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    Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

    Speaking of scores, here's a photo of two laptops I have fixed from some of my posts in this exact thread.




    Left: HP Pavilion DV7-1214ea, from post #4737
    Right: Acer Aspire 5740G-333G25Mn, mentioned in post #4152.


    How I fixed them:

    DV7-1214ea: AMD NB needed reflow, this time it actually worked. (I went through 4-5 units that failed to come back to life, this is the first). Have repasted it, swapped in a Turion ZM-82 and added some pennies under the GPU heatsink as the board has slightly warped around the GPU area (since the NB and GPU are pretty close to eachother), and it runs quite cool for a S1G2 machine (much cooler than my now defunct Acer 5536G)

    Acer 5740G: ghetto fixed it by programming an old 775 mobo (Gigabyte 945GZM-S2) BIOS chip with the EC BIOS (using this tool) and then soldering the dead 775 mobo's reprogrammed & repurposed SPI chip onto the Acer mobo.
    Attached Files
    Last edited by Dan81; 12-06-2020, 01:54 PM.
    Main rig:
    Gigabyte B75M-D3H
    Core i5-3470 3.60GHz
    Gigabyte Geforce GTX650 1GB GDDR5
    16GB DDR3-1600
    Samsung SH-224AB DVD-RW
    FSP Bluestorm II 500W (recapped)
    120GB ADATA + 2x Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST31000340NS 1TB
    Delux MG760 case

    Comment


      best cheap/free scores 1.1 - ESS Essentials ESS-6060-RED office chair

      About a month ago, I found a cool-looking office chair thrown out for trash pickup in my neighborhood.

      It’s an ESS Essentials model ESS-6060-RED. It was immaculately clean and even smelled like it came from a clean house (actually, there was a strong air freshener or some kind of leather cleaner smell on the chair, but it wasn’t unpleasant in any way.)

      Only one problem, though: one of the caster wheels was broken off. And it wasn’t the actual caster wheel that was broken, but rather its seat/hole in the plastic base of the chair. Didn’t seem like anything drastic that couldn’t be fixed, though.

      Since the plastic pieces that held the caster were all still attached in base (but just pushed/bent in), I thought it would be best to glue them back in their proper position. I started looking for any marks on the base to see what kind of plastic it was made of. It didn’t say, unfortunately. I was hoping that it would be ABS or other similar plastic that lends itself well to solvent-based glues (like PVC glue, for example.) Since I couldn’t tell what plastic it was, the easiest way to know was to put a big dab of glue on the plastic somewhere, wait a minute or two, and then rub it with a small screw driver. If the glue dissolves the plastic into a gooey substance, it’s suitable. However, I wasn’t lucky with this one. The plastic base didn’t react to PVC glue or Acetone. If I had to guess, it’s probably PBT.

      Thus, I figured the best thing then would be to just glue the broken plastic pieces in there just to hold the shape of the hole for the caster shaft, and then support the back of those plastic pieces with a filler material. I proceeded to gluing the plastic pieces with contact cement. While contact cement is not very strong in applications like this, it does at least stick well to all materials. Once it cured and the plastic pieces were in place, I filled the holes behind them with regular general purpose house silicone and inserted wood pieces as material filler. The result was this:
      https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1607578612

      It may not be that pretty, but it should hold. And it won’t be visible, since it’s on the bottom side of the base. However, I took it a step further and painted with some black latex paint.
      https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1607578612
      There, now it’s done!

      After the paint dried, I put the casters back on and tested the chair. Everything worked well. However, I noticed that all of the casters have quite a bit of play room in the holes in the plastic base. Now, I’m no expert when it comes to office chair… but to me, this seemed like the loose caster shafts could do more damage over time if left as-is. So I added a few layers of clear packaging tape on the metal shaft of each caster. This made the casters fit a lot more snugly into the base. Rolling the chair around feels a lot sturdier too.

      So I think that completes this repair. A $150 chair (actually currently more like $125 at Wallmart and Amazon) saved from the trash and fixed with zero parts wasted.
      And here it is:

      .
      .
      .
      Now for those interested… here is the BACK STORY (skip reading if you don’t care to know how I found it.)

