best cheap/free scores 1.1

[speter]

My daughter needed something better than her old dual core dell, and this came up.
I bought my Alienware machine a couple years ago for $100 w a I970 in it, and 18g ram, no hd, it had 2vid cards(I don't remember the card name) in crossfire mode, but it was unstable, so I removed one, and things are much better. I boot from a 250g ssd, and have a tb in storage, also a 2TB Nas, but it is old and pretty slow, good for mostly backup, and archive(it was free with the drives in it) I have run a few gaming benchmarks on it, and my vid was the only thing lacking, at the time. I'm not much of a gamer, so that's OK.
My best deal was my 2011 Sonata for $1k, with a bad engine,which was replaced under recall for free... I'ts near mint with 125k miles on it.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by speter

My best deal was my 2011 Sonata for $1k, with a bad engine,which was replaced under recall for free

Was that a faulty engine block like the 2007 MY and 2008 MY Honda Civic EX/LX? Gosh, I hope not!

[speter]

It was a lubrication problem with Theta 2 gdi engines from 2011 to present, it has a lifetime warranty now...The problem was that the engine would, almost without warning sieze up, or it would suddenly develop a rod knock, even when serviced properly.
I liked the 2011 so much, and I always need a backup car, that I bought a 2012 for $900 also, a little more worn, and not the SE model, but still a great car, it also got a free engine.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by speter

The problem was that the engine would, almost without warning sieze up

Warning, the Chrysler 4.7 V8s may have this problem! My brother-in-law had a Ram with one and it mysteriously seized up!

[speter]

The Corvette had it too...

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by speter

The Corvette had it too...

wtf?!

[speter]

It was only 2 so far, but it's this year's model
From the article there were some in the past as well, but luckily only a small number of them.
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/w...it-145480.html

[dragos2009]

Originally Posted by momaka

Not bad at all!
Those X58 boards are still viable for modern use. Maybe they won't be able to play all of the latest games (if that's something you even had in mind.) But if the board supports 6-core Xeon Westmere CPU, I strongly suggest to go with one. The 2 extra cores will help a lot, even if you do get a slower chip (not to mention you may be able to OC it quite a bit more, being a Xeon chip and all.)

If anyone watches TechYesCity on YouTube, he still does the occasional build comparison of socket 1366 / X58 platforms with modern stuff... and these old chips still perform respectably well.

i do watch techyescity and indeed these x58 platforms are still capable of doing a lot of stuff in 2020

[speter]

My daughter mostly surfs, and is very happy with the upgrade from the old Dell.

[Widget]

Originally Posted by jayjr1105

Got a PS2, Controller, Game, Memory card and Power Cord for $10 today. It's a 39001 too.

What does 39001 mean? A good version ?

[dmill89]

Originally Posted by Widget

What does 39001 mean? A good version ?

It is the 3rd revision of the "fat" PS2 and is generally viewed as the "best" version since it has the more reliable laser pickup but pre-dates the cost cutting of later variants, 300001 was the (US) launch version (and generally the least reliable), 35001 was the second revision, 39001 was the 3rd. revision, 50001 (and 50010 the same unit with an included network adaptor) was the last version of the "fat" PS2 and is still generally reliable but has some "cost cutting" such as the removal of the firewire (I-link) port.

Note the "1" suffix on the model number indicates a North American (NTSC) model, models for other regions will have a different number suffix.

[Dan81]

IIRC 39001 was the 4th, and 30004R was the 3rd.

[dmill89]

Originally Posted by Dan81

IIRC 39001 was the 4th, and 30004R was the 3rd.

thanks, I completely forgot about the 30001R (its US designation).

