My second eBay find came!

As you probably know, my first find was the IBM/Cyrix build I described two pages ago, which has a dying Quantum Bigfoot in it. Well, this one came.

It's in a really cool AT style case WITH a front mounted AT keyboard port, hooked up to an 8 bit card inside. It doesn't seem to work right now though 🙁

Specs:
Intel 80386DX @ 33 MHz WITH Cyrix FastMath copro
ATi VGA Wonder XL, 1 MB VRAM
32KB L2 Cache, 8 MB memory on a fullwidth Asus memory board (8 x 1 MB 30pin SIMMs)
Asus Cache386/33 motherboard
NO hard drive
Teac 5.25 Floppy drive, Toshiba 3.5 floppy drive
3com Etherlink III ISA network card
Generic 200watt AT PSU

A good restoration project, I'll have fun with this one 🤣

Notes:
Missing side panel.
Front mounted keyboard port doesn't seem to work, after hooking it up something weird happened and now I can't access the BIOS after it reports a dead CMOS battery, it just shows a blinking cursor and even the back keyboard port does the same thing. *Edit, the keyboard's still detected, it just hangs for some reason.
Motherboard uses a 3.6volt external battery, so no barrel corrosion! 😁
Has a sticker, "Government Property," on it. Evidently came from the University of New Mexico.
5.25 floppy drive had a disk in it. Original label was the first program diskette for a program called ANVIL-5000. Was written over with the label "Backup for Mike and John's Programs."

@cj_reha
Very nice! Grats!

I have just bought a nice looking Cyrix MII-300GP for about 15$, they are very rare in Poland.

From time to time I see some nice stuff over at allegro.pl. To bad the sellers won't send outside of Poland 🙁

brassicGamer wrote:

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Lego! 🤣

kixs wrote:

From time to time I see some nice stuff over at allegro.pl. To bad the sellers won't send outside of Poland 🙁

If you find something interesting I could buy it and send it to you. Sometimes my friend from USA does similar thing for me 😀

I got myself an Ensoniq Soundscape S2000. I snagged this on ebay last week and paid what I considered to be fairly high price for an un-tested board. I can't help but wonder if it was a little bidding-war with another Vogons member... 😈

Fortunately it arrived in working condition but does have leaking capacitors and weak audio output--undoubtedly due to to the bad caps. The board arrived pretty grimy and had a fair amount of fluid around the caps, but thankfully there wasn't any PCB damage.

I've already ordered new Nichicon capacitors and have the board all cleaned up and ready for when they arrive.

EDIT: For anyone interested, I'm documenting the re-cap process in this thread here: Ensoniq Soundscape leaking capacitors

FesterBlatz wrote:

I can't help but wonder if it was a little bidding-war with another Vogons member... 😈

it was! 😀 Congrats though! I try to snag these 2mb versions up where I can.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/272525916906

I had a feeling it was you. 😀

The seller didn't have an anti-static bag so I actually sent him one along with a proper box and pre-paid priority mail shipping label to make sure it got to me in one piece. So I spent even more than just the winning bid. I recently received two damaged Ensoniq OPUS boards from eBay so I guess I was a little paranoid... Anyway, these boards aren't exactly easy to find anymore so I'm OK with the overall cost it as long as the recapping job get's it working perfectly again.

I edited my post above to include a link to my recapping thread...

What a small world!

Also I hate it when people don't pack things properly. I've gotten various sound/video/NIC cards in the mail with no packaging before.

cj_reha wrote:

My second eBay find came!

Looks good. Last summer I bought several computers from a local classified and one of them seems to have the exact same case as yours. It's the second from the right, the one on top:

Traded one of my Roland MT-32 modules for this GUS today.

It's a Synergy ViperMAX 32, or possibly a Gravis Ultrasound Extreme, the branding issues confuse me.

Unfortunately the box is not complete (no manuals or driver CDs), but still pretty cool.

I've quickly tried to install it, with the CD downloaded from Vogons, but I can't get it to properly work. The Sound Blaster Pro compatible ESS part seems to work fine, but the setup utility says it can't find the Gravis card, and it behaves oddly when trying to locate it by scanning ports...

Oh well, I'll prolly make a separate post about that.

oeuvre wrote:

What a small world!

Also I hate it when people don't pack things properly. I've gotten various sound/video/NIC cards in the mail with no packaging before.

I bought sealed copies of DOS 6.22 (3.5 floppy) and Windows 3.1 (5.25 floppy) once and they came in a box stacked ontop of each other with no packaging. Literally just the boxes inside the box. Thank god the package didn't come as damaged.. 🤣

cj_reha wrote:

I bought sealed copies of DOS 6.22 (3.5 floppy) and Windows 3.1 (5.25 floppy) once and they came in a box stacked ontop of each other with no packaging. Literally just the boxes inside the box. Thank god the package didn't come as damaged.. 🤣

The mind boggles...

