Just arrived today - Hewlett Packard Vectra VL2 4/50se ($19.99 + $21 shipping). Judging by the condition of this machine, it must have had a hard life. I spent nearly a good hour carefully vacuuming and blasting the layers of dust from within the chassis and power supply. You would think with the restricted airflow that something would have burned out long ago, but surprisingly it booted up almost instantly. I replaced the CR2032 battery and swapped out the dead Quantum ProDrive LPS 210MB drive with a Quantum 540AT 540MB drive. Not sure what the plans are for this yet, but it does need a bit more cleaning. Might upgrade the 8MB of RAM to 16MB.

That's not a computer. That's a furry animal living inside a metal box.

kithylin wrote:

That's not a computer. That's a furry animal living inside a metal box.

Believe me, I found CHUNKS of dust that could qualify as intelligent lifeforms inside there.

Forgot to take pictures of the outside earlier. There is some slight yellowing of the case cover and bezel, but it's not very noticeable in the pictures.

Also, there is a huge downside to this computer - drive rails! It didn't come with drive rails for the 5.25" drive, so no CD-ROM is going in there for now. There is however a shop that is selling them online...for $86 a kit (5.25" and 3.5" pairs). 😠

kithylin wrote:

That's not a computer. That's a furry animal living inside a metal box.

Give it a bisquit or a cracker, then it will eat the whole arm. 😁

Interesting Vectra never seen that VL motherboard paired with that VE case only socket 3 boards I ever see in that case have SIS chipset and PCI slots. Nice find regardless horizontal Vectras with 486 CPUs are not very easy to source.

Cache module for Deskpro XE 560 arrived the other day never thought I would find one

Cambridge SoundWorks 4+1

New 5V-heavy PSU!

Was very dirty so I had to clean thoroughly... here are the innards:

Aaaand its full for "PCE-Tur" and "PCE-Tul" capacitors (appears to be from a brand called CEC from what I could find). Crap cap map:

Its got two fans: an 80mm fan and a 90mm one.... the bigger one is fine, but the 80mm one is noisy as hell. Tried dropping some oil there but made little difference. Will need to get a new fan (and solder the connector) eventually... its not THAT bad when you use the knob on the back of the PSU to reduce the speed though.

I have not bought this today, it was a few weeks ago but I have not tested it until now. 😀

A fishbowl! I got rid of all VGA screens and sub 17" SVGA/XGA screens ages ago so I really needed one. The screen is a Packard Bell VGA screen with 0.39 mm dot pitch. 640*480 is the maximum resolution, it can do 720*400 EGA but not 720*480 so it wont work with DVDs in full resolution.

Packard Bell PB8539VG

Lots of stuff just arrived to my door,i'm so glad and gonna test it all right now!

alexanrs wrote:

Aaaand its full for "PCE-Tur" and "PCE-Tul" capacitors (appears to be from a brand called CEC from what I could find). Crap cap map:

Yes CEC = CEC Coils. Owned by CEC International Holdings.
I think they stopped making caps to focus on their inductor and transformer business. No more caps datasheets online.
There were 9 varieties (series) of PCE-Txx that I know of. I have the datasheets archived if you need info.
.

rein_ein wrote:

Lots of stuff just arrived to my door,i'm so glad and gonna test it all right now! […]
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Lots of stuff just arrived to my door,i'm so glad and gonna test it all right now!

Nice! what's the Dell? looks a bit like a more modern revision of my Dell 333P's case

sirlemonhead wrote:

Nice! what's the Dell? looks a bit like a more modern revision of my Dell 333P's case

Dell 425S/nP i486SX based powered up after swapping simm modules,looks like it missing original rails

and compaq deskpro 2000 or something like that keep showing me black screen and didnt start,working on it

PCBONEZ wrote:

Yes CEC = CEC Coils. Owned by CEC International Holdings.
I think they stopped making caps to focus on their inductor and transformer business. No more caps datasheets online.
There were 9 varieties (series) of PCE-Txx that I know of. I have the datasheets archived if you need info.

Are CEC capacitors bad? If they are I should probably replace them ASAP.
I'll accept your offer - I'd like their datasheets please. Thanks!

rein_ein wrote:

http://i.imgur.com/PcnPwx7m.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/4ZSWioMm.jpg […]
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sirlemonhead wrote:

Nice! what's the Dell? looks a bit like a more modern revision of my Dell 333P's case

Dell 425S/nP i486SX based powered up after swapping simm modules,looks like it missing original rails

and compaq deskpro 2000 or something like that keep showing me black screen and didnt start,working on it

Awesome! Same bios and all 😀

Any chance you could take some photos of the little metal shelf that screws onto the floppy drive that then screws into the case? I've lost mine and would like to look into replacing it.. Am thinking some sheet metal cut appropriately..

Wow, they really DID get some mileage out of that BIOS screen! I'm used to seeing that on Pentium 1-III laptops.

Pretty certain my Grandad's Dell 286 had that BIOS too, or one very similar. That was an odd machine and I wish I had been able to get hold of it when he replaced it with a Mac, unfortunately, I was unsuccessful and I have no idea what happened to it.

alexanrs wrote:

PCBONEZ wrote:

Yes CEC = CEC Coils. Owned by CEC International Holdings.
I think they stopped making caps to focus on their inductor and transformer business. No more caps datasheets online.
There were 9 varieties (series) of PCE-Txx that I know of. I have the datasheets archived if you need info.

Are CEC capacitors bad? If they are I should probably replace them ASAP.
I'll accept your offer - I'd like their datasheets please. Thanks!

Unreliable. About like CapXon in PSUs.

I'm attaching the datasheets for the "PCE-Tur" and "PCE-Tul" you mentioned.
Those are probably the most common CEC seen in PSUs. If you need any others ask.
There is a lot of Chinese in them so some PDF readers might complain but if you can get them to load what matters is in English.
TUR are GP caps so upgrading to something like FC, PW, LXZ would be a good idea.
TUL are low ESR but their specs are splattered all over so it's best to look at the specific cap.
.

Thanks! I'll look at them carefully tomorrow. I'll see what replacements I can source in Brazil, but I just might have to order them from the US through Digikey.

Cool stuff everyone! 😀 There is still plenty of treasure out there! 😉

Bought several bits and bobs recently, most notably a Promise Enhanced IDE controller the same as I had in my old 486, in very good condition boxed and two larger items which aren't specifically pc in the sense but worthy of adding to the collection!

The first is an Acorn Risc 700 in reasonably good shape, as a bonus it had a 5x86 card installed inside 😀 I've had to remove the leaking battery and treat the area as corrosion had set in but it still appears to work!

The second is an Apple Powermac 4400/200, in good condition but dead as a dodo, from reading up I assume its the battery causing the issue

These two cost me a grand sum of £7 😀