best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I got 9 decent Fujitsu PC's from work. Those were going to e-waste, but I took them to be used for spare parts. Two Core2Duo's and six i5-4440's and one i5-3470. They had minor faults preventing the normal selling in auction. One C2D has 600W PSU in it.

3rd and 4th gen i5's are still very much usable today for just about anything except high-end gaming perhaps.... Good score.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored another laptop, a Gericom "Overdose" Mobile 36040c.

I have been regretting my life choices and will gladly take the next laptop that should arrive soon - an ASUS X75VD.

Guess I needed a reminder of how bad ECS/PCChips can be. SiS M661FX iGP, Celeron M 360 (replaced with a Pentium M 740), keyboard barely works as intended, 80GB Samsung IDE HDD. Stuck 2x1GB DDR sticks, they get recognized as half the total capacity.

I don't think I've had enough brains when buying this thing, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Hopefully the X75VD will at least be much easier to work on, and here's me keeping fingers crossed that the CPU is removable in that one. (since I've noticed there are two X75VD revisions. One has a normal mPGA989 socket, while the other has a soldered in i3 CPU. Both boards have 4GB Micron/Crucial RAM soldered onboard) i3 2nd gen + GT610M 1GB doesn't sound too bad, honestly.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The X75VD came in. Soldered i3-2370M CPU @ 2.4GHz (can't have all the nice things in life, eh? Oh well, at least it ain't a Celeron.), a GT610M 1GB, no HDD caddy but had a 250GB Hitachi with 90% life (which I won't discard, but will replace it with a WD Blue WD7500BPVX).

I'm suspecting the charger that came with it is a knockoff and is the sole reason the seller sold it to me as "broken" - broken as in "runs for 1 hour then kills power". The charger it came with not only has a bright blue LED (which AFAIK ASUS almost never used, not even on the ROG chargers - I've had a 180W ROG charger and even that uses green) and on top of that, it's way more lightweight than the other ASUS charger I have (19v 4.74A), which seems to be of a older generation.

Currently installing Win10 LTSC as we speak and will hopefully install a SSD in place of the DVD-RW drive in the near future. (just for variety reasons, I might opt for a Kingston 480GB)

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored another cheapo machine:

random "Comprace" case made by Deer (one of those cheap specials where only one side of it is removable!!!)
Premier LC-C400ATX that will make for a decent 250W unit after a recap (it has most of the components installed and uses an actual rectifier for 12v!)
2x CD-RW/DVDROM drives, one LG one ASUS.
ASUS M2NPV-VM mobo
2x512MB DDR400
Tenda TEL8139D NIC PCI (likely the onboard NIC is kill, otherwise I don't see why would you run a 10/100 NIC when the MB offers Gigabit.)
what I think is a Sempron 3000+ or 3200+ (seriously, why do these even exist, and who thought these were useful for anything?)

Cleaned the case thoroughly and put it aside for the time being. Might complete it back together with a A64 x2 (at least) and a PCI-E GPU of the right era - I'm thinking a 7300GT should suffice? It will run Vista SP2 (wanted to build a Vista machine for quite some time and this would be a good candidate) and will have at least 2 or 2.5GB of RAM (though I think the chipset does support 4GB.)

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Congrats! gotta keep those CRTs goin!

Darn, wished I kept at least one of my CRTs that I still had 5 years ago! (last had it in 2016)

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored two more mobos:

ASUS P5E-VM DO - Q35 chipset. Has a buttload of bulged KZGs, as well as TMVs around the CPU. I recall having some poly caps for the CPU socket so no biggie, and will probably go with either Panasonic caps or Nichicons for the rest of the mobo
ASUS M2NPV-MX - same as my M2NPV-VM, sans 1394, and crappier cap choice for 1000uf caps (VM has Panasonics, MX has TK)

The latter (M2NPV-MX) also came with a rather nice Titan cooler (these were pretty good, back in the Socket 462 days) and a Athlon 64 3500+.

