90s is all it supports, according to TRW.

Interesting approach is they doubled the 430NX chipset. This is probably the way they could get away with dual CPU configuration, before HX and FX came to the scene w/ SMP.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

A google search brought me a picture of THIS absolute unit of a mobo.



ASUS PCI/E-P54NP4. 430NX, EISA, Dallas RTC + SRAM, tantalums all around. P100 and 90s is all it supports, according to TRW.

Interesting approach is they doubled the 430NX chipset. This is probably the way they could get away with dual CPU configuration, before HX and FX came to the scene w/ SMP.

Good find. Totally forgot about the NX; which apparently does support SMP:

https://theretroweb.com/chipsets/1357

That would be a board beyond impossible to find!

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Nothing much today:

- 2x Samsung Galaxy Note 3 - one working 16GB, one 43GB for parts. Swapped the 32GB mobo to the one that is working.
- HP DV5-1140eg - cracked screen, mainly got it to replace the 9200M GS mobo I had in my other DV5.
Surprised to find that the original HP install of Vista Home Premium is there, though I'll have to disable the password using the utilman-CMD trick.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Santa Ratdude came....

Anywya, there was an AWE64 Gold, an AT socket7 board (appears to be NOS), and some other nifty things!!

I usually send him home with some goodies from here as well....but he didn't find anything to lay claim to....

The SKT 7 board turned out to be used not NOS; but complete in its original box...and identified as a DFI P5BV3+ Rev B+, super 7 board with an AGP. Included was all the rear panel connectors as well.





Invoice was in the box. Hard to believe someone paid $239 for the board and $94 for a K6-2 @ 350MHz back in the day....but yea, feels about right.



I recapped it and cleaned it. Caps were all Teyah....and as crazy as it sound 25 years later, they were not bloated and all in spec! Yea, I recapped it anyway.





In the oven.



Had its first release BIOS on it. Tracked down the latest and modded it for LBA 128GB.



This board being the "+" model, comes with the larger onboard L2 cache of 1M versus the standard of 512k.



Yea, I know...not much of a CPU....I don't have a lot of skt7 stuff around....but just wanted to share that the board had been reworked....

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

3 Mobile Workstations that "don't POST", funny they all work fine for me (I suspect whoever tested these used undersized power adaptors) and a micro PC:



Lenovo ThinkPad W530
Specs.
CPU: Intel Core I7-3740QM
GPU: Nvidia Quadro K1000M
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600
SSD: 1TB Timetec (none was included I added this)
ODD: DVD-RW
Screen: 15.6" 1920X1080
OS: Windows 10 Pro



Lenovo ThinkPad W540
Specs.
CPU: Intel Core I7-4700MQ
GPU: Nvidia Quadro K1100M
RAM: 32GB DDR3-1600
SSD: 512GB Samsung PM871a
ODD: DVD-RW
Screen: 15.6" 1920X1080
OS: Windows 10 Pro



Dell Precision M4800
Specs.
CPU: Intel Core I7-4810MQ
GPU: AMD FirePro M5100 (though windows 10 sees it as a Radeon)
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600
SSD: 480GB Intel S3500
ODD: DVD-RW
Screen: 15.6" 1366X768
OS: Windows 10 Pro



Lenovo ThinkCentre M53
Specs.
CPU: Intel Pentium J2900
GPU: integrated Intel
RAM: 4GB DDR3-1600
SSD: 120GB Inland Professional (it came with a 500GB Seagate HDD which I replaced with this)
OS: Windows 10 Pro







Here's a Blu-Ray case for a size comparison:



Far from a "powerhouse" but it only draws 10W at idle and 15W with 100% CPU load, so a good substitute for something like a Raspberry PI for low-power applications (assuming you don't need the GPIO header).

[lti]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

3 Mobile Workstations that "don't POST", funny they all work fine for me (I suspect whoever tested these used undersized power adaptors)

Dell Precision M4800
Specs.
CPU: Intel Core I7-4810MQ
GPU: AMD FirePro M5100 (though windows 10 sees it as a Radeon)
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600
SSD: 480GB Intel S3500
ODD: DVD-RW
Screen: 15.6" 1366X768
OS: Windows 10 Pro

I would expect those Dell laptops to complain about the wrong AC adapter and then run slowly (heavily throttled). That 1366x768 display is even dumber than the M4600 I found where I work that had only 4GB of RAM. 1366x768 should never have existed outside of ultra-low-end Walmart TVs. At least a workstation like that should allow a usable display to be installed (unless Dell made two different motherboards for some idiotic reason).

