TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Well, I got a ton of stuff in recently. Will try to be concise.

This is the ebay lot of DDR2 I got plus 4 sticks I got included with a bunch of 775 CPUs.

Spoiler: info about ram in the lot

According to the seller the GEIL is 4-4-4-12 800mhz rated but doesn't oc well. The Kingston ocs to 1100mhz 5-5-5-15. Both kits are only 2x1gb.

Full list:
2x2gb Patriot 800 4-4-4-12 2.2v
2x2gb OCZ Gold 800 5-5-5 1.9v
1x2gb OCZ Gold 800 5-5-5 1.8v
1x2gb OCZ Gold 1066 5-6-6 2.1v
1x1gb Nanya 666 5-5-5
1x1gb Nanya 800 6-6-6
1x1gb Elpida ACSE 666 5-5-5
2x2gb Corsair XMS 800 5-5-5-18 1.8v V5.1
6x2gb Adata 800 CL6
5x2gb Spectek Select 800mhz
1x1gb Hynix 666 5-5-5
1x1gb Hynix 800 6-6-6
1x1gb Hynix 533 4-4-4
1x2gb Hynix 800 6-6-6.
1x1gb Kingston KVR 533 4-4-4 Elpida AGBG
1x512mb Qmonda 666 5-5-5
1x512mb Promos 666 5-5-5
4x2gb Kingston KVR 800 6-6-6 1.8v (Micron)
2x2gb Crucial 800 6-6-6 1.8v (same as above KVR)
1x1gb Crucial Unknown (Samsung)

Yesterday I picked this up for twenty bucks off of Facebook. Some junk, tons of modems, but some really neat stuff.

Spoiler: Some notable contents

Trident Daytona TGUI9680
STB Tseng Labs ET6000
Ati Radeon 7000 32mb PCI
Yamaha 719 ISA Sound card
USB 2 card with 9x drivers

As far as ram, there is a nice 2x1 kit kf Patriot 333 Cl2.5 DDR ram, and a lot of other stuff ranging from PC133 to non branded DDR3, although no ddr2. One of the Samsung DDR sticks smells like its been on fire, so that's nice. I'll test this stuff when I get to it, although I have no machine that takes pc133 to test that.

Edit, just tested everything in the top photo. Everything posted without error except for 2 Spectek sticks. Those sticks post on my P5q-e but blue screen if I try to boot. Tried cleaning contacts. Definitely faulty.

 

[MachineLearning]

Browsing eBay listings as I too frequently do, I found yet another board that I've been fond of from afar: the Abit AB9 QuadGT.

I saw the Anandtech review while researching the IP35 Pro, and from the moment I saw it I was hooked...

Stunning color scheme - same as the IP35 Pro. This is as it was when I finished, however it came with some free dust for my collection.

As you see above, and numerous other crannies. Not terrible, but needed some brushing.

Before I show the disassembly, I'll touch briefly on this CPU cooler which came with the board. It's a ZEROTherm BTF95 (link is for BTF90).

Full-copper, passive cooler, with the BTF80 & BTF90 versions having an optional MagLev fan.

This old paste glistens in the light, so I assume it has metal particles. Considering this, and the year this was likely last mounted, maybe it's Arctic Silver 5? I didn't spend time deep-cleaning this cooler yet, but I think it has potential if I can put a 120mm fan on it or something.

The CPU it came with was a C2D E6300.

The sunrise-style heatsink motif continues, but I can't find a moon here as with the IP35 Pro. Perhaps because they weren't quite in their twilight years yet

Now, it shines.

RTL8110SC gigabit ethernet,

ALC888 audio,

ICH8R southbridge,

...and, the Intel P965 chipset. C2 stepping - not that it matters. I didn't immediately find a date code on the main PCB, but the board was probably made sometime around week 36 (NB date) to 39 (SB date) of 2006. The E6300 in question was made week 26 / 2006, so late '06 is most likely when this was first installed.

The CPU VRM is a 5-phase Volterra affair.

I'm pretty sure I remember Buildzoid saying in one of his videos that Volterra components are extremely hard to find datasheets for. I can't find any for the VT1135SF, although I can find old retail pages so I know I've not misread the part number. Judging by the name I'd assume it's 35a nominal current, but I'm uncertain.

One benefit of the Volterra VRM is per-phase temperature monitoring, & total current monitoring (as you saw above) - which is compounding the inherently excellent uGuru voltages. HWiNFO reads all of these values, which makes me very happy.

That's not so bad - if accurate. 33500 hrs = 3.8 years uptime, so around 25% of the time this board has existed. I am confused as to why the "AC Power On Total Time" is lower than "PC Up Time Total", though. I expected the reverse. All-solid capacitors, so either way it's still young in my eyes.