      Just like the PS3 I found a few years ago, I was basically on my way to the grocery store (on my bike) and saw this chair thrown out in front of a house. I stopped and inspected it from up close, since it looked pretty good and very clean. Noted that one of the caster wheels was broken off and sitting on the cushion of the chair (very thoughtful of the owner to do that - thank you! ) But since I was on my bike, there really wasn’t a way to take it with me, obviously. I just noted which street it was on and continued on my route. Later that day, I thought about picking it up. But then I thought, why not leave it for someone else who might need it more?

      I was going to let it go, but I then remembered we had rain forecast for that day (later in the night.) Around 10 PM, just probably 10-20 minutes before it started raining, I went out to see if the chair was still there, since it was pretty close to where I live anyways. Surprisingly enough, it was! Perhaps the fact that it was on a quieter (inner) street that doesn’t see much through-traffic was the reason why. Seeing that the predicted weather forecast really was bringing rain (in fact, it was just starting to mist very lightly), I figured either I take it or it will get ruined by the rain and then probably the trash truck will crunch it for breakfast the following day.

      So I popped the trunk on my car and started fiddling and diddling. As I expected, fitting this thing in my econobox vehicle would be quite the challenge, if not impossible - I know, because my current desk chair is comparable in size, and I brought that with the trunk open and chair base sticking out. But when I tried that with this chair, the arm rests were slightly taller and just couldn’t get the seat part of the chair to fit in the trunk. It fit to a point, but was wobbly and looked unsafe. Sure the drive home is ~5 minutes on small local streets. And it was late, so there wasn’t any traffic. But in the end, the idea just didn’t look safe, so that was a no go. Luckily, I had remembered to bring my (former) work backpack with me, which had a few tools inside. I figured I could just take off the base and fit the seat in the trunk. I looked at the 4 bolts holding the base - they could be removed either with a 15 mm socket or 6(?) mm Allen wrench. Unfortunately, both of these were tools I had removed from my backpack when I cleaned it. The only thing left in it was a set of Torx. However, the bolts were a size that none of my Torx fit - either too small or too big. I then took out my trusty Harbor Freight 4-in-1 (really 6-in-1) screw driver and tried the small flat head side. It fit! I started removing the base bolts with a jolly smile. Two of the bolts were really tight, though. So I put a lot of pressure on the screw driver to make sure it doesn’t strip the Allen wrench head. Then I jokingly thought, What are the chances of Murphy’s law striking me here on the last bolt. Sure enough, this is EXACTLY what happened - head stripped on the last bolt (not much, but enough that my flat head screw driver could no longer engage it.)
      Now what?!
      I took the chair out of the trunk and started (depressingly) thinking. The sunken feeling of defeat made me want to put the bolts back in, leave the chair, and hope someone else takes it. But what the heck, I can be stubborn bastard too. I started trying things. I sat on the chair and pushed it all the way down. While at it, I also noticed it’s not as wide as my current desk chair. Then an idea came to my head that I can maybe, somehow, with a pinch of luck, fit it upside down on the passenger seat? (The rear seats were out of question, as the rear doors on my car don’t open as far as the front ones.) So I started fiddling with that and… almost had success. The chair did actually fit, but the arm rests were still a bit too wide (by just a few inches / cm ) for the passenger door to close

      At that point, the house owner came out to see what’s up (I guess all that goofing must have attracted some WTF attention. ) Of course, I greeted him and also asked if it’s OK to take the chair. Much to my surprise, he said, absolutely no problems! If you can find a better use for it, go for it. We then chatted a little more and he told me that he got this chair no more than 2 months ago. He barely put any use on it when one of the caster wheels broke from the plastic base. I’m not sure why he didn’t try to return it, as it probably would have been covered by warranty (perhaps an online order and needed to be shipped back? ) Either way, he said he already bought another chair, so it would be good to know if this one didn’t end up in the trash, as it was $150 when he bought it and still was new and clean (which I had already noted when I saw it earlier in the day. )

      So anyways, I thanked him and went back to finish goofing around with trying to get the passenger’s side door to close. It then occurred to me to try and move the passenger’s seat back just a bit. Sure enough, that did the trick - the door closed, just barely. I jumped in my car and drove off with a smile. When I got it home, taking it out of the car was a challenge again, due to pressing on the height lever by accident and the base stretching out, getting itself stuck inside my car (Murphy’s law strikes again! ) But now that I had tools, I took off the base and was finally able to get it out.