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I would expect those Dell laptops to complain about the wrong AC adapter and then run slowly (heavily throttled).

Lenovo's are notorious for this.

Dells are bad about simply not charging with a non-genuine power supply.....they'll typically start & run, but will not charge the batteries.

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I would expect those Dell laptops to complain about the wrong AC adapter and then run slowly (heavily throttled).

I dug through my stack of Dell adaptors and found that with the battery removed (all of these laptops had completely discharged batteries when I got them), it will give the error, boot and run slow with a 90W adaptor, but won't boot with a 65W adaptor. (it is supposed to have a 180W adaptor)

The Lenovos both just power off after being turned on with no post or error message (just a black screen and a couple power light blinks) with no battery and a 90W adaptor as well as a 65W (they are supposed to have a 170W adaptor), with a charged battery they give an error message and boot after hitting ESC but won't charge.

At least a workstation like that should allow a usable display to be installed (unless Dell made two different motherboards for some idiotic reason).

I've seen conflicting information on these with some indicating it works, some indicating the display cable needed swapped, and some indicating the motherboard was incompatible (it looks like Dell used a bunch of different motherboards and multiple display standards with these, so it may depend on how and individual system was configured at the factory as to how easy a display swap is).
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/commen...panel_upgrade/

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

So...

Yesterday's free score was a PC with either a Pentium 4 or an Athlon 64 of some sort. Not sure exactly, because it was dark and I just saw the thing by a public dumpster. Looked like it was possibly an OEM system back in the better part of its life, but hard to tell - system is/was so badly mutilated that I couldn't even tell it was a desktop PC at first. It's missing all of the case covers, plastics, and front IO / faceplate. Really, this "PC" is now more of a metal tray with just a motherboard in it (and a PSU, as if by some luck). If this was back in the US, I'd probably not even bother (or maybe I would, knowing the hoarder in me ). Well, I'm currently in Bulgaria, and this is about as good of a free score as I can get here.
...
Anyways, I'll see if I can snap some pictures later today or this week for comical effect. Certainly it's not a "best" free score. But hey, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

OK, so I was both right and wrong about this PC. Yes, this indeed turned out to be an OEM system after eventually taking a closer look at the model numbers on some of the small labels. Though I haven't powered the system On yet to confirm, I think it's most likely an IBM NetVista A40 Type 6578 after some research. What I was wrong about, and I realized this almost instantly I took a 2nd look at the motherboard when I got it home was that the heatsink was too small to be a Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 heatsink... and the retention bracket was the dead giveaway - either socket 370 or 462. Finally, looking at the motherboard's chipset - Intel i815 - cleared it up that it was indeed a Pentium III PC. And I should have know that even quicker - note the lack of a 4-pin 12V CPU connector.

Anyways, as promised (though a little more than a week later), here are the pictures:







Can we say, Filthy!

Not sure if all of the dirt in this machine came because it was stored outside or if the rain that we had the same day before I found this machine, kicked up the dirt in there. In any case (punny!), I took it apart and gave everything a wash. Now, unlike my USA home, I don't have a utility sink in the new place. The bathroom sink is too small, and the kitchen sink... nah, no way I'd be putting such dirty thing in there where my dishes go. However, the apartment does have a basement unit and also a shared storage space with a dingy utility sink (with cold water.) Ah well, what other option do I have? So I went there, took apart the PC, and cleaned/washed it. I forgot to take pictures of the case after cleaning it up, but here is how the motherboard came out:




So, does it work? - I don't know yet. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to play with it before I had to put it away as I had to pack my bags the next day to get back to the USA. But when I get back, we'll see. The PSU still needs cleaning up too and upon giving it a quick inspection with the covers off, I noticed it had several bulged Teapo caps in it. Clearly it's going to need those serviced before I can use it back in the system. Otherwise, it looks well-built. I'll grab pictures of it eventually when it goes through my bench.

Speaking of Teapo caps... notice how the whole motherboard has good Rubycon caps everywhere, except for the four brown Teapo SEK near the CPU? It seemed strange to me why Foxconn (I presume as the builder) would do this. And indeed I don't think they did. If you look more carefully at the picture of the backside of the mobo, you can see some uncleaned solder flux right on those brown Teapo SEK caps. Not only that, but there is one cap spot that is unpopulated, but its joints look disturbed, so it likely wasn't like this from the factory. Now, as to why someone pulled out the original caps and installed these, I just don't know. So besides the PSU, I will also likely need to replace these Teapo SEK caps on the motherboard too. Otherwise, the mobo looks quite pristine, especially after the wash. The best part is that it does have an AGP (2x?) connector. So it can be turned into a decent retro system, if desired.