I guess this is some sort of alien VRM which can handle high temperatures. Either this is an element of a beta BIOS (running v18, the "latest"), or an error at Abit... or, Volterra parts are ridiculously thermally durable.

I intended on overclocking with an E0 Q9550, as this BIOS release adds support for E0, but unfortunately this release is also exceedingly buggy:

BIOS freezes up any time I bring up a menu such as F6, F7, F10, Esc, but all the submenus work fine (uGuru, Standard CMOS Features, etc.). A lovely mirrored message appears desperately asking I load a profile, which is hilarious to me. I'm going to try an older BIOS release. It unfortunately seems E0 stepping isn't overclockable (or fully usable, as RAM will be @ 1:1, 2.0v always) with this specific ROM. Still, there is much hope, since it works and I have G0 CPUs to play with. Using a Pentium D 930 and the original v10 bios, I was able to successfully save and change settings, so it's not something physical with the board.

If anyone knows a fix for the funny bug in v18, I'd love to find that but, the board works, and I love this hardware. P965 seems to have been one of the first Intel chipsets to reliably hit 500MHz+ FSB reasonably on air cooling, and it has insane CPU compatibility (w/ updates) as well.

All these photos, and somehow I forgot to take photos of the blue LED light show on the whole rear of the board. When I get OC settled and maybe even put it in a case, I'll show those effects off.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Browsing eBay listings as I too frequently do, I found yet another board that I've been fond of from afar: the Abit AB9 QuadGT.

I saw the Anandtech review while researching the IP35 Pro, and from the moment I saw it I was hooked...
View attachment 240203
Stunning color scheme - same as the IP35 Pro. This is as it was when I finished, however it came with some free dust for my collection.
View attachment 240204
View attachment 240205
As you see above, and numerous other crannies. Not terrible, but needed some brushing.

Before I show the disassembly, I'll touch briefly on this CPU cooler which came with the board. It's a ZEROTherm BTF95 (link is for BTF90).
View attachment 240206
View attachment 240207
Full-copper, passive cooler, with the BTF80 & BTF90 versions having an optional MagLev fan.
View attachment 240208
This old paste glistens in the light, so I assume it has metal particles. Considering this, and the year this was likely last mounted, maybe it's Arctic Silver 5? I didn't spend time deep-cleaning this cooler yet, but I think it has potential if I can put a 120mm fan on it or something.

The CPU it came with was a C2D E6300.
View attachment 240209
View attachment 240210
View attachment 240211
View attachment 240212
View attachment 240213
The sunrise-style heatsink motif continues, but I can't find a moon here as with the IP35 Pro. Perhaps because they weren't quite in their twilight years yet
View attachment 240214
Now, it shines.
View attachment 240215
RTL8110SC gigabit ethernet,
View attachment 240216
ALC888 audio,
View attachment 240217
ICH8R southbridge,
View attachment 240218
...and, the Intel P965 chipset. C2 stepping - not that it matters. I didn't immediately find a date code on the main PCB, but the board was probably made sometime around week 36 (NB date) to 39 (SB date) of 2006. The E6300 in question was made week 26 / 2006, so late '06 is most likely when this was first installed.
View attachment 240219
The CPU VRM is a 5-phase Volterra affair.
View attachment 240220
I'm pretty sure I remember Buildzoid saying in one of his videos that Volterra components are extremely hard to find datasheets for. I can't find any for the VT1135SF, although I can find old retail pages so I know I've not misread the part number. Judging by the name I'd assume it's 35a nominal current, but I'm uncertain.

One benefit of the Volterra VRM is per-phase temperature monitoring, & total current monitoring (as you saw above) - which is compounding the inherently excellent uGuru voltages. HWiNFO reads all of these values, which makes me very happy.
View attachment 240221
That's not so bad - if accurate. 33500 hrs = 3.8 years uptime, so around 25% of the time this board has existed. I am confused as to why the "AC Power On Total Time" is lower than "PC Up Time Total", though. I expected the reverse. All-solid capacitors, so either way it's still young in my eyes.
View attachment 240224
I guess this is some sort of alien VRM which can handle high temperatures. Either this is an element of a beta BIOS (running v18, the "latest"), or an error at Abit... or, Volterra parts are ridiculously thermally durable.

