best cheap/free scores 1.1

[dmill89]

A bright green Chieftec/Chenming "Dragon" case



A build thread for a period correct-ish system here:
Chieftec Dragon LGA1366 Build - Badcaps

[Dan81]

I likely forgot posting one of the hauls before my HDD (and Chieftec build I gutted for time being) but here's what came out of it:

- DTK PRM 27i E0 - had missing caps bar two near AGP and the tiny buggers around the SB. Recapped with Ruby MFZ and IIRC low profile 1500uF MBZs. 440BX and 4x SDR slots ftw
- Gigabyte 945GM-S2 - pretty boring 775 mATX mobo. At least it has 4 DDR2 slots.
- ASUS A8N SLI - trashed as it had a dead chipset and SIO chip
- DFI Infinity nF4 Ultra RevB - works, needed a poly recap as someone tried to fit too big Samwha RD caps on the VRM

GPUs:

AGP
- ATI 3D Charger PCI (Rage IIC+ PCI) - works
- ASUS V9180SE MX440-8x - works
- noname GF4 MX4000 - works
- MSI FX5200 - works
- ASUS A9200 - also works

PCI-E
- MSI GF6200 - works
- Gigabyte X1300 - dead
- HIS X600 - dead
- Palit 7300GT - works
- Gigabyte 9600GT Silent - works

Misc:
- LAN cards
- Creative ES1373 PCI
- Quantum Bigfoot CY 2160AT - dead

[redbaron1007]

I thought I was getting about five Toshiba 6140-e30 POS kiosks today, but when the guy showed up it was actually 23 of them. In the chaos of making room at my shop for them I forgot to take a picture so I'll probably post back with pictures later. Currently no clue what I'm going to do with 23 of them.

[Topcat]

Yesterday's megascore is a Ricoh MP 2555 document center. This was nearly 10 grand new. I carted it off along with some of the other usual stuff from a regular client; a medical company that gobbled up a smaller clinic...and they're bringing in all their own IT.... ebay prices has them around ~2500....but i'd never want to deal with shipping this, so I'll just use it in the front office and maybe see if I can get a local buyer....but it's one of those I don't care if I sell. Page count is 7800. No, I didn't leave off a zero.....7800 pages! This is easily a million-page machine!





Updated the firmware....I've learned through experience that this is the first thing that must be done to any printer when going through testing & setup...can eliminate tons of headaches!!





Print quality is fabulous and toner cylinder is full...and massive!!



It's new home.



It's fast compared to the Kyocera it replaced. I can tap the print button and by the time I walk over to it (maybe 8ft), it's done. Also can put wide format paper in it....

[ratdude747]

As long as it's not as fluky as the Ricoh Color Laser AIO I bought used for my Church. It works but is quirky... and makes an annoying stamping noise. They have a very old Konica B&W like this one, but it's one that was leased somehow (nobody remembers how it worked out). Had I found one at the right price, I would have gotten it for them and not bothered with the single tray wannabe I got them instead. Hope you find a buyer... if not, enjoy!

My employer has a bunch of Konica ones like this too (recently upgraded by the leasing company)... the last one in my office was always broken but the new one works a lot better. Ours can do 11x17 (which we use a lot of), and even has a built in auto-stapler (handy for making packet sets for a gang of executives/VIPs).

[Topcat]

As long as it's not as fluky as the Ricoh Color Laser AIO I bought used for my Church. It works but is quirky... and makes an annoying stamping noise. They have a very old Konica B&W like this one, but it's one that was leased somehow (nobody remembers how it worked out). Had I found one at the right price, I would have gotten it for them and not bothered with the single tray wannabe I got them instead. Hope you find a buyer... if not, enjoy!

My employer has a bunch of Konica ones like this too (recently upgraded by the leasing company)... the last one in my office was always broken but the new one works a lot better. Ours can do 11x17 (which we use a lot of), and even has a built in auto-stapler (handy for making packet sets for a gang of executives/VIPs).

I have 2 ricoh pinters, the one mentioned above and a C305 color laser (also given to me)....it was probably mentioned earlier in this thread; I've had it quite a few years. The C305 has performed perfect. I've done nothing to it other than feed it toner when it needed it. Makes no weird noises and is crazy reliable.

