A Tale of broken laptops, trades, and epic wins :D

[Kanan]

(meanwhile i'm friggin happy with this ryzen - its no performance king, but its giving 70% the CPU performance of my primary rig, at stock clocks. Could be an epic LAN system, since its mATX)

You should overclock it and watch it vaporise your 3770K... well okay, maybe not vaporise but actually maybe beat it

 

[Mussels]

Had a few more wins i forgot to post here, but the best would be a micro ATX lenovo PC purchased for $25 as 'faulty'

Just needed a new hard drive (i used an SSD).... look what i found inside it

 

[jboydgolfer]

Had a few more wins i forgot to post here, but the best would be a micro ATX lenovo PC purchased for $25 as 'faulty'

Just needed a new hard drive (i used an SSD).... look what i found inside it

ill PM you my shipping address.
$25 was it?

 

[Mussels]

ill PM you my shipping address.
$25 was it?

netflix has never been so smooth on that system, i was told i made some hilarious faces when i realised what CPU was in there
(a friend bought the other 3, they had i3's... i just got lucky)

 

[jboydgolfer]

netflix has never been so smooth on that system, i was told i made some hilarious faces when i realised what CPU was in there
(a friend bought the other 3, they had i3's... i just got lucky)

My nephew has the dell SFF optiplex, which his friends always are surprised by its hp. It has 16gb ram, a i5, and a 750ti. Imagine someone finding it in a dumpster. Id harvest it before hand tho. but his friends will come over, and see how tiny it is, and expect performance to suite its size, but they are apparently surprised often.

 

[Mussels]

My nephew has the dell SFF optiplex, which his friends always are surprised by its hp. It has 16gb ram, a i5, and a 750ti. Imagine someone finding it in a dumpster. Id harvest it before hand tho. but his friends will come over, and see how tiny it is, and expect performance to suite its size, but they are apparently surprised often.

that is literally what i just upgraded from, had one that was originally an intel atom and upgraded to the 3550 - and now sidegraded over to a larger size, but a crazy amount of grunt for an SFF system

 

[jboydgolfer]

that is literally what i just upgraded from, had one that was originally an intel atom and upgraded to the 3550 - and now sidegraded over to a larger size, but a crazy amount of grunt for an SFF system

i would have built him a PC, but a friend who works for dell brought it by, bnib, and even if i didnt want it, it would have been rude to not accept it . It would have continued to be sufficient, but my nephew was recently given a 55" 4k TV, which he has connected to the Optiplex, and as im sure Your aware, that PC is not capable of driving those resolutions.....so i told him, i am not going to build him a 4K capable PC, but i will do my best to build a PC that can drive as well as possible.

the good part, is that when i Do upgrade his PC, i can sell off what parts of value there are in the optiplex, which arent TOO valuable, but do have some resale worth

 

[_JP_]

Had a few more wins i forgot to post here, but the best would be a micro ATX lenovo PC purchased for $25 as 'faulty'

Just needed a new hard drive (i used an SSD).... look what i found inside it

M93 right? I have a few of those to play with, M92 too, nice little machines, easy to setup too, despite zero OC options.

 

[jboydgolfer]

M93 right?

Thats what it looks like

 

[Mussels]

M83, older than you guys think

 

[_JP_]

M83, older than you guys think

The M83 and M93 are both from the same year, 2013
It's just the M93 had some extra features and/or expansion ability over the M83...that and M9x usually have a card reader at the front, so yeah, M83 it is.

 

[Atomic77]

First of all saying nobody can read on the internet is not true. I am one of many that can read. I don’t know much about computer parts but that looks like a good find.

 

[rtwjunkie]

First of all saying nobody can read on the internet is not true. I am one of many that can read. I don’t know much about computer parts but that looks like a good find.

What are you talking about with the no reading thing? I'm sure I am not the only one you have confused.

 

[Atomic77]

This is what I was referring too.

So lemme tell you a lil' story, with pictures cause no one can read on the internets.


One day a mussels was on facebook, and saw a girl selling a broken laptop for $20. so he bought it thinking "eh, i'll help this girl out. maybe i can fix it"

Suffice to say, the laptop worked well over HDMI but the screen was on LSD.

Meh, whatevs - lets take out the hard drive and ram, maybe fix it up later.

To save you googling... thats a 750GB sata II 2.5" hard drive. hotdamn. SCORE!


Heres a generic googled image of the ram, i forgot to snap a pic of it:

Not a bad score. Then something came up on facebook. an old guy had a crappy pentium 4 desktop full of viruses, and a brand new laptop that just needed some DDR3 ram. open trade. i decided what the hell, the hard drive was an epic win - i'll help him out. The case would be useful for a spare parts machine i was building at the very worst. Here is the photos of me excitedly opening up this ancient tech.

Look at those onboard options - wowee.

a 300W FSP PSU? You know what, i'll take that as a win. Reliable little things.

Ugghhh... AGP! DDR! and... sata cables to a shiny? the feck is with that bent metal?

.... whut

for realsies?

oh god its for realsies

Post formatting (on a SATA II port, so its speed capped)

And after all those pretty pictures, yes, i managed to get both of these for $20 and 15 minutes of driving

 

[silentbogo]

Well, @Mussels , now I'm gonna hijack your thread and brag about my freebies!

