appiah4 wrote:

I found an HP Vectra VEi 8 with unknown configuration; apparently a P3 Slot 1 with integrated Matrox G200 and Crystal CS4280, for 15 bucks.. Not sure if I will get it though as I have a system that covers the era. Just curious şf there is anything special about their builds or cases..

Integrated G200 would make it nice for 2D games like baldurs gate assuming it has the usual G200 through the roof signal quality.

cyclone3d wrote:

Thinking the current BX based motherboard I have is faulty as I was not able to get it to POST.

ASUS BX boards are practically bulletproof.

More thrift store stuff.

-Beige PC tower w/ Intel 845 motherboard, socket 478 Celeron 2.0ghz, 512MB DDR266, onboard video/sound, 80 GB WD Caviar w/ password locked install of XP Home. A few bulging caps but it works fine (so far.) - $10
-Boxed HDD caddy - 75 cents
-Mouse Systems serial mouse - 99 cents
-USB 3.5" floppy drive. - 99 cents

And some stuff from an electronics store.
-40 ish caps for recapping an A-Trend slot 1 board I have.
-Arctic Silver thermal paste
-Spool of solder braid.

The thrift store has maybe 5 or 6 gray Dells (specifically like 4 Dimension 3000s) and a couple HP Pentium4 HT towers, $10 each. Is it worth it? Checked inside one of the P4HT towers and they still have the hard drives. (may be wiped, they were sold as untested.)

cj_reha wrote:

More thrift store stuff. […]
Show full quote

More thrift store stuff.

-Beige PC tower w/ Intel 845 motherboard, socket 478 Celeron 2.0ghz, 512MB DDR266, onboard video/sound, 80 GB WD Caviar w/ password locked install of XP Home. A few bulging caps but it works fine (so far.) - $10
-Boxed HDD caddy - 75 cents
-Mouse Systems serial mouse - 99 cents
-USB 3.5" floppy drive. - 99 cents

And some stuff from an electronics store.
-40 ish caps for recapping an A-Trend slot 1 board I have.
-Arctic Silver thermal paste
-Spool of solder braid.

The thrift store has maybe 5 or 6 gray Dells (specifically like 4 Dimension 3000s) and a couple HP Pentium4 HT towers, $10 each. Is it worth it? Checked inside one of the P4HT towers and they still have the hard drives. (may be wiped, they were sold as untested.)

The Dells that have AGP yes. If there non-AGP models I would say grab one incase you ever need a burner system you wouldn't mind losing. Thats what I use mine for. The HP's would probably make good early PCIe gaming systems.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

cj_reha wrote:

More thrift store stuff. […]
Show full quote

More thrift store stuff.

-Beige PC tower w/ Intel 845 motherboard, socket 478 Celeron 2.0ghz, 512MB DDR266, onboard video/sound, 80 GB WD Caviar w/ password locked install of XP Home. A few bulging caps but it works fine (so far.) - $10
-Boxed HDD caddy - 75 cents
-Mouse Systems serial mouse - 99 cents
-USB 3.5" floppy drive. - 99 cents

And some stuff from an electronics store.
-40 ish caps for recapping an A-Trend slot 1 board I have.
-Arctic Silver thermal paste
-Spool of solder braid.

The thrift store has maybe 5 or 6 gray Dells (specifically like 4 Dimension 3000s) and a couple HP Pentium4 HT towers, $10 each. Is it worth it? Checked inside one of the P4HT towers and they still have the hard drives. (may be wiped, they were sold as untested.)

The Dells that have AGP yes. If there non-AGP models I would say grab one incase you ever need a burner system you wouldn't mind losing. Thats what I use mine for. The HP's would probably make good early PCIe gaming systems.

Didn't check inside the Dimensions, but if they're anything like my dad's Dimension 2400 work PC, they're PCI only. I'll probably grab one next time if someone didn't steal the CPU, RAM, HDD, and graphics card like someone did with a lone Dell Optiplex in the middle of the Dimensions.

cj_reha wrote:

The thrift store has maybe 5 or 6 gray Dells (specifically like 4 Dimension 3000s) and a couple HP Pentium4 HT towers, $10 each. Is it worth it? Checked inside one of the P4HT towers and they still have the hard drives. (may be wiped, they were sold as untested.)

It's more likely that somebody just deleted the partitions or reformatted them. Not many people seem to know how to actually wipe a drive, and that leads to all the overkill paranoia out there about data security.
If you have the appropriate type of install CD then you can install XP on those machines using the license which is embedded in their BIOS. A retail XP disc won't recognize that though.

I don't know if all Dimension 3000s are the same, but the one I bought a few years ago had an 800FSB Prescott HT mPGA478 board but no AGP. The nicest thing about it is the case, which has a nice simple side panel that easily comes off. It's not one of those maddening clamshells Dell was so fond of.
I believe the 3000's case is physically microATX and will fit standard microATX boards, but I haven't tried swapping. It still uses Dell's front panel ribbon connector though. I suppose there could be adapters to break that out into conventional connections.

The HPs might be better.

cj_reha wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

cj_reha wrote:

More thrift store stuff. […]
Show full quote

More thrift store stuff.

-Beige PC tower w/ Intel 845 motherboard, socket 478 Celeron 2.0ghz, 512MB DDR266, onboard video/sound, 80 GB WD Caviar w/ password locked install of XP Home. A few bulging caps but it works fine (so far.) - $10
-Boxed HDD caddy - 75 cents
-Mouse Systems serial mouse - 99 cents
-USB 3.5" floppy drive. - 99 cents

And some stuff from an electronics store.
-40 ish caps for recapping an A-Trend slot 1 board I have.
-Arctic Silver thermal paste
-Spool of solder braid.