      And that was that.
      Attached Files
      Last edited by momaka; 12-09-2020, 11:40 PM.

      Comment


        Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

        ^
        Nice! Good to know I'm not the only one that will pick something out of the trash.
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          Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

          I prefer the shorter version.

          I found this nice chair for free.

          https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1607578612

          Comment


            Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

            I like the back story also, good reading on an otherwise boring day...
            Goshen NY, USA

            Comment


              Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

              yea thats a really nice looking comfy chair. looks almost like a throne. the only thing is i dont like chairs with armrest as i prefer to spread my legs over the table sometimes when on the computer.

              yes i know it sounds weird, pervy and inappropriate for a man to be doing that but i swear its a comfortable position for me to sit in sometimes. also, when i put my legs up on the table, it stops my bad habit of constantly shaking my legs.

              Comment


                Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                Scored a DV6-2055EG today. Had bad screen, bad RAM sticks and missing BIOS info, but also had some goodies such as 320GB 7200RPM Hitachi HDD, as well as a C H U N K Y 9200mAh 3rd party (PowerY is the brand, they claim to use Panasonic cells) battery.

                Swapped in a new display, CPU, RAM, DVD drive, RAM and keyboard and now it's working fine.
                Main rig:
                Gigabyte B75M-D3H
                Core i5-3470 3.60GHz
                Gigabyte Geforce GTX650 1GB GDDR5
                16GB DDR3-1600
                Samsung SH-224AB DVD-RW
                FSP Bluestorm II 500W (recapped)
                120GB ADATA + 2x Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST31000340NS 1TB
                Delux MG760 case

                Comment


                  Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                  Was given a 55" Samsung 4k TV today. Works, but......their dumbshit kid threw a game controller at it and broke the screen.... WTF!!
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                    Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                    Originally posted by Topcat View Post
                    Was given a 55" Samsung 4k TV today. Works, but......their dumbshit kid threw a game controller at it and broke the screen.... WTF!!
                    Can use PCB-s for spare parts or sell them.
                    Useful conversions. I don't "speak" imperial. Please use metric, if you want to address me.
                    1km=1000m=100000cm, 1inch=2.54cm, 1mile=1609.344meters, 1ft=30.48cm 1gal(US)=3.785liters, 1lb=453grams, 1oz=28.34grams

                    Comment


                      Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                      A couple of days ago I grabbed a 50-inch TV from someone's trash (with no paperwork or remote) and put it in the trunk of my car (the owner was about 7 houses up the street from me). It turned out to be the Insignia NS-50DR620NA18, Best Buy's house brand. It is a 50-inch "ROKU TV" manufactured May, 2017.

                      When I plug it in, the red light comes on to indicate the unit is off. When I use the IR Blaster [remote] in my Samsung Galaxy S5 phone to turn the TV on, the red light is supposed to go off. It goes off, but gives two rapid blinks, then goes dark for 1 second before repeating the cycle of blinking and going off.

                      Based on this thread here at Badcaps, it might be the T-con board, I'll look into it after Christmas.

                      Comment


                        Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                        Not really much of a score but I got a new keyboard for the DV6-2055eg posted above. Its original KB was a Deutsch matte keyboard, and the new one is a matte Nederlands one. Near pristine condition (spacebar and a few keys have very very light usage marks) and also works perfectly.
                        Main rig:
                        Gigabyte B75M-D3H
                        Core i5-3470 3.60GHz
                        Gigabyte Geforce GTX650 1GB GDDR5
                        16GB DDR3-1600
                        Samsung SH-224AB DVD-RW
                        FSP Bluestorm II 500W (recapped)
                        120GB ADATA + 2x Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST31000340NS 1TB
                        Delux MG760 case

                        Comment


                          Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                          Originally posted by Topcat View Post
                          Was given a 55" Samsung 4k TV today. Works, but......their dumbshit kid threw a game controller at it and broke the screen.... WTF!!
                          That happened to me three times, my daughter has autism, and during a meltdown, she throws things. A 55 Visio smart tv, a Sharp Quattro 53( with 3D glasses), and a Samsung 55 inch.
                          Goshen NY, USA

                          Comment


                            Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                            Originally posted by Dan81 View Post
                            Scored a DV6-2055EG today. Had bad screen, bad RAM sticks and missing BIOS info, but also had some goodies such as 320GB 7200RPM Hitachi HDD, as well as a C H U N K Y 9200mAh 3rd party (PowerY is the brand, they claim to use Panasonic cells) battery.