[Dan81]

Scored a DV5-1131en this monday. T3200, GF9200M GS (G98-700-U2 core) 256MB, no RAM, no charger, no HDD. The reason it's been free was the fact its original F.0C BIOS was semi-corrupted, but in such a bad way that these things happened:

- Boot order was garbled at first, would change to a bunch of zeroes if I loaded setup defaults
- would hang on a black screen after the HP logo, because of the corrupt boot order
- it would give me the same issue regardless if DVD and HDD were missing

Flashed a modded F.21A (removes WiFi whitelist, something that HP still practices, and which is fairly stupid IMO) through the crisis recovery method using a 8GB FAT32 stick and presto! Got all the boot options back. Upgraded it with a P8400 and a 500GB HGST, as well as a newer Lite-On DVDRW in place of the crappy Sony/Optiarc it had, and it's running 7 Ultimate pretty good so far.

The only issue left to adress is sending the battery for recelling - it's probably the only EV06 type of battery I still have alive, and it has about 89% wear according to HWMonitor, and just 5530 mWh worth of capacity (from the original of about 47520).

Apparently there is a service in the town I attend uni that will recell the battery with new cells, and they can even program it to increase the capacity (around 7000mAh, original HP battery is 4400 I think?) so I guess having a upgraded battery for the DV5 (and maybe my AMD based DV7 too, I'll see how much that one is priced at) might be worth than getting some Chinese one for less.

[stj]

id be curious to know if the re-cell service is replacing the shell.
because if not then i'd love to know how they split the old one without wrecking it!!

[Dan81]

FWIW I don't really mind if they wreck the casing as I still have a good HP EV06 battery shell from a long dead DV6 battery (the cells were rusty, not kidding) so swapping it in (assuming they don't glue the casing back, as their video wasn't very much detailed other than the recell and reprogram process) should not pose an issue.

Honestly though, it's not that hard to pry one apart. At least not the late 2009 - early 2010, the older ones though are a royal pain in the arse to crack open. Thankfully the one I currently have in the DV5 has a Jan 2010 datecode so guess I'm good on that part.

Anyways, here's their presentation video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeAS1o-vJl4

[Dan81]

Scored an DV7 from the 1000 series, that was of course in need of a reflow. It powers up and runs great now.

Specs:

Turion Ultra ZM-82 (originally had a RM-74)
4GB DDR2
WD Scorpio Black 320GB (seller said it had a 160GB lol)
HD3450 256MB (thermal pad hardened pretty bad, replaced with a gray pad from a junked LCD TV)
Sony BC-5500A SATA BD-ROM

[momaka]

I got a MSI Radeon HD5770 "Hawk" 1GB DDR5 video card about a month ago. Was a super-cheap eBay score (under $10 shipped) sold for parts / repair.

When I got it and tested it in my usual AsRock 939Dual-SATA2 motherboard setup, I got no video. But then I realized something: I've had very few Radeon HD5k cards work in that rig for whatever reason. So I tested the MSI HD5770 in another newer PC, and it turned out it was working.

With that said, I just finished cleaning it and putting it back together last week. Heatsink got a hot bath due to sticky dust. Both fans on the cooler were grinding and very loud, too. Being sealed sleeve bearing fans, I tried to open them with my usual method... but that didn't work. So I ended up only oiling them (after drilling a hole on their back side) and moved the rotor assembly in and out to work the oil in. And that made them quiet again.

Otherwise, the GPU is still pending more testing. Haven't ran it yet through my usual set of 3D tests (games.) But looks promising so far. If not, I still got me a very good 3-heatpipe dual fan GPU cooler out of this deal for less than $10 shipped. So it's a win in any case.

[speter]

A parrot Bebop 2 drone for $40. Charged it with alligator clips, downloaded the app for my phone, and I'm flying! pretty cool!

[Topcat]

Was given an Acer Aspire ES1-512. Lady said it wouldn't come on anymore.

Cause was someone getting a little rough inserting a USB mouse nub in the left side port by the switch and dislodged the small PCB, the power button on the case was no longer aligning with the switch on the PCB. Easy fix. Has win8.1 on it. I nuked it and threw 7 on it, just to see if it would run (mainly driver support)...and it does, the Win8 drivers including graphics worked fine on 7....but I ended up throwing w10pro on it, which runs fine....but boy it sure is begging for a SSD!

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