Given the state of the case, though, I might actually mutilate it a little further and put something slightly newer in it. I have a bright red socket 939 board and some other cool hardware that could use a barebones tray like this to be turned into something a little more saucy (or ricey?) But that's (unconfirmed) plans for the very far future. At the moment, the system is just put back together, waiting to be tested (minus the PSU, of course, which awaits its own recap & testing.)

Bummer....hope you come back to the US soon

Roger! Back already indeed.
Unfortunately, I won't be staying for too long, as I'm only coming back to free up the rest of my parents' house.

Nonetheless, get this:

Right the 1st day after I get back, I go out with the bike on my usual route to the grocery store. As I was going, I prayed to the dumpster and trash gods to please NOT find any more TVs or (large) speakers... or even computers - I have a ton of that stuff to clear from my parents' garage already. Well, it seems like the trash/dumpster gods listened. I didn't find any TVs or speakers. But I saw a metal box with a fan cutout on the back that looked like some kind of industrial equipment. Well, it wasn't quite that... it was a SERVER (I guess I wasn't explicit enough with the "no computers" part, LOL!) Not sure if was socket 604 or slightly newer like 771, but it was a dual socket system with the RAM and HDDs still in it. HDDs were a bunch of 1 TB Western Digital RE4's w/ 64MB cache. One was even loose inside. The cover was off, so not sure what happened. Either way, I didn't want to be "impolite" and rummage through it any further while on the person's property (it was on their front lawn, right behind the trash can, but no labels that it was for donation or anything like that, which I always check for, just in case.)

Being that I was only with a backpack and on a bike, no way I could take it now. However, a look around the other boxes next to the trash can revealed one with a keyboard, a mouse, and underneath... MORE WD RE4 1TB HDDs. Four, to be exact. OK, those I could grab and carry with me... and I did. Now that's a nice(er) free score! I never say no to free HDDs.

On the other side of the trashcans were 2 LCD monitors. One looked like a 19" 5:4 AR and the other possibly either a 19" widescreen or more likely 21-22" widescreen (Viewsonic.) Again, those were too big to grab, so I just stuck with the HDDs. There was also a case with books, CDs, and other stuff... but once more, I didn't want to rummage any further. Figured I'd come back later on and just grab the stuff... if it was still there. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) when I came later on that night, EVERYTHING was gone except for the box with books & CDs. It was dark, but I just grabbed a bunch of the CDs, since they appeared to have nice cases that I could reuse if nothing else. Turns out, those 5 CDs I grabbed were all genuine classic/hall Jazz music CDs of well-known artists. My uncle loves Jazz, so that'll make for a nice surprise for him next time I see him.

And that's all. Not bad for a 1st day back in the US.

Another I wouldn't dream of poisoning with win98....if for no other reason the dual CPU's. ...which is an old specialty of mine. Very few single-CPU systems in my fleet.....but I digress. Win2k will scream on this....but yea. the GPU wall...

Dual CPU machines have no business running 9x whatsoever.

Yeah, I concur.
Win98 is only acceptable on retro rigs specifically built for playing older games. Otherwise, I skip NT and 2000 and go straight to XP.

Heck, some older hardware is starting to have a retro smell....Hard to explain, but once was new hardware back when I remember it now has that 'old smell'....but it's a badge of honor!

Haha, so it's not just me who's noticed this.
Yeah, most of my CRT monitors produce quite a bit of that "retro" smell, especially when they get nice and toasty after running for a few hours. It throws me onto the memory lane right back down to when I was 5YO kid and visited my mom's workplace in the office. The computer smell of those office spaces in the early 90's is just hard to erase from my memory. (Though likewise, I also remember this same smell mixed in with cigarette smoke and that throws me in the late 90's / early 2000's game/LAN cafes. )

I haven't overclocked a computer since the 90's. Not much gain today....but I don't play modern games either....

Core 2 Duos and 1st/2nd gen core-i chips could get some decent gains (not unusual to get 20-25% higher on stock voltages), especially the lower-binned models. Same for the lower-tier socket 939 Athlon 64's like the 3000+ and 3200+. Getting 2.5 GHz out of these on stock voltages is easy and the TDP doesn't even go up more than a few Watts. So it's essentially a free performance upgrade that could (at the time) produce noticeable results.