[Uranium-235]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored two more mobos:

ASUS P5E-VM DO - Q35 chipset. Has a buttload of bulged KZGs, as well as TMVs around the CPU. I recall having some poly caps for the CPU socket so no biggie, and will probably go with either Panasonic caps or Nichicons for the rest of the mobo.

I saw some pictures of the VM DO with all poly VRM caps. But except a few the rest of them look like KZG

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Mine has bulged 680uF 4v TMVs near the CPU socket, and KZGs everywhere else. Bulged of course, though the board does POST.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Mine has bulged 680uF 4v TMVs near the CPU socket, and KZGs everywhere else. Bulged of course, though the board does POST.

I replace those with 560uF 4v SEPC polymers that are ~7mm tall. One thing you have to beware of is using caps taller than the originals, it can interfere with heatsinks.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Would 6.3v off a dud P5K work? I'm using a low profile HSF with a E2200 for now.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Would 6.3v off a dud P5K work? I'm using a low profile HSF with a E2200 for now.

possibly, what value are they? Polymer? Lytic? Just be careful removing them, its easy to tug the legs out of them during removal.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

560uF 6.3v poly, there's no lytic on the P5K from what I can see on the board.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

560uF 6.3v poly, there's no lytic on the P5K from what I can see on the board.

Yea, that would work.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Well, thanks for the tip.

Just polymerised the whole CPU VRM section and got rid of those rotten TMVs, with Fujitsu taking their place. 9x 560uF 6.3v, able to withstand even a Kentsfield Q6600.

The entirety of KZGs that were on the board were eradicated. I didn't take any risks in leaving ANY of them - I've previously had a MSI P965 Platinum - I initially recapped it to replace a few blown KZGs near the main PCI-E slot near the northbridge. Three months after, half of the board had blown KZGs from just sitting. Polymodded it entirely and gave it away to a friend.

Onto this P5E-VM DO, I replaced the 820uF 6.3v (seriously ASUS, why are you like this? Would 1000uF have hurt you that much?) KZGs with Panasonic FJ and FJS of the same rating, off two dead motherboards - a P5GC-MX/1333 and a M2N-MX. Not the best way to do it but all of them seem in pretty good shape.

What absolutely surprised me is the fact it supports TPM and even has a Intel ME BIOS loading on boot. Apparently "Digital Office" is something ASUS must've yet again took way too far.

Will make a pretty rad "wolf in sheep's clothing" machine, with a Q9400, 4 or 8GB of RAM, a 500GB Seagate + 2x 74GB Raptors in RAID, a HD4850 512M, SATA LG DVD-RW, and most of all, the most random and generic black micro/miniATX case you can ever think of. Gotta check what PSU I have that can run the 4850, though I remember pimping out an Allied unit to ridiculous levels just to run that 4850, so why not put it up to work?

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Figured I'd also show the post-op pics.



The bunch of dead UCCs I removed from the board. Straight into the trash they went.



The board, with Panasonic FJ and FJS installed.

[Uranium-235]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

IMO unless you're doing it because you're bored or want to keep your skill up (which you obviously don't need to do). Isn't this a waste of money? I mean, those boards don't sell for much used

[Uranium-235]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

3rd and 4th gen i5's are still very much usable today for just about anything except high-end gaming perhaps.... Good score.

Not even medium-end gaming. I have a 6700k (@4.4) and there are some (like two) games it struggles with

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

IMO unless you're doing it because you're bored or want to keep your skill up (which you obviously don't need to do). Isn't this a waste of money? I mean, those boards don't sell for much used

Considering I got all of them for free (the fellow who I got the P5E-VM DO from was cleaning up his workplace and chose to keep only 1155 and newer boards), not at all.

[Uranium-235]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Just because something is free does not mean it's worth much

on ebay the board sells for ~40, and I'm sure shipping from Romana is a bitch

Unless you rebuild for others I don't see any point of redoing it and setting it aside

FYI your state and country are reversed

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Not even medium-end gaming. I have a 6700k (@4.4) and there are some (like two) games it struggles with

Meh...who cares, 2 games. Still perfectly usable...

Since your games won't play on that v5500, best toss it in the trash....it's no good by that logic.