The (somewhat) famous WS440BX mobo pulled from a working Gateway GP7-550. This system was being used as a paging solution. Since we moved to a modern VoIP PBX this workaround was no longer needed. Not sure yet in what kind of project this will be involved. The ISA slot gives some possibilities.

* Can't get the image resize to work, width= and height= do nothing.

kikenovic wrote:

* Can't get the image resize to work, width= and height= do nothing.

VOGONS supports BBCode (for phpBB 3.0.x) but not HTML.

ooooooo Im excited look what i found.

I found a ton of magazines ranging from the years 1996 to 2005, very interesting builds in there for building a period correct machine. Also got a tandy 128k color computer free along with a ton of floppy disk's and two FDD's.

I found a list of supported hardware for windows 3.1 witch came with the set of floppies.

I saved all of this from going to the dump, I have yet to see if the tandy works or not.

^Magazines looking great! I'm only just starting to look/hunt for certain issues myself.

I have an acquaintance who has a shed full of old computer parts. He says that one day he will invite me over to pick through it. Recently, I got a hint at the treasures within that shed. He brought me a small bag full of random parts he pulled out quickly. This is what he could reach without having to move stuff out of the way:
-a box of 72-pin SIMMs including:
--1x32MB 60ns FPM
--1x16MB 60ns FPM
--2x8MB 60ns FPM
--4x8MB 60ns EDO
-dozens of serial and parallel rear AT cables
-dozens of slot covers with serial/parallel cutouts
-a NIB Boca Turbo Parallel I/O card (8-bit)
-a very old-looking 8-bit parallel card. No brand visible on it
-NIB Allsop 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 floppy cleaning kit
-two sealed Maxell 100MB ZIP disks
-a Promise PCI UltraATA100 card
-and (drum roll please) NIB Pentium III 933/133 socket 370 cpu! The box is pretty beat-up, but I did pull it out and all looks right, including HSF with new thermal compound pre-applied.

Just yesterday I was walking on a busy main street and spotted an LCD monitor next to some garbage bags lying near the curb, screen looked spotless so I picked it up.
Powered it up at home, came up with no backlight. Lamps tested OK with my ghetto tester (flatbed scanner CCFL inverter) so I was hoping for something simple like a blown backlight fuse, not quite but close enough - the two driver transistors for the inverter transformer were shorted and that was it, replaced them and boom:

Free 4:3 1024x768 LCD with zero scratches? Don't mind if I do!

133MHz wrote:

Just yesterday I was walking on a busy main street and spotted an LCD monitor next to some garbage bags lying near the curb, scr […]
Show full quote

Just yesterday I was walking on a busy main street and spotted an LCD monitor next to some garbage bags lying near the curb, screen looked spotless so I picked it up.
Powered it up at home, came up with no backlight. Lamps tested OK with my ghetto tester (flatbed scanner CCFL inverter) so I was hoping for something simple like a blown backlight fuse, not quite but close enough - the two driver transistors for the inverter transformer were shorted and that was it, replaced them and boom:

Free 4:3 1024x768 LCD with zero scratches? Don't mind if I do!

Some of these monitors tend to consistently burn the inverter driver transistors, so if it fails again in a short period of time by burning the transistors again, you'll need to completly redo the solder points of every transformer in the inverter board, as they tend to crack (even though you can't see it with the naked eye) putting stress on the transistors and burning the over and over again.

Drove past a big pile of computer bits put out for collection, and decided to have a poke around in the middle of the night under the pretext of filling the wife's car with petrol 😀 It's been raining here lately, and the pile was next to a main road, getting splashed with grit by passing cars. Though there was no AT gear or really old parts, most of it being budget looking towers, I targeted the big tower which was lying on its side at the bottom of the pile, and the CRT.

Fearing a 478 P4, the computer turned out to be a P3 1GHz on an Intel 815 mATX board. PSU was a junk 500W unit. No hard disk, of course, but it did come with the max 512MB PC133 for this board. To my surprise the board, CPU and RAM all work well - score! It's on an earlier BIOS version, so with an update I hope to put a faster Tualatin in (wonder if it supports the 1.4-S?), and luckily it's got an AGP slot, so I'm reading threads here about what vid card to use - thinking GF4 Ti4200 from available parts. Haven't tested that lovely TDK burner yet, fingers crossed it still works.

The monitor is a Compaq 15" MV540. Brushed off the dirt after taking the photo, also hoping this works as it would fit nicely in the gap I have between 12" and 17" CRTs. Another blessing is that it has its video cable still attached.

Washed up the case with plenty of hot water and soap, and it looks good now, just a bit of paint loss on the top and some rust spots inside. The mATX board was wasting the space in the case so it'll be used with a bigger board, and the mATX has been installed into a Lian Li case (should post about that in System Specs).

Pretty happy with this find! Might take another look ... I think the wife needs more petrol 🤣

I have that same exact monitor in a computer at my garage. I use it mostly for ambient music, random videos and a bit of web browsing.
It's a good CRT. Mine was a bit out of focus and one of the menu buttons was stuck, making the menus work all by it self. Both easly fixed.