But a lot of times, I don't bother with OCing either, unless it's easy and harmless like on those s939 Athlon 64's.

As for modern-day games... I want to turn my back on everything new, and for the most part I do. However, the oldschool gamer in me gets curious once in a while, so I do try out new(er) games from time to time, if my hardware can even run it. That was the whole purpose of the Precision T7500 build... well, aside from also being too cheap and too cool to pass up. But yeah, the requirements of today's games just boggles my mind - even the most basic-looking titles usually require a quad core or better, 8+ GB of RAM, and a powerful GPU with at least 2 GB of vRAM. Insane. What I hate the most about modern games is how volatile they are: today, they are this, but after tomorrow's update, they are that... and when the publisher feels like it, they can just close down the servers and bye bye goes the game. In contrast, I can set up and play Half-Life or Counter-Strike 1.5 on a bunch of new PCs, and it would play exactly the same way it did on the old hardware when it came out 2+ decades ago. I'm sure you feel the same about Quake and Diablo II - these are games that just can't die and wither into the wind.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I had one of those Netvistas given to me for cheap at one point...

Apart from the 1GHz Celery I got out of it, I wouldn't count on that board being too much useful. Yes, it does have 815 chipset (not sure if E or EP?) but it's really locked down BIOS wise on terms of what you can do. That's a 4x AGP slot btw. (or at least should run at 4x.)

I remember switching the mainboard and front panel on mine and slapping a "mean" (yeah, right.) EPoX EP-3VCM + P3 1GHz Coppermine combo. VIA 694X instead of 815, but hey, at least I didn't have to deal with such a castrated 815 mainboard - no more 512 MB limitation was a big plus, and a 4x slot that I would actually rely on to do 4x (again, the slot on the board you have might not do 4x despite being keyed accordingly.)

I unfortunately don't have the IBM case anymore, though I think I still have the CPU, HDD and the replacement Epox mobo I used inside it (along with the nice 1GHz P3 I had in it). I remember dualbooting WinME and 2000 Server SP4 last time it ran, for whatever reason that escapes me.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I forgot to take pictures of the case after cleaning it up, but here is how the motherboard came out:

yea thanks for posting the pic with the motherboard chipset die visible so i can identify exactly what flavor of the 815 chipset it is by looking at the s-spec number on the die. i can just make out sl4cb which means its just the standard vanilla 815 chipset, no E, P or G suffix, no smp support, universal agp 4x with onboard video.

the only thing i dont like about that board is that the dimm slots are too close to the agp slot, so u need to remove the video card first to add/remove ram. *grumble* but other than that, its a nice board.

it was a SERVER (I guess I wasn't explicit enough with the "no computers" part, LOL!) Not sure if was socket 604 or slightly newer like 771, but it was a dual socket system with the RAM and HDDs still in it.

since u were in the US, should have saved the whole thing for topcat or ratdude!! they luv server stuff like that!

HDDs were a bunch of 1 TB Western Digital RE4's w/ 64MB cache.

nice! those are enterprise grade hard drives! better, faster and more reliable than the samsung f3 1tb drives i used to like. definitely worth saving. i know u dont like high capacity hard drives because they arent just as reliable and long lasting as the older drives but the RE4 line of drives have proven reliability. no probs running them in raid like the consumer line of wd drives (black and blue) also. i bought 4 of them in a firesale a few years ago. i run 4 of them in a raid 0+1 config for my bittorrenting machine.

MORE WD RE4 1TB HDDs

YES! save them! save them all!!

Yes, it does have 815 chipset (not sure if E or EP?)

remove the chipset heatsink if any and just look at the sspec number on the die. it should be sl4 something or sl5 something. that should indicate which flavour and stepping of the 815 chipset it is.

and lastly, as for vogons, yes i visit there from time to time to educate myself and learn more about retro machines and how to run them correctly and what NOT to do!

however, when i tried to register, i never got a registration email back from them to activate my account. i think i answered one of their registration questions wrongly so i never got the registration email and they thought i was a spambot. booo!

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Some interesting drops this week.

A couple 7th gen I5 laptops.
Gateway ZX4270 AIO w/bad HDD. E1 APU & 8GB RAM. Stuck a SSD in it and reloaded it. Not a speed demon, but very usable.
Dell pentium-m laptop w/1gb ram & xp....works but utterly useless.

The pick of the litter: Gateway2000 P5-90 full tower case. Motherboard & drives missing but case is in great shape....and AT.