Jade Falcon wrote:

oeuvre wrote:

See that Dallas block? It's an RTC, realtime clock module. Those were used commonly on older boards.

So the batt is inside of it?

Yep - no chance of the battery leaking. And although the original Dallas chip has been discontinued, modern replacements can be found for not much money so they're actually great. Or you can convert it to accommodate a coin cell but that's usually more hassle. SUN systems had a similar setup but which also integrated the NVRAM. Once the battery in that goes you will need a specially-programmed replacement and that ain't cheap so the coin cell conversion is actually worth it in this case.

I spend some more time digging through my parents' basement, trying to find some hidden gems I might've overlooked earlier.

Found a paper bag with some stuff wrapped in newspapers, which I assumed was plates and other old kitchen utensils because... newspaper wrappings.

Turns out it was some more old computer hardware, yay!

First up is a Gravis Gamecard rev 1.4. I think this is used for connecting joysticks and the dial which I first assumed was a volume knob is for adjusting the speed of the joystick communication protocol in "newer" PCs. I don't remember this card from my childhood at all, but apparently my dad used it at some time...

Also found a video card that I don't remember at all, a Diamond Stealth 64 Video VRAM. Look at those funky connectors which I assume are for external memory modules? What the connector between the chip and the VGA port is, I have no idea however. Anyone take a guess?

I also found the user's manual for my Abit BH6 motherboard, which was nice because that's the card I use in my current retro P3 PC.

Today I pulled HDD out of the electronics scrap bin, it is WD Protégé 20 GB EIDE drive, but it has all of the screws removed. And the head is ripped, so RIP. Took it for the magnet though.

Oh, well...

[Read: FUCKIN' PARADISE]

D-Link LAN HUB, 10/100:

This seems to be a PoE splitter or injector (http://www.townet.it/it/notizie/notizie/115-n … -idu-24-v2.html):

Powersurge protection for PoE? http://www.dbii.com/safesurgerf.html:

Media reader, the mini IDE can be useful:

Adaptec 2610SA 6 Port Sata Raid Card (http://www.ascendtech.us/adaptec-2610sa-6-por … dtsa2610sa.aspx):

Ubiquiti Nanostation M5 Loco 5ghz!

1TB SATA Disk:

Gigabyte socket 478 motherboard, P4 @2.8ghz and standard heatsink:

2x BenQ FP71G+:

Kadath wrote:

Oh, well... […]
Show full quote

Oh, well...

[Read: FUCKIN' PARADISE]

did you even pick all of the computer stuff? 🤣

Carlos S. M. wrote:

Kadath wrote:

Oh, well... […]
Show full quote

Oh, well...

[Read: FUCKIN' PARADISE]

did you even pick all of the computer stuff? 🤣

I didn't have a van in my pocket... but I've rescued the stuff above.

Was there anything interesting in all that junk? Looks like just 2000's machines.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Was there anything interesting in all that junk? Looks like just 2000's machines.

If i had a car, i would've picked all and looked up later

King_Corduroy wrote:

Was there anything interesting in all that junk? Looks like just 2000's machines.

The answer is simple: boring 2k rigs, almost old Compaqs and Dells from that era, not of any interest to me. But stuff like raid card, Ubiquiti and 4:3 nice lcd yes, they can be useful. I already own another Ubiquiti, bigger sister M5 not-Loco, and I want to setup a bridge with a friend of mine. My ideal of retro is 486-ish era, so P4 and Athlon XP et similia are useless to my standards, if I don't see any particular architecture like multi-CPUs and server/enterprise stuff.

Kadath wrote:

King_Corduroy wrote:

Was there anything interesting in all that junk? Looks like just 2000's machines.

The answer is simple: boring 2k rigs, almost old Compaqs and Dells from that era, not of any interest to me. But stuff like raid card, Ubiquiti and 4:3 nice lcd yes, they can be useful. I already own another Ubiquiti, bigger sister M5 not-Loco, and I want to setup a bridge with a friend of mine. My ideal of retro is 486-ish era, so P4 and Athlon XP et similia are useless to my standards, if I don't see any particular architecture like multi-CPUs and server/enterprise stuff.

Yeah same I would have looked it all over maybe to steal HDDs from but other than that it all looks like garbage. My ideal era is the Pentium era mid 90's so my tastes aren't too far off.

Kadath wrote:

Oh, well... […]
Show full quote

Oh, well...

[Read: FUCKIN' PARADISE]

What did you bring instead of a van?

Please don't tell me you carried all you managed to save 🤣

Tetrium wrote:

Kadath wrote:

Oh, well... […]
Show full quote

Oh, well...

[Read: FUCKIN' PARADISE]

What did you bring instead of a van?

Please don't tell me you carried all you managed to save 🤣

I personally wouldn't bother with those Compaq EVOs. My college had a room with about 20 of these piled up. Quite a few of them had blown caps, or on their merry way to blowing up. On the other hand, they are well-built, heavy cases, but they have a proprietary ATX PSU that will not fit standard-sized ATX PSUs.

Yeah.... Most of the stuff from that era, are just like those Compaq's, plaigued with cheap chinese caps.
Getting stuff from that period in time, are allmost obligated to a full recap.

Brickpad wrote:

I personally wouldn't bother with those Compaq EVOs. My college had a room with about 20 of these piled up. Quite a few of them had blown caps, or on their merry way to blowing up. On the other hand, they are well-built, heavy cases, but they have a proprietary ATX PSU that will not fit standard-sized ATX PSUs.

brostenen wrote:

Yeah.... Most of the stuff from that era, are just like those Compaq's, plaigued with cheap chinese caps.
Getting stuff from that period in time, are allmost obligated to a full recap.