                            Swapped in a new display, CPU, RAM, DVD drive, RAM and keyboard and now it's working fine.
                            I'm sure the cells are labeled Panasonic...

                            But if it's still good, extended batteries are indeed nice. My last three Dell latitudes (D630, E5530, E6430) all have been equipped with such. No regrets.

                            Originally posted by Topcat View Post
                            Was given a 55" Samsung 4k TV today. Works, but......their dumbshit kid threw a game controller at it and broke the screen.... WTF!!
                            It happens. Heck, just playing some of my old Game Boy Advance games (Pokemon Emerald, in this case), I wanted to throw it a few times as well. The TV was free for a reason! :p
                            Last edited by ratdude747; 12-13-2020, 05:01 PM. Reason: RD needs to learn to spell...
                            sigpic

                            (Insert witty quote here)

                            Comment


                              Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                              Originally posted by ratdude747 View Post
                              It happens. Heck, just playing some of my old Game Boy Advance games (Pokemon Emerald, in this case), I wanted to throw it a few times as well. The TV was free for a reason! :p
                              I've always been a person that takes care of his stuff.....mainly because I always had to buy my stuff (toys) even as a kid.... A controller-throwing tantrum over a game is a pretty dumbfuck thing for a kid to do, let alone an adult!! Even if I paid for it, my mother would have beat my ass over something like that.

                              I'll scavenge the boards and the backlight LED strips out of it and pitch the rest.
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                                Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                                Originally posted by Topcat View Post
                                I've always been a person that takes care of his stuff.....mainly because I always had to buy my stuff (toys) even as a kid.... A controller-throwing tantrum over a game is a pretty dumbfuck thing for a kid to do, let alone an adult!! Even if I paid for it, my mother would have beat my ass over something like that.

                                I'll scavenge the boards and the backlight LED strips out of it and pitch the rest.
                                Kids these days think they are privileged and don't care about anything but what they can get for free.

                                Comment


                                  Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                                  put thick lexan over the front of the tv.

                                  Comment


                                    Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                                    Originally posted by ratdude747 View Post
                                    I'm sure the cells are labeled Panasonic...

                                    But if it's still good, extended batteries are indeed nice. My last three Dell latitudes (D630, E5530, E6430) all have been equipped with such. No regrets.
                                    Honestly, I wouldn't want to crack the battery open, but if there's one thing I can tell, is that it's as good as HP's genuine extended battery in terms of longevity - IIRC I used some battery time calculator, and got about 13 hours of usage - probably 6-7h realistic?

                                    Anyways, the company itself (Powery) seems to be originating from Germany, so at least that's a good thing, I guess. HWMonitor reports 8% wear. The only issue I have with this generation of HPs is the fact this DV6 doesn't show the time remaining when hovered over the battery icon. I haven't tried it on the DV5-1131EN I have to see if it reports anything.
                                    Main rig:
                                    Gigabyte B75M-D3H
                                    Core i5-3470 3.60GHz
                                    Gigabyte Geforce GTX650 1GB GDDR5
                                    16GB DDR3-1600
                                    Samsung SH-224AB DVD-RW
                                    FSP Bluestorm II 500W (recapped)
                                    120GB ADATA + 2x Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST31000340NS 1TB
                                    Delux MG760 case

                                    Comment


                                      Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                                      Originally posted by stj View Post
                                      put thick lexan over the front of the tv.
                                      That has been discussed... The only thing is how to hang it from the ceiling, or mount it to the TV
                                      Goshen NY, USA

                                      Comment


                                        Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                                        depends on the tv - if it has a large border around the screen then i'd put it on the front - maybe with double-sided foam to keep dust out.

                                        Comment


                                          Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

                                          Had a walk-in drop off a box of laptops, some UPS's with dead batteries, and a dell poweredge sc1425 with a pair of 3.8GHz Irwindales.
                                          <--- Badcaps.net Founder

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