The thrift store has maybe 5 or 6 gray Dells (specifically like 4 Dimension 3000s) and a couple HP Pentium4 HT towers, $10 each. Is it worth it? Checked inside one of the P4HT towers and they still have the hard drives. (may be wiped, they were sold as untested.)

The Dells that have AGP yes. If there non-AGP models I would say grab one incase you ever need a burner system you wouldn't mind losing. Thats what I use mine for. The HP's would probably make good early PCIe gaming systems.

Didn't check inside the Dimensions, but if they're anything like my dad's Dimension 2400 work PC, they're PCI only. I'll probably grab one next time if someone didn't steal the CPU, RAM, HDD, and graphics card like someone did with a lone Dell Optiplex in the middle of the Dimensions.

How could someone basically strip a PC without being noticed?

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

How could someone basically strip a PC without being noticed?

This thrift store isn't in the greatest of neighborhoods, plus the electronics section is in the way back of the store. Also many don't require tools to open. I opened the Pentium 4 HT tower by unscrewing the thumbscrews with my fingers.

Picked up what looked old enough to be a socket 7 atx system, but the insides were upgraded at some point. Oh well, still some stuff I can use. I kinda like the look of the case.

Pentium III 800E
Asus P3V 4X
896MB Ram (4 sticks, not sure the sizes yet)
Matrox Mystique PCI (4MB)
Aureal Vortex 8820
Seagate 8GB HDD
WD 15GB HDD

It was being sold as dead, but just needed a different PSU. Booted into a painfully slow Windows XP install (that appears to have been used as recently as 2011)

probnot wrote:

I kinda like the look of the case.

So do I. The internals aren't too bad. I really like the cheesy case badge. I am doing a Win98SE build right now with similar specs.

probnot wrote:

Picked up what looked old enough to be a socket 7 atx system, but the insides were upgraded at some point. Oh well, still some s […]
Show full quote

Picked up what looked old enough to be a socket 7 atx system, but the insides were upgraded at some point. Oh well, still some stuff I can use. I kinda like the look of the case.

Pentium III 800E
Asus P3V 4X
896MB Ram (4 sticks, not sure the sizes yet)
Matrox Mystique PCI (4MB)
Aureal Vortex 8820
Seagate 8GB HDD
WD 15GB HDD

It was being sold as dead, but just needed a different PSU. Booted into a painfully slow Windows XP install (that appears to have been used as recently as 2011)

I want a Computer King 🤣

That case definitely wins on uniqueness. I love it! The cheesy case badge is the cherry on top, haha.

This... Tested and fully recapped with long lasting tantalum capacitors. RF modulator removed. Sellers picture.
A bit expensive, yet these things do not come cheap anymore. 🙁

^ nice!
personally I'd prefer some high-quality electrolytics but in the other hand I doubt it makes a difference in the amiga

Yeah.... The old board was giving me too many issues, even after a recap. A full repair of the old, might cost me twice as much, compared to what I payed for this one. The old board was working fine after a recap, yet after a couple of days, the issues went from perfect to far worse than before a recap. And it has even begun to get that bad-cap fishy smell now. Symptoms like blueish colored screen, undtable loading from floppy drive, over 30 seconds on boot before software will load from a media and all the leds have begun to blink now. The same day the problems began to come back, it just started with the floppy led being active all the time. Hmmm... Well.... After a thread at amiga.org, I have come to the conclusiuon that the old board will cost me more to fully restore, than what I have payed for the replacement board.

As for the old board... Well... If it can be restored, then I guess another person have to buy it from me, and give it a go.
I am not throwing more money after that board, so if someone think it can be done, then I will sell it for really cheap at amibay.
And if it can not be done, then I might just throw it out. After all... There comes a time, were things is not repairable anymore.

EDIT:
I have been in contact with the seller, and there should be caps soldered on the actual board it self.
So I guess that eighter the caps used are not actual orange or the photo has been taken before them being soldered in.
Eighter way... There should be caps at the spots. 😀

Even though the board would be completely busted, I'm pretty sure a repairer could take the custom chips off

Deksor wrote:

Even though the board would be completely busted, I'm pretty sure a repairer could take the custom chips off

True.... Think it will be sold as a donor-board then.

cj_reha wrote:

probnot wrote:

Picked up what looked old enough to be a socket 7 atx system, but the insides were upgraded at some point. Oh well, still some s […]
Show full quote

Picked up what looked old enough to be a socket 7 atx system, but the insides were upgraded at some point. Oh well, still some stuff I can use. I kinda like the look of the case.

Pentium III 800E
Asus P3V 4X
896MB Ram (4 sticks, not sure the sizes yet)
Matrox Mystique PCI (4MB)
Aureal Vortex 8820
Seagate 8GB HDD
WD 15GB HDD

It was being sold as dead, but just needed a different PSU. Booted into a painfully slow Windows XP install (that appears to have been used as recently as 2011)

I want a Computer King 🤣

Kinda neat. Looks like a SS7 PC and X68000 combined.

Say hello to the Computer King! <burp>!

xplus93 wrote:

Kinda neat. Looks like a SS7 PC and X68000 combined.

What I find interesting is that it has a Turbo LED and a cut-out below the power button for a Turbo button...but it's an ATX form factor. This must have been a really early ATX design, I don't remember seeing even early Pentiums having Turbo buttons.