THis newest one, I can't speak for the reliability as of yet...I haven't had it long enough....but it's fast and prints stellar...and given its age (makde in 2019) and low page count, I see lots of life. I cleaned it before wheeling it inside, it didn't need much at all; very little toner mess & dust. I also like the paper compatibility, can take wide format, etc. I also like their drivers. Very simple; legacy-type installs locally or over a network....none of the modern garbage that others seem to have...but I think most commercial printing devices are like this. Driver is feature-rich (naturally because of the type of machine it is), but not full of crapware and nonsense that endlessly wants to sell you ink & toner.... Last HP driver I did for a customer, the print driver was like 400mb!! The drivers for this were 27mb zipped, 39mb unzipped.

[Dan81]

This poor PS3 phat, model CECHM03.
According to various sources these, alongside the CECHQ series, were born from a surplus of DIA-001 (the last PS3 phat board to have 90nm RSX and the first to have a NOR chip instead of NAND) boards Sony had.
As a result, the M03 SKU was born exclusively for the UK, while the CECHQ were destined for Japan. (part of the Final Fantasy Advent Children bundle, which in turn were recycled MGS4 bundles. Sasuga Sony, you cheap mf-ers)

Before:


After:



This one has been properly taken care of hardware wise - never reflowed, just repasted and it ran along fairly well.

Failure point was dead NEC-TOKINS (I swear these black buggers are the bane of my existence ever since I dug deep into Toshiba A300s and Acer 6920/6935/8920/8930 laptops.) on the bottom side of RSX.

I preemptively recapped the whole bottom side with 16 tantalum caps, 4x330uF per each Tokin.

Added some fresh MX6, upgraded the 80GB drive to a 7.2K HGST 320GB, and it runs trouble free, and rather cool.

The SFF30A 18-blade fan inside it is a bit audible at 32% constant fanspeed, but nothing too unbearable.

Currently FTP-ing games on it - it apparently can run PS2 games as well (SW emulation only, both GS and EE unfortunately - european BC units still had the GS to aid in hybrid emulation.) but so far haven't tried anything else outside what was already on it (NFSMW 2005, San Andreas and that's about it)

[Dan81]

It is I, again, with fresh scores:

- custom Core 2 Duo E8500 build w/ MSI P45 Neo3, 2x2GB GeiL DDR2, 7200GS, random Acer branded 300W Lite-On PSU (that wasn't even connected ), 250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10, Asus VENTO case, random 3Com 3C905 NIC
- white T-shirt with good ole Playstation logo
- Samsung NP550P5C - i5 Gen3, GT650M 2GB, 6GB DDR3, 1TB HDD
- ASUS P5K + E6750
- ASRock P4Dual-915GL + Celeron D 315
- 2x Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM010
- HP s7000 SFF
- SBC Advantech PCM-4823 - AMD AM5x86-P75-S
- Aureal Vortex 2 PCI

[Dan81]

Another score waiting to arrive - Gigabyte GA-686LX3 w/ P2 300MHz. Gonna be fun figuring if this thing actually can run the mythical speed of 100MHz FSB.

On the other hand, the HP s7000 SFF makes for an neat retro emulation machine

[Dan81]

And another score, besides the 686LX3 - an legendary ABIT NF7

[Topcat]

I know what your next score will be when it gets there...

[Dan81]

Indeed I'm already making preparations for them. Just need to score another similar SL4C8 800EB.

Scored today:

- P5Q Pro
- GB Radeon 9000
- Medion GF4 MX460
- Thermaltake case w/ what I suspect is a Core 2 Duo
- 2x Galaxy A5 2016
- ASUS GF 6600 (non-GT unfortunately) AGP
- Dell 2407WFP monitor - hella massive!

[Dan81]

Moar freebies yesterday:

- LG StudioWorks 563N CRT monitor - works fine, nice picture. Shame it's 1024x768 only, unlike the Philips 107P4 I have.
- Syntax SV266A mobo - the lowest "HongKongFlyApartLLC" version of the ECS K7VTA2 rev2.0
- ASRock P4VM800 - nothing much interesting, P4M800 chipset.
- Torrent Computers LC-B450E - much more gutless than the ANS branded counterpart I yanked out of the Thermaltake from my previous post. Yes, it's one of those trace-jumpered crapola specials.
- ASUS Radeon 9200 128MB
- Quantum LCT15 HDD
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 40GB
- Athlon XP 2000+
- Celeron D (unknown speed)
- MSI DVD-ROM + LG DVDRW

[TechGeek]

Torrent Computers, LOL!
Just as likely to screw up your computer as a virus torrent!