I intended on overclocking with an E0 Q9550, as this BIOS release adds support for E0, but unfortunately this release is also exceedingly buggy:
View attachment 240225
BIOS freezes up any time I bring up a menu such as F6, F7, F10, Esc, but all the submenus work fine (uGuru, Standard CMOS Features, etc.). A lovely mirrored message appears desperately asking I load a profile, which is hilarious to me. I'm going to try an older BIOS release. It unfortunately seems E0 stepping isn't overclockable (or fully usable, as RAM will be @ 1:1, 2.0v always) with this specific ROM. Still, there is much hope, since it works and I have G0 CPUs to play with. Using a Pentium D 930 and the original v10 bios, I was able to successfully save and change settings, so it's not something physical with the board.

If anyone knows a fix for the funny bug in v18, I'd love to find that but, the board works, and I love this hardware. P965 seems to have been one of the first Intel chipsets to reliably hit 500MHz+ FSB reasonably on air cooling, and it has insane CPU compatibility (w/ updates) as well.

Haha! I saw that listing and was tempted to buy it, but I didn't like the price. Nice find.

 

[68Olds]

MachineLearning, I’m fairly certain the 965 chipset did not support 45nm quad cores. I have the AW9D-Max 975 chipset & I know it doesn’t have that support. It also has the blue leds on the back of the board, fun look.
Pretty sure the Q6600 is supported though. And of course all sorts of Core2Duos work in it too.

 

[lexluthermiester]

RARE 3DFX Voodoo QUANTUM3D Obsidian2 MERCURY AALCHEMY BRICK vintage video card | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for RARE 3DFX Voodoo QUANTUM3D Obsidian2 MERCURY AALCHEMY BRICK vintage video card at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Yup, that's rare these days. That card array was used in flight simulator rendering. Extremely powerful for the day.

 

[MachineLearning]

MachineLearning, I’m fairly certain the 965 chipset did not support 45nm quad cores. I have the AW9D-Max 975 chipset & I know it doesn’t have that support. It also has the blue leds on the back of the board, fun look.
Pretty sure the Q6600 is supported though. And of course all sorts of Core2Duos work in it too.

Damn, it seems you're right... When I saw E0, I didn't think it'd only be C2D. Good catch

That explains it, I'll try an E8500 E0!

edit: in case you / anyone is interested, here's the BIOS changelog

 

[Outback Bronze]

I said to myself no more purchases, my pile of 775 hardware is big enough.

Yeah, that's what I said then I saw this for $80 AUD : )

 

[MachineLearning]

Yeah, that's what I said then I saw this for $80 AUD : )

View attachment 240247
View attachment 240248
View attachment 240249
View attachment 240250

Very nice! Does it allow you to save BIOS profiles? My XFX 750i does not, so every failed boot resets all settings

BTW you can find the latest BIOS for that board here. I know XFX took their pages for motherboards down long ago.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Does it allow you to save BIOS profiles?

Unsure cant remember I doubt it thought.

I can boot it over the weekend if your keen?

The last time I booted up this mobo it had horrible vdroop so I've been looking for a pencil mod where I place conductive silver. Done it a few times with other mobo's (P45 comes to mind) with great success. Just need to know where the mod goes. I've been unable to find anything on a pencil mod for the 790i and most web pages don't exist anymore because the board is now 14 years old : (

 

[INSTG8R]

Well, I got a ton of stuff in recently. Will try to be concise.

This is the ebay lot of DDR2 I got plus 4 sticks I got included with a bunch of 775 CPUs.

Spoiler: info about ram in the lot

According to the seller the GEIL is 4-4-4-12 800mhz rated but doesn't oc well. The Kingston ocs to 1100mhz 5-5-5-15. Both kits are only 2x1gb.

Full list:
2x2gb Patriot 800 4-4-4-12 2.2v
2x2gb OCZ Gold 800 5-5-5 1.9v
1x2gb OCZ Gold 800 5-5-5 1.8v
1x2gb OCZ Gold 1066 5-6-6 2.1v
1x1gb Nanya 666 5-5-5
1x1gb Nanya 800 6-6-6
1x1gb Elpida ACSE 666 5-5-5
2x2gb Corsair XMS 800 5-5-5-18 1.8v V5.1
6x2gb Adata 800 CL6
5x2gb Spectek Select 800mhz
1x1gb Hynix 666 5-5-5
1x1gb Hynix 800 6-6-6
1x1gb Hynix 533 4-4-4
1x2gb Hynix 800 6-6-6.
1x1gb Kingston KVR 533 4-4-4 Elpida AGBG
1x512mb Qmonda 666 5-5-5
1x512mb Promos 666 5-5-5
4x2gb Kingston KVR 800 6-6-6 1.8v (Micron)
2x2gb Crucial 800 6-6-6 1.8v (same as above KVR)
1x1gb Crucial Unknown (Samsung)

View attachment 240185
Yesterday I picked this up for twenty bucks off of Facebook. Some junk, tons of modems, but some really neat stuff.
View attachment 240186

Spoiler: Some notable contents

Trident Daytona TGUI9680
STB Tseng Labs ET6000
Ati Radeon 7000 32mb PCI
Yamaha 719 ISA Sound card
USB 2 card with 9x drivers

As far as ram, there is a nice 2x1 kit kf Patriot 333 Cl2.5 DDR ram, and a lot of other stuff ranging from PC133 to non branded DDR3, although no ddr2. One of the Samsung DDR sticks smells like its been on fire, so that's nice. I'll test this stuff when I get to it, although I have no machine that takes pc133 to test that.

