UGG. my father had that exact HP machine. A crap system, for a time when the internet was just taking off. It had a 400mhz celeron and I could not talk my father into getting a "real" pentium 3. He kept that system for years. All that, it was a decent system. Before the end I did manage to cram in a 1ghz p3 and 512mb of ram before the end.

Yeah it's not bad, not really that upgradeable since it has no AGP (but it has a spot on the board for it). Runs quick enough though with Windows 98SE, I don't think my one here was used all that much since it still has the OEM install and no real files or programs to speak of. It almost seems like some modern "gamer" got it and tried to beef it up cause it had an Ethernet card and USB 2.0 card in it (which caused it act dead). More than likely the USB card is why it got tossed. 🤣

King_Corduroy wrote:

Found these guys last week! Probably not going to keep the HP Pavillion but man that Commodore monitor is MINE FOREVER. 🤣

That Commodore montior looks mint! I love it when there is a not-too-banged-up box to go with the item, and the fact that you rescued it from the trash makes it even better. 😀

Yesterday I saved from the place where I work the following hardware, which would surely be ended in the trash:

- ABIT BL7 socket 478 motherboard - I'm not that interested in Pentium 4 architectures, but I've always liked ABIT products, and this model seems to have nice additions, like power/reset button switches directly present on PCB, and diagnostic two-digits display for debugging purpose, like my beloved AN9-32X I've used for many years (now archived but still working). A couple of lightly bulged caps spotted on this motherboard (reference pics, but it is this exact model):

- 2x Pentium 4 socket 378 CPUs - 1,7ghz and 2A ghz model, for my ever-growing CPUs collection...
- 2x RAM banks - 256mb PC-133 and 256mb DDR-333 VData brand:

- Radeon 7000 64mb DDR TV-out AGP, passive cooling:

- Nice looking on black PCB Siluro MX-200 AGP video card, passive cooling - never owned, but I remember in the past I've used big sister MX-400, if it's a GeForce:

- 2x 3COM RJ45 network adapters, PCI - usually I throw NICs away, because I've already a good stock in my garage, but I've always liked 3COM ones:

- TRUST PSU 370w:

Any chance you can crack open that PSU? Whether it's junk or a diamond in the rough, be interesting either way.

Made in china, with a "brand" name like trust? Id rather stick my dick in an anthill rather than use that hunk of junk.

Then he can open it up and we can all have a laugh.

Was exploring in a junkyard when I found a stack of PCs.

An AT case with a "Rome Computer Company" badge on the front, a Compaq Deskpro 4000, some other Compaq with a Pentium in it, and an unnamed whitebox missing a front cover. There were also two completely destroyed PCs and a greybox dell.

Long story short, the guy was very strict about anything from the cars in the yard or the PCs going out, and all I could salvage (er, fit in my backpack) was a couple Jaton TVGA9685PCI video cards with the Trident ProVidia 9685 chipset.

One has a daughterboard adding capability for RCA and Svideo out, the other doesn't have it.

A test, the daughterboard one is dead. Taking off the daughterboard, there were spiderwebs in between the card and itself. 🤣 I will, I guess, salvage it for the memory chips and recycle it. But the other card without it works!

I am sad though, because the other PCs all had Pentiums in them and I didn't have enough time to salvage them.

Oh, and the Deskpro 4000 had a Creative 3D Blaster Banshee in it which I tried so hard to pry out. It was in at such an angle I couldn't loosen the screw, though, and I had to leave it there.

I am trying to see if I can somehow convince him they can be made into art or something like that, and maybe slip the Banshee and a few Pentiums into my pocket 😎

The problem is, this place is a 10 hour drive from my house, so I can't go to it every day. I might not be able to go there again for a year or so 😵

I had one of those Compaq's from the last picture. Whit an Pentium Overdrive 83Mhz in it.... And I thrown it away, years ago.

luckybob wrote:

Made in china, with a "brand" name like trust? Id rather stick my dick in an anthill rather than use that hunk of junk.

Trust is (was?) a manufacturer that sold a lot of cheap products on the Dutch market (might actually be Dutch, somehow local manufacturers often come up with brand names that sound good to Dutchmen, and dodgy to about everyone else 🤣 ), most of which were decent at best and broke a lot faster than major brand names. Here I'm talking about their peripherals, such as scanners, keyboards and joysticks. So that power supply probably sucks, yes...

