best cheap/free scores 1.1

[dmill89]

EVGA 450B Power Supply for $0.95 + $9.19 shipping (so $10.14 total). Brand new with box, but listed as "for parts not working" The culprit turned out to be a bad fan(actually broken the center had separated from the outer frame causing the blades to bind against the frame), figured it was worth more than $10 in parts even if it was really "dead" but turned out to be a quick 5 min fix just swapping in a new fan.

[RukyCon]

Originally Posted by stj

the 6disk unit is a curse, you probably need to re-sync the mechanism.
they used to jam if you bumped them while loading / unloading.

I'm going to use it for parts.

[Behemot]

I'd guess you screwed something up during the procedure

[Dan81]

Originally Posted by Behemot

I'd guess you screwed something up during the procedure

I'd wish but I checked it about three times before applying power and I didn't screw anything up.

[RukyCon]

I got a lot more random crap today.
Not sure if i should take a photo.

[Compgeke]

Just been lurking a while but figured this was worthy of a post.

Went thrift store searching today and found myself an HP Z420 for $95. Complete with a Xeon E5-1650 (3.2 GHz, 6C, 12T, 12M Cache), 8 gigs ram, 250 gig HDD, Radeon HD 2400.

CPU alone is worth $95, the rest is a bonus. Also supports ECC ram so it looks like I'm going to up it to 64 gigs and short my mostly unused server some ram.

Also in the cheap/free: 12x 8 GB DDR3 10600R from a friend who was decommissioning servers. 8'll go into this for proper ram channel usage and the rest will stay in the T610. It's rarely used anyway.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by lti

I saw a lot more unstable computers back then than I do now, and I don't think it was just the caps or the software.

I don't know... I never had problems getting an old computer to work. Only ones with issues were stuff with sub-par SIS and VIA chipsets. And ASUS cranked some rather pricky BIOSes on OEM-boards. But other than that, everything I've seen has been solid.

Originally Posted by ChaosLegionnaire

scored an oldie but a goodie off fleabay a couple of weeks ago. a s939 athlon 64 x2 4800+ was being mislabelled in the listing title as a 4400+ when the pics in the listing clearly show it as a 4800+. scored it for US$22 in all including international shipping. a s939 a64 x2 4800+ typically goes for over 50 bucks on fleabay!

Nice!
I just missed a 4400+ CPU last week... but I did end up getting a 939 SLI board in... wait for it ..... mATX form factor. I've never seen anything like that before on a board that old. It's an EVGA made by Jetway. And of course, being a Jetway, it had nothing but the usual troublemakers: Sacon FZ almost everywhere. But, I can't complain for $8. It's going to be a fun recapping project.

Originally Posted by ruky con

Just a couple of things i got off of the side of the road today.

Speakers, yay! Did that speaker come as a set? I find Sony speakers to be alright, especially if they have PP cones on the woofer.

Originally Posted by dmill89

EVGA 450B Power Supply for $0.95 + $9.19 shipping (so $10.14 total). Brand new with box, but listed as "for parts not working" The culprit turned out to be a bad fan(actually broken the center had separated from the outer frame causing the blades to bind against the frame), figured it was worth more than $10 in parts even if it was really "dead" but turned out to be a quick 5 min fix just swapping in a new fan

Good score!
I find it interesting that the fan has broken like that. Perhaps the unit was dropped hard? Now you need to glue the fan back together with Gorilla glue and you will have a spare fan too.

I myself got an EVGA 750 G2 for free a few weeks back due to "bad/burned electronics smell". It did smell strange, but nothing like burning electronics. Works fine too. It's at work right now, where I use it as a personal test PSU. The test PSUs we have in the shop are Corsair CX500 and 600 units with cheap caps inside. They work, but I don't trust them as much.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Originally Posted by momaka

but I did end up getting a 939 SLI board in... wait for it ..... mATX form factor. I've never seen anything like that before on a board that old. It's an EVGA made by Jetway. And of course, being a Jetway, it had nothing but the usual troublemakers: Sacon FZ almost everywhere. But, I can't complain for $8. It's going to be a fun recapping project.

yea that sounds familiar... i think i may have seen the listing before too. is this it?

Originally Posted by momaka

I myself got an EVGA 750 G2 for free a few weeks back due to "bad/burned electronics smell".

nice thats a superflower leadex platform based psu, one of the best psus out there with regards to ripple. hard drives will last a very long time on one of those power supplies!

[momaka]

Originally Posted by ChaosLegionnaire

yea that sounds familiar... i think i may have seen the listing before too. is this it?

Bingo!

Originally Posted by ChaosLegionnaire

nice thats a superflower leadex platform based psu, one of the best psus out there with regards to ripple. hard drives will last a very long time on one of those power supplies!