I still have most of the top row still myself. I had a whole box of stuff for phill with some nice Abit boards that just kinda fell through


Edit, just tested everything in the top photo. Everything posted without error except for 2 Spectek sticks. Those sticks post on my P5q-e but blue screen if I try to boot. Tried cleaning contacts. Definitely faulty.

Browsing eBay listings as I too frequently do, I found yet another board that I've been fond of from afar: the Abit AB9 QuadGT.

I saw the Anandtech review while researching the IP35 Pro, and from the moment I saw it I was hooked...
View attachment 240203
Stunning color scheme - same as the IP35 Pro. This is as it was when I finished, however it came with some free dust for my collection.
View attachment 240204
View attachment 240205
As you see above, and numerous other crannies. Not terrible, but needed some brushing.

Before I show the disassembly, I'll touch briefly on this CPU cooler which came with the board. It's a ZEROTherm BTF95 (link is for BTF90).
View attachment 240206
View attachment 240207
Full-copper, passive cooler, with the BTF80 & BTF90 versions having an optional MagLev fan.
View attachment 240208
This old paste glistens in the light, so I assume it has metal particles. Considering this, and the year this was likely last mounted, maybe it's Arctic Silver 5? I didn't spend time deep-cleaning this cooler yet, but I think it has potential if I can put a 120mm fan on it or something.

The CPU it came with was a C2D E6300.
View attachment 240209
View attachment 240210
View attachment 240211
View attachment 240212
View attachment 240213
The sunrise-style heatsink motif continues, but I can't find a moon here as with the IP35 Pro. Perhaps because they weren't quite in their twilight years yet
View attachment 240214
Now, it shines.
View attachment 240215
RTL8110SC gigabit ethernet,
View attachment 240216
ALC888 audio,
View attachment 240217
ICH8R southbridge,
View attachment 240218
...and, the Intel P965 chipset. C2 stepping - not that it matters. I didn't immediately find a date code on the main PCB, but the board was probably made sometime around week 36 (NB date) to 39 (SB date) of 2006. The E6300 in question was made week 26 / 2006, so late '06 is most likely when this was first installed.
View attachment 240219
The CPU VRM is a 5-phase Volterra affair.
View attachment 240220
I'm pretty sure I remember Buildzoid saying in one of his videos that Volterra components are extremely hard to find datasheets for. I can't find any for the VT1135SF, although I can find old retail pages so I know I've not misread the part number. Judging by the name I'd assume it's 35a nominal current, but I'm uncertain.

One benefit of the Volterra VRM is per-phase temperature monitoring, & total current monitoring (as you saw above) - which is compounding the inherently excellent uGuru voltages. HWiNFO reads all of these values, which makes me very happy.
View attachment 240221
That's not so bad - if accurate. 33500 hrs = 3.8 years uptime, so around 25% of the time this board has existed. I am confused as to why the "AC Power On Total Time" is lower than "PC Up Time Total", though. I expected the reverse. All-solid capacitors, so either way it's still young in my eyes.
View attachment 240224
I guess this is some sort of alien VRM which can handle high temperatures. Either this is an element of a beta BIOS (running v18, the "latest"), or an error at Abit... or, Volterra parts are ridiculously thermally durable.

I intended on overclocking with an E0 Q9550, as this BIOS release adds support for E0, but unfortunately this release is also exceedingly buggy:
View attachment 240225
BIOS freezes up any time I bring up a menu such as F6, F7, F10, Esc, but all the submenus work fine (uGuru, Standard CMOS Features, etc.). A lovely mirrored message appears desperately asking I load a profile, which is hilarious to me. I'm going to try an older BIOS release. It unfortunately seems E0 stepping isn't overclockable (or fully usable, as RAM will be @ 1:1, 2.0v always) with this specific ROM. Still, there is much hope, since it works and I have G0 CPUs to play with. Using a Pentium D 930 and the original v10 bios, I was able to successfully save and change settings, so it's not something physical with the board.