Found a brand-new, never opened Soltek SL-75KAV (VIA KT133-based Socket A with ISA slot) in a trash bin. The box itself is a little dinged up but everything is there in its factory sealed antistatic packaging. I have absolutely no use for it but I couldn't let it be hauled away for scrap.

Win98 performance build and Duke3D FPS monster, coming up.

JidaiGeki wrote:

P3 1GHz on an Intel 815 mATX board.

I think you have a decent and strong combo with a 1ghz + ti4200. I have had good results, even with a non-tualatin running at 933mhz. As far as I remember, I did a tread, explaining how to avoid bad gfx in UT99 running a GF4-ti4200. The combo will be even better, when you get a tualatin running on that board. Even a 1.2 ghz will kick some serious butt.

I came across a broken Fujitsu PC on the street and decided to take out the motherboard with CPU from it, the northbridge/southbridge heatsniks are missing, but is not a problem since i have many heatsniks taken from dead motherboards and GPUs.

I tested both the motherboard and GPU are everything is working

Motherboard is an ASUS P5GD1-FM (LGA 775, i915P, 4x DDR400, 1x PCI-E x16 and 3x PCI, Realtek ALC861 HD Audio, Realtek RTL8101L Fast Ethernet, Firewire)and the CPU is a Pentium 4 630. Aparently this motherboard has no PS/2 connectors, so i have to use USB Mouse and Keyboard

i been asked to review "old junk" that was going to the bin, i could take whatever i wanted...

i was like 😳 when i found that between the "old junk" was some piece's of hardware that i never seen despite i been repairing computers since 1999

Intel D875PBZ:

Voodoo 4 4500 32MB AGP + Asus V9280 Geforce 4 Ti4200 128MB:

Except maybe for the Ti4200 the others are almost impossible to find here in Argentina.

PS: yep, all in working condition 😀

Living wrote:

i been asked to review "old junk" that was going to the bin, i could take whatever i wanted... […]
Show full quote

i been asked to review "old junk" that was going to the bin, i could take whatever i wanted...

i was like 😳 when i found that between the "old junk" was some piece's of hardware that i never seen despite i been repairing computers since 1999

Intel D875PBZ:

Voodoo 4 4500 32MB AGP + Asus V9280 Geforce 4 Ti4200 128MB:

Except maybe for the Ti4200 the others are almost impossible to find here in Argentina.

PS: yep, all in working condition 😀

I would check your V4, I don't remember having ever seen those coming with passive heatsinks, it might not be the original heatsink and all the other ones I've seen came with active heatsinks (better safe than sorry 😀)

Very nice haul!

I had a friend give me a dumpster find. Figured something old, actually got a
Core 2 quad Q6600
Eva SLI motherboard
cooler Master 850w PS
Nvidia video card haven't checked which one
320 WD Blue
4GB ddr2 (I think)
All in a Cooler Master case (it's a huge one and a bit scuffed up but still useable)

> I would check your V4, I don't remember having ever seen those coming with passive heatsinks

There was definitely a fan there. Connector is present and in the edges the heatsink once had screws.

JidaiGeki wrote:

Fearing a 478 P4, the computer turned out to be a P3 1GHz on an Intel 815 mATX board. PSU was a junk 500W unit. No hard disk, of course, but it did come with the max 512MB PC133 for this board. To my surprise the board, CPU and RAM all work well - score! It's on an earlier BIOS version, so with an update I hope to put a faster Tualatin in (wonder if it supports the 1.4-S?), and luckily it's got an AGP slot, so I'm reading threads here about what vid card to use - thinking GF4 Ti4200 from available parts. Haven't tested that lovely TDK burner yet, fingers crossed it still works.

The attachment _DSC3640.JPG is no longer available

That's a delightful little board. You might have intermittent issues with the PCI slots because the small capacitors scattered throughout the board need to be replaced. The large VRM capacitors are excellent quality.

Regarding tualatin support, it gets a little complicated. First let's deal with electrical compatibility. All revisions of this board are compatible with certain Tualatin CPUs, however:

The following board revisions (AA numbers) support these processors:
A51500-700 or later.

If you don't have this newer revision, your board isn't electrically compatible with Tualatin and you will need something like a Lin-Lin adapter.

Now let's deal with BIOS compatibility. This board will actually boot with the PIII-S and then tell you that the CPU isn't compatible with the board and it will refuse to boot further. This is an artificial limit Intel placed in there. If someone could hack the BIOS to remove it, it would be cool. Attached is the official PDF listing CPU compatibility.

I've just returned home, and i discovered that my uncle visited my family today, when i was at work. I did find some unusual boxes in the garage and... shock!
He left me a wonderful gift, his complete c64 setup, with 1541, 1541-2 complete with box ,datassette, manuals,a nice pair of joysticks, old compute magazine copies (quite peculiar since i live in Italy and that's an American publication)

Tons and tons of floppies full of programs and games. There's even a speech syntesis module for the vic20 , and a couple of homemade devices to be coupled to the external port( i still have to investigate their function)

Thanks Uncle! Thanks thanks thanks alot!! I'll buy him a nice gift next xmas!

Don't want to spoil it but I found this just today at the recycle center, for the full story head over to the "recent activities" thread.