best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Dan81]

Another freebie - a Winfast Leadtek Geforce PX8800GTX, G80 core.

[Dan81]

Originally Posted by momaka

As a heavy headphone user, I think that's an awesome score.
Not sure how well / accurate old headphones like that sound, but at the very least, you got really nice hardware (headband) to work with. Could turn out really nice with a pair of decent 40 mm drivers.

They sound really good and that's with as much as a Galaxy S8 Duos' amplifier. I can only imagine what a Sound Blaster does to it.

The drivers are legitimately as big as old AT case beep speakers!! You can imagine how good these would sound with as much as dropping similar speakers of a bit better rating. It also helps that the SB X-Fi SB0730 I have in my main machine does wonders.

[TechGeek]

Got a massive haul of stuff. Some notable items:

- Power Macintosh 7200/120 PC Compatible. Powers up and gives a good startup chime. Needs a full recap. Has the PC Compatibility board, which is in rough shape and needs attention. Hard disk still works, so plans are in the works to image it. PRAM battery removed at the first chance.
- Apple Multiple Scan 14" CRT monitor. Very rough shape, unknown functional condition.
- PowerBook G3 (Wallstreet). Unknown functional condition, looks to be OK. Need to yank the batteries.
- 2x fat PS3s with 4 USB ports on the front. Unknown functional condition, missing hard disks and caddies.

[speter]

My latestfree)
Model Name: iMac 21.5
Model Identifier: iMac16,2
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
1TB HDD
Memory: 8 GB
worked when I got it, Hdd was wiped, but good.
Migrating to it, as my Alienware Arora I7 970 is showing signs of motherboard failure.

[TechGeek]

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Got a massive haul of stuff. Some notable items:

- Power Macintosh 7200/120 PC Compatible. Powers up and gives a good startup chime. Needs a full recap. Has the PC Compatibility board, which is in rough shape and needs attention. Hard disk still works, so plans are in the works to image it. PRAM battery removed at the first chance.
- Apple Multiple Scan 14" CRT monitor. Very rough shape, unknown functional condition.
- PowerBook G3 (Wallstreet). Unknown functional condition, looks to be OK. Need to yank the batteries.
- 2x fat PS3s with 4 USB ports on the front. Unknown functional condition, missing hard disks and caddies.

Update on the 7200/120 and the monitor:

The 7200/120 itself works. The PC Compatibility Card emits fishy smells as soon as the power is turned on, so I've totally removed it for now. The computer itself runs fine without it. It appears to have been running through at least 2007 according to the files on the hard drive, which sounds a bit like a lawnmower, so it's probably on borrowed time. I've got hardware on the way to get it imaged, so I'll be doing that before I attempt to boot it up again.

The monitor also works fine, despite its rough condition and the case shattering apart. The CRT is very strong and has an excellent picture. I'm probably going to end up either recasing it or parting it out as it's not really safe to use with the condition that the case is in.

I have yet to get around to doing anything with the Wallstreet G3 or the fat PS3s, as that requires that I finish some in-progress projects, shelve some systems, and generally rearrange things to get the room that I need to work on them.

[Topcat]

Picked up another Asus P2B-D on ebay cheap. The last complete one I sold went for over 1500! I've wanted to do another one since....but you can't find the P2B-D anywhere for under 250!

[Dan81]

Anything dual CPU is expensive as all heck. Yes, even a BP6 or VP6 would set me back as much as building a mid-end Ryzen or current gen Core i3/i5/i7 machine, as much as I'd love to - even single CPU stuff like the BE6-II and P2B Rev1.02 I have weren't any cheaper.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Dan81

Anything dual CPU is expensive as all heck. Yes, even a BP6 or VP6 would set me back as much as building a mid-end Ryzen or current gen Core i3/i5/i7 machine, as much as I'd love to - even single CPU stuff like the BE6-II and P2B Rev1.02 I have weren't any cheaper.

If netburst era stuff ever gets like that, I'm made!

(seriously, I have three dual netburst Xeon systems sitting... in various states of reliability!)

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by Dan81

Anything dual CPU is expensive as all heck. Yes, even a BP6 or VP6 would set me back as much as building a mid-end Ryzen or current gen Core i3/i5/i7 machine, as much as I'd love to - even single CPU stuff like the BE6-II and P2B Rev1.02 I have weren't any cheaper.