I once had a window air-conditioner unit go bad while it was still under warranty. To correct the situation General Electric sent me a "refurb" that was literally a 40-lbs air-conditioner thrown loosely in a cardboard box with ZERO packaging. Obviously the week-long FexEx Ground trip essentially destroyed the unit. I called them to explain how WTF this was, so they agreed to send me a 2nd unit which arrived EXACTLY the same way-in exactly the same condition. After several more calls they refused to just send a new properly packaged unit, but they eventually gave me some kind of VISA gift card I could use to just purchase a new unit.

The whole affair was pretty surreal, especially considering it was with a huge successful company like General Electric that should grasp basic concepts like shipping.

oeuvre wrote:

What a small world!

Also I hate it when people don't pack things properly. I've gotten various sound/video/NIC cards in the mail with no packaging before.

Speaking of that.... the FX-5500 I bought off ebay about a week ago now or a little longer was the same situation. Seller just literally stuffed it inside an "Express Letter" envelope.. the coardboard ones about 1/4-inch thick ones. No static bag, no padding, no protection and about 15 layers of tape to close it. And by the time it got here.. it was quite damaged.. bits of it sticking out of the packging.

This was the end result:

The I/O bracket is obvious, but also look at the corners of the PCB on the far side, and the PCI-Express connector at the bottom.

I've since then been in contact with the seller.. (Who I won't mention) .. I asked politely for him to refund me via ebay messages first. And in response I was insulted with various swear words claiming that -I- damaged it.. and then was forced to open an ebay buyer protection case.. which resulted in more flaming messages from seller with more swear words and insults. And threats even. Eventually under buyer protection ebay gave me a full refund.

But yeah... that was possibly the worst ebay experience I've had by far in the past 5 or so years buying on there.

Ouch. However, at least that was an open and shut case for eBay - any time a seller reacts like that, you know they're covering their arses.

The final eBay PC of the trio saga. This one came from a college surplus sale and was visibly partially underwater at some point as there is some corrosion on the drive bays. It still POSTs fine, though.

It's a:
AMD Am386DX/DXL-25 @ 25 MHz
8 MB RAM (8 x 1 MB 30pin SIMMs), 0KB L2 cache
Oak 256KB video card
BioStar MB-1325P Motherboard
GoldStar I/O
Logitech Scanner interface card
Generic 8bit ISA modem

When I first got it, it was missing the cool "faux floppy drive" bay covers I liked. I was slightly disappointed..

I looked inside and they were neatly packed in there! Props to the seller 😊

I then opened it up and...blegh. The infamous "Barrel Battery of Cancer."

Easily fixed though 😀 It even shows that the battery had only started corroding, with little to no corrosion on the board at all. I'm lucky 😊

And after a bit of cleaning up, here it is in all its glory 🤣

I still need to fix the MHz display (missing a jumper), add a hard drive and a few other things but so far it's a cool little machine!

ELSA GLoria-4 - 1995 - price $2990. Based on 1st 3Dlabs chip GLINT 300SX, 4MB VRAM+8MB DRAM.

@MMaximus

That is a pretty model 60 you have there! If you decide you don't want it. let me know. ^.^

kithylin wrote:

Speaking of that.... the FX-5500 I bought off ebay about a week ago now or a little longer was the same situation. Seller just l […]
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oeuvre wrote:

What a small world!

Also I hate it when people don't pack things properly. I've gotten various sound/video/NIC cards in the mail with no packaging before.

Speaking of that.... the FX-5500 I bought off ebay about a week ago now or a little longer was the same situation. Seller just literally stuffed it inside an "Express Letter" envelope.. the coardboard ones about 1/4-inch thick ones. No static bag, no padding, no protection and about 15 layers of tape to close it. And by the time it got here.. it was quite damaged.. bits of it sticking out of the packging.

This was the end result:

The I/O bracket is obvious, but also look at the corners of the PCB on the far side, and the PCI-Express connector at the bottom.

I've since then been in contact with the seller.. (Who I won't mention) .. I asked politely for him to refund me via ebay messages first. And in response I was insulted with various swear words claiming that -I- damaged it.. and then was forced to open an ebay buyer protection case.. which resulted in more flaming messages from seller with more swear words and insults. And threats even. Eventually under buyer protection ebay gave me a full refund.

But yeah... that was possibly the worst ebay experience I've had by far in the past 5 or so years buying on there.

Jeez that is ridicules. I had an older gentleman (40's, 50's) buy a random P4 off Craigslist from me for $10. Pictures, full specs, describing it as a basic web browser for the patient. Guy started emailing me threats and that he was going to find me because it was slow. . .havent heard anything from him after telling him to go ahead, there would be either a .38 or buckshot waiting for him 😊