If anyone knows a fix for the funny bug in v18, I'd love to find that but, the board works, and I love this hardware. P965 seems to have been one of the first Intel chipsets to reliably hit 500MHz+ FSB reasonably on air cooling, and it has insane CPU compatibility (w/ updates) as well.

All these photos, and somehow I forgot to take photos of the blue LED light show on the whole rear of the board. When I get OC settled and maybe even put it in a case, I'll show those effects off.

As an avid fan an owner of many Abit boards(including an IP35 Pro I still have posted somewhere in this thread) That one went totally under my radar it’s definitely unique!

 

[MachineLearning]

Unsure cant remember I doubt it thought.

I can boot it over the weekend if your keen?

The last time I booted up this mobo it had horrible vdroop so I've been looking for a pencil mod where I place conductive silver. Done it a few times with other mobo's (P45 comes to mind) with great success. Just need to know where the mod goes. I've been unable to find anything on a pencil mod for the 790i and most web pages don't exist anymore because the board is now 14 years old : (

If you're wanting to give it a go, sure I'd be interested in seeing how it goes along. I just did some light digging and as you say, all the images are totally gone... very unfortunate. 750i has unbearable vDroop too.

As an avid fan an owner of many Abit boards(including an IP35 Pro I still have posted somewhere in this thread) That one went totally under my radar it’s definitely unique!

Absolutely! I've become a fan after the IP35 Pro, it's an amazing board. The only issue I have with it is the vDroop with quad cores / Pentium D, but it's really not the worst in that regard either. That one is (or will have been...) my favorite board to test LGA775 with by far.

I just ordered that same Ballistix yellow RAM as well, just a slightly different style heatspreader

The Corsair seems to be Nanya, thanks Warp9

 

[INSTG8R]

If you're wanting to give it a go, sure I'd be interested in seeing how it goes along. I just did some light digging and as you say, all the images are totally gone... very unfortunate. 750i has unbearable vDroop too.

Absolutely! I've become a fan after the IP35 Pro, it's an amazing board. The only issue I have with it is the vDroop with quad cores / Pentium D, but it's really not the worst in that regard either. That one is (or will have been...) my favorite board to test LGA775 with by far.

I just ordered that same Ballistix yellow RAM as well, just a slightly different style heatspreader

The Corsair seems to be Nanya, thanks Warp9

Oh I had the IC-7 the AT-8 32X, IP35 Pro and one I just can’t remember was a long time user and very lost when they were gone…I’ve all the original parts to rebuild the AT+8 on air just no case or space

TechPowerUp

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Dinnercore]

Yeah, that's what I said then I saw this for $80 AUD : )

View attachment 240247

Nice find! I have to come back to Nvidia chipsets some day. This is asking for some kind of SLI setup.

Random note to Core 2 Duo binning: From my very limited sample size of CPUs with the same batch I found no perceived similarities in OC. They show the same deviations. But I don't have enough samples to make a meaningful conclusion. 5 CPUs split across 2 batches. Batch A has one very good and one below average result. Batch B produced 2 mediocre and one good result.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Random note to Core 2 Duo binning: From my very limited sample size of CPUs with the same batch I found no perceived similarities in OC. They show the same deviations. But I don't have enough samples to make a meaningful conclusion. 5 CPUs split across 2 batches. Batch A has one very good and one below average result. Batch B produced 2 mediocre and one good result.

Most E8xxx will overclock very well given an appropriate board. 6xxx I haven't tested much yet.

My 2nd E8400 dialed to 4.5ghz, but I got it to bench at 5ghz with an aio chucked in top. The first e8400 didn't post at all

Sometimes you can get a dud, but most of them are fairly okay silicon.

I'd like to bench more E8xxx.

I just got a C2D E6600 and C2Q Q6600 I will have to overclock. Also a Celeron 420. My Celeron 450 topped out around 3.5ghz, which is not half bad for the garbage tier silicon those are.

 

[Dinnercore]

Sometimes you can get a dud, but most of them are fairly okay silicon.

All of the E0 are okay from what I can see. I have 25 of them binned and 6 C0 on top. The C0 struggle to get far into 4Ghz. While 90% of my E0 could hit 4.25GHz with 1.35V. With enough voltage you can get many of them close to 5GHz, but the ones that can hit 5GHz on a 'daily safe' voltage are rather rare.

 

[Greenslade]

Well, I got a ton of stuff in recently. Will try to be concise.

This is the ebay lot of DDR2 I got plus 4 sticks I got included with a bunch of 775 CPUs.

Spoiler: info about ram in the lot

According to the seller the GEIL is 4-4-4-12 800mhz rated but doesn't oc well. The Kingston ocs to 1100mhz 5-5-5-15. Both kits are only 2x1gb.