[Dan81]

Ah, good times. The B450E would be the second unit from them I own.
I have (or at least remember owning) a older B400ATX that I had rebuilt myself.
Wonder if it still runs... has a K-Mex branded fan of all things

Nowadays it's mainly Delta/Chieftec, Andyson, FSP, CWT ISO and Seasonic for me. SS-351FS for older systems and CWT ISO-500PP for newer stuff that requires SATA. Andyson-built Raidmax RX-700AC if I need 8pin PCI-E, and a 450W Chieftec powers my dual P3 1GHZ/MSI 694 Pro-AR build.

[Dan81]

And another great score has been found and secured! Soltek SL-75FRN2-RL "Golden Flame".

This thing absolutely rivals the NF7 in beauty. One chap told me this isn't as much great OC-er as the NF7 or Lanparty Ultra B... guess he wasn't accustomed to the poly treatment.
Up next might be a fitting GPU for this beast - I'm thinking of a X1950 or a Geforce 6/7 series GPU, if they're available at reasonable prices.

And gee, I totally forgot to put up a pic of the LG Studioworks CRT!

[Dan81]

While I'm still halfway on the long road of waiting for the VP6s to arrive (they're in Nederlands as of this post, so mid April-early May would be my guesstimate of arrival here ), I simply COULD NOT pass up the oportunity to post this beauty.



This is the above-mentioned Soltek SL-75FRN2-RL "Golden Flame" mobo, which came from a fellow Romanian retro collector.
Not sure how many of you still remember these - they were usually notorious of shipping with GSC crappers left and right, and KZG in the VRM low, with only the high side being either Sanyo or Panasonic.
This one was surprisingly not the case - except for about two caps that were replaced*, all the caps on this one were OST RLX, much like most of ASUS' cap choice was during this era.
Quite of an unexpected surprise, knowing how awful GSC was. I mean, OST RLX isn't the brightest, but it's almost a whole magnitude higher than GSCs!

*one dinged 1000uF 10v between AGP and first DIMM slot, and what I suppose was a GSC near the 3rd DIMM slot. For whoever owns a similar board, positions EC42 and EC66.

[Dan81]

Having fun with Athlon XPs.... trying to get a mobile 2600+ Barton in that "Golden Flame" beauty. I seriously am dumb regarding getting a XP-M running on a desktop mobo, but it should be worth it over a standard Barton I suppose.

[Topcat]

Had a few PC's dropped off last week... One of the picks was a Dell XPS 630 red-face. PSU doesn't work. is a C2Q 9650 @ 3GHz 4GB RAM. GPU & HDD was missing. Has the liquid cooler for the CPU, first one I've seen; I didn't know it was an option. Case is in mint condition. One of my favorite Aluminum cases from dell. It's full & standard ATX not that goofy BTX. Breathes amazingly well and is built like a tank. Weighs a ton, even for an aluminum.

[Dan81]

Scores of today:

- Toshiba 4TB Surveillance HDD - dead
- 2x 1TB Hitachi Ultrastar, Sun Microsystems OEM - one appears to be dead, the other seems to work, haven't tested them further yet.
- custom build - C2D E6600, Gigabyte P35-DS3, 4x1GB DDR2, WD Green 1TB (yikes), MSI GT210 1GB, SB X-Fi SB0730, Win7 - POSTs, haven't checked HDD.
- PS3 CECHH04 - works, need to replace USB/BT/WLAN daughterboard tho.
- Acer Aspire 8530G - works after recasing using my other dead 8530G
- 1GB DDR400 Zeppelin stick - a nice addition for my Soltek SL-75FRN2-RL "Golden Flame"
- ASUS A9550GE 256MB - some sort of "souped up" 9550 w/ Infineon RAM (standard package, not BGA) and likely 9600XT clocks?

In the meantime, I brought my MSI 694D Pro-AR over so I can have matching CPUs ready. Y'know why