Yeah, it looks well-built too - Japanese caps inside and all that.

I just realized, though, that I may not be able to take it out of work now, as it was a curb find and I don't have any receipt for it. :\
Hopefully the serial # on it should convince the managers that I didn't take it from our inventory.

Oops.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by momaka

I work in an electronics retailer right now, and I am fed up of seeing new PCs getting more and more shitty every day. The quality nowadays has totally gone out the window (or 10 Windows, to be exact ). If you think an HP or eMachines from a decade ago was bad... think again. Some of the desktop "boxes" I see are actually exactly that - they are made of super-thin cheap steel and lighter than an Echo Star PSU without the dummy weights inside - no I am not exaggerating! Even Deer cases were never that bad! And then the "contents" inside that desktop are literally a tiny-ass laptop motherboard (regardless of how big or small the case is) with a soldered CPU half the times and a shitty heatsink over it.

So yeah, if you buy a "modern" Dell or HP, that's exactly what you are going to get.

Was that even a Core i3? Sounds more like an Atom...

Or AMD E350 or the like... (That AMD series sounds more like a kind of sports car...)

[mikay786]

Alright folks been a while since I've been on, been a while since I've gone to the boot sale but went today as was up all night so thought I'd pop down.

Got a few things including

Harmon kardon soundsticks / not sure of version but with subwoofer for £4. Pc speakers
1tb external wd hard drive £1
Audax two25m1 tweeters £4
Chartwell PM 55 Speaker, just the single speaker £2 don't know owt about it but for £2 can't complain and is in very good nic

Not tested yet but from everything hopefully the HK soundsticks work as would be a nice upgrade to my current desktop speakers.

[Dan81]

Just got a whole PC for cheap. No wonder it was that cheap, I cut two fingers in it.

Specs:

Torrent Computers LC-B400ATX "400W"
As far as I know Torrent Computers was a romanian PC distributor located in Constanta. As for the OEM behind the PSU, it's our old friend, Deer. Funny though, I was expecting a myriad of dead caps but was surprised to find the only bulged cap was the 12v cap.

Frontier VI11A case
This must be the crappiest quality case I've ever seen,so crappy even Deer cases are way better than it. Sharp edges (sharper than a shark's teeth!),so sharp I got two cuts on both hands. I salvaged just the sidepanels and the front panel and threw away the chassis. Quite funny that it had a motherboard map for an ASUS P4P800 SE but the motherboard inside was something else (see below)

Gigabyte GA-8I848P-G
Not really much of a special motherboard, though I was a bit surprised to find out it has 3 DDR slots (my last 848P motherboard used to have only 2). 2004 datecode Nichicon HM on both VRM high and low, and OST RLS everywhere else. It came with only one lone takeMS ("Module made in Germany - suuuure.) 512MB DDR333 stick.

Xpertvision (Palit) Geforce FX5500 256MB AGP8x
Pretty much a dead giveaway that the GPU was made by Palit - I have two dead cards (although FX5200 both) and they share the same PCB as the Xpertvision. The only thing that differs from them is that the 5200 is passive and this 5500 is actively cooled.
Other than that, it's just another card with that quite stupid 7 pin TV output connector, thus using my self-made TV output S-Video cable (out of a keyboard from which I removed several pins until it resembled a S-Video cable) yielded a black and white picture. Same goes for another GPU I have, a Sapphire Radeon 9600SE.

Western Digital WD800JB-00JJA0
Your usual 05'-06' 80GB IDE HDD. Funny enough, it actually booted into a romanian Windows 7 Home Basic install. I might recycle the install by removing the previous owner's files. (I am pretty sure he doesn't need them since he gave the whole PC away)

Samsung/TSSTcorp SH-S22A/BEBE DVD-writer
Untested. For some reason that is beyond me, the casing has "AUDIO PORT NOT AVAILABLE" engraved on it. Maybe this model had a headphone port in the front? There is a CD-IN port on the back though.

Pentium 4 3.00GHz SL7PM - Prescott HT
Remember the bulged cap that I mentioned in the beginning that I found in the Torrent Computers PSU? This is why. Also the motherboard's PCB is darkened on the underside where the VRM is located. The ridiculous part? The only thing to cool it is a stock Intel cooler. (model F08A-12B8S2 01AC1 made by Nidec, part no. (?) C91249-003)

I think it was a good score - I might replace the CPU though, because I am pretty confident none of the PSUs I have would be able to power a fiery hot 3GHz Prescott HT.