Full list:
2x2gb Patriot 800 4-4-4-12 2.2v
2x2gb OCZ Gold 800 5-5-5 1.9v
1x2gb OCZ Gold 800 5-5-5 1.8v
1x2gb OCZ Gold 1066 5-6-6 2.1v
1x1gb Nanya 666 5-5-5
1x1gb Nanya 800 6-6-6
1x1gb Elpida ACSE 666 5-5-5
2x2gb Corsair XMS 800 5-5-5-18 1.8v V5.1
6x2gb Adata 800 CL6
5x2gb Spectek Select 800mhz
1x1gb Hynix 666 5-5-5
1x1gb Hynix 800 6-6-6
1x1gb Hynix 533 4-4-4
1x2gb Hynix 800 6-6-6.
1x1gb Kingston KVR 533 4-4-4 Elpida AGBG
1x512mb Qmonda 666 5-5-5
1x512mb Promos 666 5-5-5
4x2gb Kingston KVR 800 6-6-6 1.8v (Micron)
2x2gb Crucial 800 6-6-6 1.8v (same as above KVR)
1x1gb Crucial Unknown (Samsung)

View attachment 240185
Yesterday I picked this up for twenty bucks off of Facebook. Some junk, tons of modems, but some really neat stuff.
View attachment 240186

Spoiler: Some notable contents

Trident Daytona TGUI9680
STB Tseng Labs ET6000
Ati Radeon 7000 32mb PCI
Yamaha 719 ISA Sound card
USB 2 card with 9x drivers

As far as ram, there is a nice 2x1 kit kf Patriot 333 Cl2.5 DDR ram, and a lot of other stuff ranging from PC133 to non branded DDR3, although no ddr2. One of the Samsung DDR sticks smells like its been on fire, so that's nice. I'll test this stuff when I get to it, although I have no machine that takes pc133 to test that.

Edit, just tested everything in the top photo. Everything posted without error except for 2 Spectek sticks. Those sticks post on my P5q-e but blue screen if I try to boot. Tried cleaning contacts. Definitely faulty.

Seems like you have an eye for a bargin cool ,good for you.What section do i look for on Facebook Market place for the ram motherboards etc?PC hardware?

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Seems like you have an eye for a bargin cool ,good for you.What section do i look for on Facebook Market place for the ram motherboards etc?PC hardware?

You have to look all over, even sometimes beyond the electronics category, for reasons I'll explain.

Few tips. First and foremost, for bargain hunting, in most cases,
eBay < Everything else

eBay has a much wider audience which usually leads to a lot of bidders and buyers to pick up any good deal. Plus eBay fees and shipping etc inflate prices. However, If you know what to look for and have a bit of luck, you CAN get good deals.

Usually Facebook or Craigslist has better deals. Both for shipping and local deals. Sometimes you can get good prices from people that don't know what they have and just think they have old junk of unknown functionality, when it's actually an item that a collector or enthusiast still would pay good money for. Or sometimes people just want to sell something quickly.

Spoiler: Tips that can help

Few strategies that can help. Mislabeled items can be a great opportunity. For example, say there is an auction for a motherboard but it's listed under the monitor category, it won't show up for people looking for motherboards and probably will get few bids or offers, allowing for a good deal to be had. Sometimes you will find people with bad photos, terrible descriptions, or lacking information so nobody else will buy them, which sometimes means a good deal for you. I've gotten scammed like this before, but eBay is great about refunds. Another way involves some risk too, and that is with "untested" or "for parts listings". You have to be very careful and can get burned even if you know what you are looking for, but sometimes you can get very good deals this way. For example, a motherboard worth $70 might only sell for $25 if it has bent pins, which you could possibly fix and get a super cheap board. Or you can get a GPU for cheap because someone pulled out of their PC when they upgraded and they haven't used in years since, so they listed as untested. Or maybe they are listing as untested since they know it's broken but don't want to lose as much money.

 

[Athlonite]

Before I show the disassembly, I'll touch briefly on this CPU cooler which came with the board. It's a ZEROTherm BTF95 (link is for BTF90).
View attachment 240206
View attachment 240207
Full-copper, passive cooler, with the BTF80 & BTF90 versions having an optional MagLev fan.
View attachment 240208
This old paste glistens in the light, so I assume it has metal particles. Considering this, and the year this was likely last mounted, maybe it's Arctic Silver 5? I didn't spend time deep-cleaning this cooler yet, but I think it has potential if I can put a 120mm fan on it or something.

The thermal paste is Titans own Titan Silver thermal paste AC silver is a dark grey paste not shiny like this but the good thing about it is it never goes off it performs just as good 5 years down the track as it did on day one

 

[Mr.Scott]

I remember when the butterfly cooler came out.
That is a collector piece now. Pretty rare.