You can't even find a VP6 anymore. None of ebay; hasn't been for a long time, I check very regularly. There's a few very overpriced BP6's that never sell. Live bidding, a BP6 goes for $150~$200 typically in non-working state (bad caps). I have quite a few of both models.

The P2B-D has always been a popular one.

[Dan81]

Scratch that, even the standard BE6-II I have goes for pretty steep prices. And that's with stock caps alone, whereas I have installed polys on mine.

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

If netburst era stuff ever gets like that, I'm made!

(seriously, I have three dual netburst Xeon systems sitting... in various states of reliability!)

It's possible. Pentium 4's are entering 'vintage' state; these are of the same era.... It's a matter of waiting it out. The problem with some of our (yea I still have a few dual Netburst oddities) setups is that they were pretty obscure to begin with; they didn't have a huge 'fan base'....so I don't see them achieving the greatness of the mainstream stuff, and won't reflect the prices they fetch.... I mean really, how many would even think to look for a X6DA8-G2 running a pair of paxville CPU's....

[TechGeek]

Update on the 7200/120:
Scared up an S-Video cable to use as an impromptu ADB cable, confirmed that the system indeed last ran in 2007, so 15-odd years shut down. All the drives (hard, optical, floppy) work fine for now. The hard drive is certainly on borrowed time, as the system behaves strangely at times, usually followed by either a total lockup or a bomb message with the text "bus error". Probably the SCSI bus dropping the drive because it's up to no good.

The compatibility card works! I cleaned the card up and got it running, so it's definitely alive and well. There was an install of Windows 95 on the image used for it, but it corrupted in short order, likely due to the failing hard disk. It also appears to be limited to booting from floppy only, and I'm not sure how well it will handle CD-ROM access, if it's even supported.

....I should probably start a thread on this, don't ya think?

[Topcat]

The P2B-D mentioned earlier. First test is with a pair of P3 650/100 CPU's. It came with one 600E (which will overclock to 800/133 easily), but that wasn't the mission here. Function was the goal with the first round.

One thing I've always hated about the BX chipset is the denutted RAM support; only running those single-sided DIMM's. It was Intel's brilliance to limit the BX chipset (aimed at the consumer market) to 1gb while saving the GX for the higher end market; which supports double-sided modules to a max of 2gb....and it's the same frucking chipset!

Anyway....test 1 alive and running with half of the 1GB ECC RAM usable...





Current draws of this is ~.5A off the 12V rail consistently. The 5V rail at idle yielded 8A. In testing, fluctuated 11~13A. There was no draw from the 3.3v rail.



Test 2 with a pair of 1000/100 coppermines in slotkets.





These brought the draws up a bit. A full amp off the +12V rail regardless of the load and idle around 10A on the 5V rail. Under testing, it was fluctuating between 12~15A





I will be doing a really good retro gamer with this....just not sure when....but the foundation has been laid. I may run with these CPU's, it's the equivalent of the infamous 1GHz SL4KL which are difficult to find...or I may make it more unusual (like the last P2B-D I did) and run it with a pair of 1100/100 SL5QW CPU's, which defeat the SK4KL junkies by a good 100MHz. I don't really mess with 133FSB experiments with these boards, even though the v1.06 version (what this board is) tends to be a bit friendlier with 133FSB....they're never 100% stable....and I despise a system that isn't reliable.

[Xenon-Codex]

I thought this Lenovo would not work as the cover was broken and the battery partly torn off. It has an another different power connector, but I had the "adapter". It started, 4GB 12800 DDR and a 128Gig SSd were the value parts.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Originally Posted by Topcat

One thing I've always hated about the BX chipset is the denutted RAM support; only running those single-sided DIMM's. It was Intel's brilliance to limit the BX chipset (aimed at the consumer market) to 1gb while saving the GX for the higher end market; which supports double-sided modules to a max of 2gb.

yea they did very similar crap for the p3 815 series chipsets as well. crippled it to a 512mb ram limit which is pretty much artificial on their part as well because they wanted u to pay an arm and a leg for their rambus 820 chipset if u wanted more than 512mb ram!