True. I typically won't even bother with proprietary stuff anyway, never liked em so I always strip them for (non-proprietary) parts and discard the carcasses 🤣

Some OEM stuff can actually be pretty interesting though (like Medion GF4MX460 and those Medion 9800XL/XXL cards or certain motherboards etc), but usually I'll just strip&toss.

As already said, I've not pickup almost anything of this crappy pile... I've managed to save only the things listed above, of some interest to me. I don't like most of OEM stuff, and my interest in 'retro' is fixed to 90s era 😉

Tetrium wrote:

True. I typically won't even bother with proprietary stuff anyway, never liked em so I always strip them for (non-proprietary) p […]
Show full quote

Brickpad wrote:

I personally wouldn't bother with those Compaq EVOs. My college had a room with about 20 of these piled up. Quite a few of them had blown caps, or on their merry way to blowing up. On the other hand, they are well-built, heavy cases, but they have a proprietary ATX PSU that will not fit standard-sized ATX PSUs.

brostenen wrote:

Yeah.... Most of the stuff from that era, are just like those Compaq's, plaigued with cheap chinese caps.
Getting stuff from that period in time, are allmost obligated to a full recap.

True. I typically won't even bother with proprietary stuff anyway, never liked em so I always strip them for (non-proprietary) parts and discard the carcasses 🤣

Some OEM stuff can actually be pretty interesting though (like Medion GF4MX460 and those Medion 9800XL/XXL cards or certain motherboards etc), but usually I'll just strip&toss.

I do have an interest in 2000's era hardware though, but some computers can be just bad, too limited or just broken, if i find the PC is begin useless or simply, doesn't work, i'll do like Tetrium does (take out all useful parts like CPU, RAM, HDD, videocard if there any, Optical drives, motherboard sometimes if is good or decent) and toss the case. I haven't heard of PSU issues on the Compaq EVO series since i haven't gotten one, but i have an old HP D530 working really well, i did had bad luck with an old Optiplex GX270 though (no mentioning some Optiplex GX270s and GX280 sufered from the capacitor issue, they uses Japanese caps, but there were a batch with defective caps), also got two Optiplex GX260s which came with bad caps around 2015 (one of them were turned on 24/7 for several years).

Also i'm the owner of one of these Geforce 4 MX 460 cards by Medion, also got a Geforce4 ti 4200 Medion OEM as well

I would've at least looked at the CRTs, if they were 19" or higher and from a good brand like Sony or Hitachi. Large high-end CRT monitors are very hard to find now.

Tetrium wrote:

Some OEM stuff can actually be pretty interesting though (like Medion GF4MX460 and those Medion 9800XL/XXL cards or certain motherboards etc), but usually I'll just strip&toss.

True that.... The medion GF4's, even the ti4200, are special cards because of that medion specific connector for scart.
The Radeon on the other hand, is not that great. Shure it has a special core and all that, not found on that many cards.
And I honestly think, that they are fast cards for what sellers ask (at least here in Denmark)
If they indeed are fast cards, is something that I can not really say. I just feel that they are great with an AthlonXP 2400.

The big downside on that card, is that it is running hotter than an overclocked V3. So in order to use that 9800-XXL,
you really need to get a better cooler. (If that solves it at all) Personally, I only use my 9800-XXL for testing purpouses,
or playing with it for about 10 minutes maximum. I simply do not dare use it more than that, using the standard cooler.

That all said.... I have one single system that are OEM and of resent date. It is an HP DC7600 SFF (desktop, socket 775)
I am using it to play with more recent OS's and for a MAME machine, wich it is nice for.
It is a nice system to learn Linux server setup on. Ubuntu-Server is a big recommendation if I should say so my self.

brostenen wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Some OEM stuff can actually be pretty interesting though (like Medion GF4MX460 and those Medion 9800XL/XXL cards or certain motherboards etc), but usually I'll just strip&toss.

True that.... The medion GF4's, even the ti4200, are special cards because of that medion specific connector for scart.

I had missed about this connector, cheers for making me aware of it! 😁
Does it require some special cable? I probably don't have it though (I got a single Medion 4MX 460) but I suppose I'll probably never need it anyway.

brostenen wrote:

The Radeon on the other hand, is not that great. Shure it has a special core and all that, not found on that many cards. And I h […]
Show full quote

The Radeon on the other hand, is not that great. Shure it has a special core and all that, not found on that many cards.
And I honestly think, that they are fast cards for what sellers ask (at least here in Denmark)
If they indeed are fast cards, is something that I can not really say. I just feel that they are great with an AthlonXP 2400.

The big downside on that card, is that it is running hotter than an overclocked V3. So in order to use that 9800-XXL,
you really need to get a better cooler. (If that solves it at all) Personally, I only use my 9800-XXL for testing purpouses,
or playing with it for about 10 minutes maximum. I simply do not dare use it more than that, using the standard cooler.

That all said.... I have one single system that are OEM and of resent date. It is an HP DC7600 SFF (desktop, socket 775)
I am using it to play with more recent OS's and for a MAME machine, wich it is nice for.
It is a nice system to learn Linux server setup on. Ubuntu-Server is a big recommendation if I should say so my self.

^Agreed about the Radeon's. To me those are more of a novelty, but a novelty is still a novelty and might interest someone.
I got a single Radeon 9800XL which should be in working condition (was gifted to me when I helped someone out with his rig and he replaced it due to some odd reason). I did decide it would be better to replace those stock HSFs of those 2 cards (especially the tiny 9800XL one, it's so small it's kinda ridiculous and I had already noticed so many stories about Radeon 9800s overheating and dying so I wanted to play it safe).