 

[Outback Bronze]

This is asking for some kind of SLI setup

Yeah, that's what these bad boys are for.

Or Tri SLI : )

 

[micropage7]

Browsing eBay listings as I too frequently do, I found yet another board that I've been fond of from afar: the Abit AB9 QuadGT.

I saw the Anandtech review while researching the IP35 Pro, and from the moment I saw it I was hooked...
View attachment 240203
Stunning color scheme - same as the IP35 Pro. This is as it was when I finished, however it came with some free dust for my collection.
View attachment 240204
View attachment 240205
As you see above, and numerous other crannies. Not terrible, but needed some brushing.

Before I show the disassembly, I'll touch briefly on this CPU cooler which came with the board. It's a ZEROTherm BTF95 (link is for BTF90).
View attachment 240206
View attachment 240207
Full-copper, passive cooler, with the BTF80 & BTF90 versions having an optional MagLev fan.
View attachment 240208
This old paste glistens in the light, so I assume it has metal particles. Considering this, and the year this was likely last mounted, maybe it's Arctic Silver 5? I didn't spend time deep-cleaning this cooler yet, but I think it has potential if I can put a 120mm fan on it or something.

The CPU it came with was a C2D E6300.
View attachment 240209
View attachment 240210
View attachment 240211
View attachment 240212
View attachment 240213
The sunrise-style heatsink motif continues, but I can't find a moon here as with the IP35 Pro. Perhaps because they weren't quite in their twilight years yet
View attachment 240214
Now, it shines.
View attachment 240215
RTL8110SC gigabit ethernet,
View attachment 240216
ALC888 audio,
View attachment 240217
ICH8R southbridge,
View attachment 240218
...and, the Intel P965 chipset. C2 stepping - not that it matters. I didn't immediately find a date code on the main PCB, but the board was probably made sometime around week 36 (NB date) to 39 (SB date) of 2006. The E6300 in question was made week 26 / 2006, so late '06 is most likely when this was first installed.
View attachment 240219
The CPU VRM is a 5-phase Volterra affair.
View attachment 240220
I'm pretty sure I remember Buildzoid saying in one of his videos that Volterra components are extremely hard to find datasheets for. I can't find any for the VT1135SF, although I can find old retail pages so I know I've not misread the part number. Judging by the name I'd assume it's 35a nominal current, but I'm uncertain.

One benefit of the Volterra VRM is per-phase temperature monitoring, & total current monitoring (as you saw above) - which is compounding the inherently excellent uGuru voltages. HWiNFO reads all of these values, which makes me very happy.
View attachment 240221
That's not so bad - if accurate. 33500 hrs = 3.8 years uptime, so around 25% of the time this board has existed. I am confused as to why the "AC Power On Total Time" is lower than "PC Up Time Total", though. I expected the reverse. All-solid capacitors, so either way it's still young in my eyes.
View attachment 240224
I guess this is some sort of alien VRM which can handle high temperatures. Either this is an element of a beta BIOS (running v18, the "latest"), or an error at Abit... or, Volterra parts are ridiculously thermally durable.

I intended on overclocking with an E0 Q9550, as this BIOS release adds support for E0, but unfortunately this release is also exceedingly buggy:
View attachment 240225
BIOS freezes up any time I bring up a menu such as F6, F7, F10, Esc, but all the submenus work fine (uGuru, Standard CMOS Features, etc.). A lovely mirrored message appears desperately asking I load a profile, which is hilarious to me. I'm going to try an older BIOS release. It unfortunately seems E0 stepping isn't overclockable (or fully usable, as RAM will be @ 1:1, 2.0v always) with this specific ROM. Still, there is much hope, since it works and I have G0 CPUs to play with. Using a Pentium D 930 and the original v10 bios, I was able to successfully save and change settings, so it's not something physical with the board.

If anyone knows a fix for the funny bug in v18, I'd love to find that but, the board works, and I love this hardware. P965 seems to have been one of the first Intel chipsets to reliably hit 500MHz+ FSB reasonably on air cooling, and it has insane CPU compatibility (w/ updates) as well.

All these photos, and somehow I forgot to take photos of the blue LED light show on the whole rear of the board. When I get OC settled and maybe even put it in a case, I'll show those effects off.

damn good find actually that's the effect of market place that sometimes you find something that interesting with low tag, but buying 2nd stuff sometimes hang on your luck

 

[TOMCAT]

I am quite sure I saw such a BTF-95 butterfly before, hanging in a christmas tree.