[jiroy]

It's been long since I posted here , so here's some given free and repaired things from last month , and will try to fit as many I can in one post :

- A UPS with no front cover but the front panel card is still there . I found out that its problem is the battery , but luckily , it's the Lead acid type , so I'm gonna put some distilled water inside when I have time .
Anyway , my concentration wasn't for the UPS battery more than the charging capability of the UPS itself , So I packed up some good Lithium Ion batteries , assembling in total 27 ones , which makes a total of 32 A approximately . Different voltages be can taken like a wire for 6Volts or for 12Volts or even for 18Volts as needed ! . It's also equipped with an appropriate fuse for such capacity . Now , why we need this pack here ? , Read next ..

- Now the Aiptek v100 movie projector was given to me without charger , as they said it was burnt and they tried another new one but the Aiptek didn't work too so they bought a newer one and left this one for me ..
The 27 Lithium-Ion pack came handy here and I had just to find a suitable inlet to check . First attempts proved that there's no external voltages inside the mainboard , other than some faint 4.1 volts coming from an internal pack of batteries inside the device . So here , and just to be sure , I deployed a type-b to USB and charged the Aiptek from a laptop .. The Aiptek came to life one or two hours later and worked fine .. So the original problem was the DC 12v socket and it was changed eventually .

- A Duos mobile with both front and cover interfaces broken and not powering at all , and with no any signs of life .. I tried all the primary checks to no avail , but I need time to check more on this one , so I'll leave it for later .

- A Panasonic ES4036 Shaver and smoother . It took me quite a while , like a day or two to find its problem or problems , and they were many , including corrosion , green oxydation on the nickel-MH batterie and a loosen switch in the on-off area .. Yet , It's a real piece of art and worth the time wasted .

I'll post another sets during this week ..

[Dan81]

Scored these:

- Techsolo PC with a nice case that is in dire need of repair, specs below.
- Benq MK2442 TV Monitor - had bad Elite primary cap and even worse Hermei crappers on the secondary. Recapped the Hermei w/ Panasonic and Rubycons, and the main cap is now a UCC cap (forgot the series)
- a 2XL pair of camo trackpants that ain't anywhere near the 2XL size, more like S or L at best.
- a bunch of DDR sticks among which I got some nice PQI overclocking RAM (which seems to be considerably heavier than the GeiL sticks. 512MB as well.
- b0rked Toshiba A500/L500 mobo w/ MXM-based HD4650 1GB DDR3 GPU - I mainly bought it for the GPU, as I have a L500 that would benefit from it over the crappy HD4570 it runs.

Techsolo PC specs:

-no PSU (not that I'd care, they're SAMA OEM'd units btw, and the only Anandtech review unit I know of was so good it killed itself at 275W )
-ASUS A8N-SLI-EAYZ (aka plain A8N-SLI with nothing else)
-Athlon 64 3000+ skt939
-what appears to be a blue aftermarket heatsink on the nF4 chip - EDIT - found it, it's a Zalman ZM-NB47J
-XpertVision Geforce 9400GT 1GB DDR2
-Pioneer Slot-Loading DVD-ROM drive
-LG 52x CD-RW drive
-a dangling Sony 3.5' floppy drive
-Sound Blaster Live 5.1 SB0100 PCI
-a helluva lot of expansion cables
-Techsolo TC10-SR case that looks like some kind of Thermaltake Xaser knockoff except much smaller in size

[Xenon-Codex]

I "exchanged" this almost complete pc at the dump. The case is waste, but it has an Asus P8P67 mobo, Asus GeForce strix GTX970 4GB video card, Corsair 500W PSU and 120GB Kingston SSD. CPU is only i7-2600K. Memory was removed, but the HD had a licensed Win10 Pro in the final step of the installation(!).

[jiroy]

Speaking of Lithium-ion batteries packs , I found yesterday these two old pictures from my workshop . The first one was a 50 batteries one and one customer bought it as he liked the idea . He said it's a piece of art and insisted on taking it , ..
Next , I made the another 100 ones pack ..

[Dan81]

Scored some nice HW today, a Radeon X1950 Pro AGP, as well as an ABIT IS7-E v1.2 mobo.