Also, I finally got around and fixed my previously dead BenQ FP71G+ LCD monitor - the culprit was a burnt to ashes transistor on the driver board. An AB08 transistor out of a dead FX5200 GPU (I found out what the transistor had to be in order for the LCD to work - it had to be a P-channel enhancement mode transistor - the AB08 was.) proved to work - I got image back, and it worked fine using a VGA to DVI-I cable (yes,it's one of those "gold-plated" cables).

[stj]

Originally Posted by mikay786

Got a few things including

Harmon kardon soundsticks / not sure of version but with subwoofer

i have fixed about a dozen of those translucent units.
there are 2 versions - with USB, and with stereo-jacks

the psu and main unit should be re-capped with FR's
and sometimes the 8pin op-amps fail

[mikay786]

Originally Posted by stj

i have fixed about a dozen of those translucent units.
there are 2 versions - with USB, and with stereo-jacks

the psu and main unit should be re-capped with FR's
and sometimes the 8pin op-amps fail

Had a look at label at model is soundsticks ii, and are the stereo jack version.

In my haste and carelessness I assumed it would take a regular ac power cord but appears needs a power adapter which I didn't check for so will need to order one. About £8 delivered on eBay so not too rough.

On a bright note the 1tb western digital external drives works perfect, passed all tests

[stj]

15v - i have used a laptop charger before - but you need to get the plug.
the jacks one is best btw - the usb one had issues with windows only using one channel, and Linux needed some messing.
it must have been optimised for a mac.

[momaka]

Here's a beige case I picked up from Craigslist a few weeks back for free:
http://www.badcaps.net/forum/attachm...1&d=1495419050
http://www.badcaps.net/forum/attachm...1&d=1495419050
http://www.badcaps.net/forum/attachm...1&d=1495419050
http://www.badcaps.net/forum/attachm...1&d=1495419050

It's decently built overall - not the thickest steel, but definitely adequate. To put that in prespective, I did a couple of PC builds at work last month, and all I can say is that just about every case with price $50 or less is way weaker than the above case I found. Heck, I've seen even some more expensive new cases with less sturdy construction.

The case also came with two 80 mm Jamicon fans (not pictured, as I removed them during cleanup) and a floppy drive. Has a sliding motherboard tray, which I like. Unfortunately, the motherboard tray doesn't use brass stand-offs, but rather cheaper metal clips. And it only came with 6 of them, so I can only use it for a slim ATX motherboard. Also no front USB ports :\
I like the simplified front design, though.

As for the cleaning - the case wasn't too terribly dirty - just some dust and a few drops of soda here and there. Back and mobo tray are a bit oxidized, however. I guess this was stored in a damp location.

But hey - free is free!

[Dan81]

Originally Posted by momaka

It's decently built overall - not the thickest steel, but definitely adequate. To put that in prespective, I did a couple of PC builds at work last month, and all I can say is that just about every case with price $50 or less is way weaker than the above case I found. Heck, I've seen even some more expensive new cases with less sturdy construction.

I remember having a case that had exactly the same front panel, but I remember mine had brass stand-offs.

[mikay786]

Originally Posted by stj

15v - i have used a laptop charger before - but you need to get the plug.
the jacks one is best btw - the usb one had issues with windows only using one channel, and Linux needed some messing.
it must have been optimised for a mac.

15v 2a seems to be what's it uses

I only have a spare old 12v 3a adapter lying around, would that work?

[momaka]

Originally Posted by mikay786

15v 2a seems to be what's it uses

I only have a spare old 12v 3a adapter lying around, would that work?

It will work, but the lower voltage means the amp will start clipping at lower max volume. On the positive side, there will be less heat from the amp at higher volume.

If you like cranking the music up a lot, I would suggest to check on the internal filter cap voltage rating and also the amp IC itself (find its datasheet). If the filter caps are rated for 25V and the amp IC is not some common car amp IC (which are typically rated for around 15V or less), then you can probably feed the amp with a 19.5V laptop charger. A 65 Watt should do nicely, if you have a spare one (65W at 19.5V is 3.3x Amps typically). And preferably, it should use a 2-wire wall plug (i.e. non-grounded adapter) as a 3-wire may introduce a groud-loop for the amp and make the speakers rather noisy (lots of humming and popping).

Originally Posted by Dan81

I remember having a case that had exactly the same front panel, but I remember mine had brass stand-offs.

Interesting. I guess they used whatever they had more of.

I really wish the case was a little wider, though. None of the cases I have can fit a 8-heatpipe cooler like the 212 Evo (or in my case, a Deep Cool Ice Wind Pro 400 ).

[stj]

it needs more than 2amps if you want the base thumping - trust me.
and the ebay psu's are - lets just say under-rated.
i took the plug off one and fitted it to a 15v 4.5a fujitsu laptop charger.

that sounded better than the factory psu!