It is a good quality cooler with the special look and the problems of all copper only coolers. In short: it catches the heat very good, but keeps it.
92 mm fan mount is easy. Front has 8 holes through all the fins and I used bare copper wire for self-bend hooks.
Tail mount needs a bit of bending fins and cutting fan frame for a 92 mm slim fan.

And the next item on your search list is a dark red PCB Abit 775 fatal1ty board.

 

[MachineLearning]

I am quite sure I saw such a BTF-95 butterfly before, hanging in a christmas tree.

It is a good quality cooler with the special look and the problems of all copper only coolers. In short: it catches the heat very good, but keeps it.
92 mm fan mount is easy. Front has 8 holes through all the fins and I used bare copper wire for self-bend hooks.
Tail mount needs a bit of bending fins and cutting fan frame for a 92 mm slim fan.

And the next item on your search list is a dark red PCB Abit 775 fatal1ty board.

True... making fan hooks with wire as you mentioned would be mighty easy.

I see it's beauteous enough to be your profile picture - I'll clean it up and try to make it look really nice so I can give it a go

Damn, red PCB would go super well with this... It's a shame those Abit Fatal1ty boards are really hard to find, in my experience at least.

 

[stef]

Macgyvering Arctic F8 fan to PII 450 heatsink:

Fits perfectly to Asus P2B . I've never seen such a badass heatsink. CPUs came Compaq branded.

 

[Robert B]

FRESH LOOT! or should I say LOOT GALORE?

1. AMD K7600MTR51B A - Slot A - I'm a slot A "whore". I hoard them like crazy. I lost count of how many motherboards and CPUs I got. Which is a good thing in my book!
2. AMD K5 PR166 - AMD-K5-PR166ABR - always wanted one. Now I got one!
3. ASUS K7M Rev 1.04 Slot A + K7 700MHz CPU - need I say Slot A? I'm such a slut!!! 4th ? 5th? I lost count again. I have all flavors, with and without Super Bypass.
4. ASUS Geforce FX 5600 128MB AGP - V9560 128M Rev. 1.02 - a Geforce FX? HECK YEAH!
5. ASUS M2N32-SLI DELUXE REV. 1.04G with Athlon 64x2 3800+ - great piece of tech. Solid and heavy like tank. Did I mention that it gets quite hot? Under load of course.
6. A stomped on MFM controller which made a full recovery. Now to check if one of my Winchester drives is able to talk to this puppy. I wonder ...
7. Another Athlon XP 3200+ - AXDA3200DKV4E - the 4th I got.
8. A BIOSTAR Sk.3 MB-1433/50UVC-D PCB VER:2 - which is still going strong! Some battery leak damage but nothing terminal.
9. ASUS P5E DELUXE REV. 2.00G with a Celeron E3300. That made me laugh hard! Am X48 with a crappy CPU! AWESOME! I LIKE IT!
10. ASUS A8V S939 + Athlon 64 3200+ a second one. It needs a new Winbond W83627THF-A IC which I ordered from China.
11. Gigabyte GA-BX2000 / 440BX Slot 1 + P3 550MHz SL3FJ - Immortal 440BX!!!
12. ELSA Winner PRO PCI - in bad shape. It has been fully restored and it works like a dream.
13. A bunch of Winbond W83783S chips have arrived from China. Now MY ABIT BE6 is complete and firing on all cylinders. This is a story to be told! Soon!
14. Matrox Mystique 220 4MB PCI - missing the bracket but otherwise working well.
15. A dead 3dfx VooDoo 3 2000 16MB AGP - the heatsink was bent and because the thermal glue is stupidly strong it also lifted at least 10-15 traces and pads from the PCB. RIP.
16. Leadtek WinFast A280 Ultra - UNICORNS DO EXIST! - Finally a working Geforce 4 4600Ti! It needed 3 caps changed. This is a Win(ner)Fast awesome card!
17. Full Copper Sk.A CPU coolers?! COUNT ME IN! I got 3 of these beasts.
18. MiroSound PCM Pro1 ISA - almost repaired. I still need a 3.3uf 35V SMD cap
19. ASUS ATI Radeon 2600XT PCI-E - repaired. A torn transistor and also torn pads.
20. HIS ATI Radeon X800GTO IceQ II 256MB PCI-E - this makes me want to drive a GTO on Route 66 right into the sunset!!!
21. Misc - P2 400MHz, AMD 486 DX4 100MHz, Be Quiet 350W with strong 3.3V and 5V rails, dual fan. 2x Creative Audigy 2. A Gainward S3 Virge AGP... Lots of other trinkets of all shapes and sizes!
22. For sure I forgot something but I'll get to them eventually!

More later dudes!

​

More pics.