"Trust" is a thing here too , I think they are a German company that sells chinese stuff... I would way they are a notch above chinese since they had to follow the EU safety laws to a minimum... certainly not premium products but not utter crap either.

Same in Romania.
Today's crappy brands: ACTIV, Delux, Eurocase, Floston, Inter-Tech, Spire.
And there's the middle ground all over the EU: be quiet!, Xilence.

I like to stick with Delta, Seasonic or as a last resort FSP OEMs or originals.

elod wrote:

Same in Romania. Today's crappy brands: ACTIV, Delux, Eurocase, Floston, Inter-Tech, Spire. And there's the middle ground all ov […]
Show full quote

Same in Romania.
Today's crappy brands: ACTIV, Delux, Eurocase, Floston, Inter-Tech, Spire.
And there's the middle ground all over the EU: be quiet!, Xilence.

I like to stick with Delta, Seasonic or as a last resort FSP OEMs or originals.

Err... middle ground be quiet!? Not at all, most of their power supplies are made by Seasonic and are usually of very good quality

keropi wrote:

"Trust" is a thing here too , I think they are a German company that sells chinese stuff... I would way they are a notch above chinese since they had to follow the EU safety laws to a minimum... certainly not premium products but not utter crap either.

My old 15 year old Trust keyboard refers to a company called Aashima (guess where http://www.aashima.com/ goes?), located in the Netherlands, keyboard is made in China though. See also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_(el ... s_company)

shiva2004 wrote:

Err... middle ground be quiet!? Not at all, most of their power supplies are made by Seasonic and are usually of very good quality

Yes. I'm aware that they shop around at FSP and Seasonic. Usually they take a platform and reduce it to their pricepoint. From their mid tier onward you are guaranteed to have jap caps on the Seasonics plus 5year warranty. Don't even have to check out reviews. Also, I do not appreciate marketing companies.

cj_reha wrote:

Was exploring in a junkyard when I found a stack of PCs. […]
Show full quote

Was exploring in a junkyard when I found a stack of PCs.

An AT case with a "Rome Computer Company" badge on the front, a Compaq Deskpro 4000, some other Compaq with a Pentium in it, and an unnamed whitebox missing a front cover. There were also two completely destroyed PCs and a greybox dell.

Long story short, the guy was very strict about anything from the cars in the yard or the PCs going out, and all I could salvage (er, fit in my backpack) was a couple Jaton TVGA9685PCI video cards with the Trident ProVidia 9685 chipset.

One has a daughterboard adding capability for RCA and Svideo out, the other doesn't have it.

A test, the daughterboard one is dead. Taking off the daughterboard, there were spiderwebs in between the card and itself. 🤣 I will, I guess, salvage it for the memory chips and recycle it. But the other card without it works!

I am sad though, because the other PCs all had Pentiums in them and I didn't have enough time to salvage them.

Oh, and the Deskpro 4000 had a Creative 3D Blaster Banshee in it which I tried so hard to pry out. It was in at such an angle I couldn't loosen the screw, though, and I had to leave it there.

I am trying to see if I can somehow convince him they can be made into art or something like that, and maybe slip the Banshee and a few Pentiums into my pocket 😎

The problem is, this place is a 10 hour drive from my house, so I can't go to it every day. I might not be able to go there again for a year or so 😵

I have two of those Compaq Prosignia 300 servers like the one in the last pictures. Heavy cases and built like tanks.

gdjacobs wrote:

Any chance you can crack open that PSU? Whether it's junk or a diamond in the rough, be interesting either way.

Sure, here you are - I just know TRUST (at least in Italy) is a cheap brand name, but I saved this PSU for testing and/or spare emergency PSU for hardware test-bench. I hope you can recognize some of the internal components, caps, etc. - wattage is an uncommonly seen 370w (at least for me, never seen this size before):

oh lord, its as bad as I suspected

Just to be clear, I have seen worse. At least it has filters on the output!

Still, anemic input filtering, individual diodes instead of a FWR bridge, small primary transformer. These are all bad signs.

Trust is just a company that imports from Chinese suppliers and puts their own brand name on the stuff. Very common practice, and usually they at least have some sort of quality control. Deltaco is another one, here in Sweden.

I see the Trust brand quite often in electronics stores, but a bit less nowadays because many stores actually imports products on their own and sets their own special brand names on the generic products.