#1 Got a Gigabyte GSmart Guru G1 (too many of G's). I've fixed it a few times before for my neighbor, so he promised to give it to me when it breaks the next time.
Few days ago he dropped that phone and broke a digitizer... The pic looks scary, but the phone is OK. I was simply trying out my new screen separation tool.
The new digitizer should arrive monday.


#2 Bought a dozen of SFF PC cases from a local warehouse (defective/flawed but 100% new). Cases are already gone, but they gave me about 100+ non-working PSUs as a bonus.
... time to start making tesla coils.... lots of tesla coils....
I've already fixed a few 600W 80+ Bronze units. Only a "couple more" to go



#3 A mining motherboard! AsRock H81 Pro BTC. Diagnosed as "non-working" at some service center, but so far it worked for 2 days, passed all stability tests, and had no issues w/ GPUs.
I'm not good at cryptomining, so I might use it for something else (or trade it for something useful).


#4 Broken, but soon gonna be working, WiFi/Ether IP Cam.
Forgot to make a photo of the whole thing, but it's a 2MP chinese IP camera(heavily reworked foscam clone w/ better hardware and firmware) with two servo motors, WiFi, Ethernet, SD card slot, IR floodlight and tons of other features.
The CPU was dead, but fortunately for me the replacement IC only costs $5.
Here's a before-after photoshoot of the SoC removal process.

Under normal circumstances I would've left it alone in the box, or reused a camera module for my DIY USB microscope, but unfortunately I got my motivation for repairing this thing from a recent robbery. Luckily for me thieves only managed to snatch a few broken laptops before security arrived.
The new SoC is also on the way, so if it works, I might just save $100 on a new security camera.

 

[AlienIsGOD]

First of all saying nobody can read on the internet is not true. I am one of many that can read. I don’t know much about computer parts but that looks like a good find.

sarcasm must be a new wonder to you....

 

[Mussels]

I got one of these as well, 'tested as doa' - they were going to be violent with it

Works 100%, all thats wrong is if you use the fan header for system fan 1, the PC wont post. Very odd, but totally leaves a working mobo when you ignore that...

 

[silentbogo]

Works 100%, all thats wrong is if you use the fan header for system fan 1, the PC wont post. Very odd, but totally leaves a working mobo when you ignore that...

Gotta check that diode near SYSFAN1 connector. I think what happened, is it failed and now there is nothing to suppress the shootback noise from fan motor.
Alternatively, it could be a nearby capacitor. MSI always advertises those as "military grade" or some other bullshit, but they fail just as often as others.
Though, caps on mid- to high-end boards are a real pain in the ass to solder...

 

[Komshija]

I never got any great deals. However, I managed to negotiate slightly lower prices for certain hardware (used and new in the stores) and sell them for slightly more. For instance, not so long ago I sold completely new PC to my neighbour. Total price with deliveries was around 4700 kn / 630 €. I assembled it, installed the necessary software and sold it for 5200 kn / 700 €. At the local store they would pay for such (complete) system approx. 5500 kn or 735 €.

Some time ago I bought used iPhone 6S 64 GB with valid warranty in mint condition for 3000 kn / 400 € and sold it for 3400 kn / 455 €. The girl was selling it for 3200 kn / 430 €, but I managed to lower the price to 3000 kn / 400 €, despite I was aiming at 2800 kn / 375 €. The fun fact is that I "sold" the phone before I actually had it. So, as you can see my deals aren't that great.

 

[Mussels]

Just won a competition on the logitech facebook page, won myself the powerplay wireless charging mousepad worth $150 Au

... and its compatible with my logitech G403, winnnnaaaaaar!

 

[Mussels]

Cloth pad is a perfect match for the G403/G703, low noise and low friction

despite G403 being 'unsupported' the pad is both charging it, and working as the receiver

 

[Sasqui]

A recent trip into the local IT department reveals about 2 dozen Dell PC's (HEDTs for CAD work). I ask about them, our IT guy says they're going to be "re-purposed" but he's got to recycle the pile of old laptops by my feet. There's about 2 dozen older Dells... he's ok if I grab a few, the HDD's are gone.

I snap pics of the service tags. Most are junk but... two with i7 CPUs! So here's what I scored:

• Precision M6800: Core i7-4810MQ / 16GB DDR3 / 17.3" 1080P / FirePro M6100 2GB (The downside of this one is that although it supposedly works, it was literally run over a car, so the case is in rough shape, plus no battery)
• Precision M6500: Core i7-820QM / 4GB DDR3 / 17" 1080P / FirePro M7749 1GB

Assuming it works... The M6500 I plan to connect to my TV as a media client and living-room PC for surfing, etc. Not sure what to do with the M6800, maybe part it out or see if components can be swapped.

 

[anselmo]

"Bloody nora" - James May. For real, those are great finds. Specially the Kingston drive. Wow, those deals never appear here in this god forgotten land.

 

[Jetster]

I love how old Dells have dents in them

 

[Mussels]

nice laptops!

I scored myself an $800 VR headset for $300, but while its fun thats not as epic as the 'free shit' this thread is mostly about