I can't offer any tricks to ferret out a good motherboard at a flea market besides what you've done, but you have ram so now all you need is a processor, cooler, PSU and a monitor so you can just test each out to see which ones POST. Good hunting.

tincup wrote:

I can't offer any tricks to ferret out a good motherboard at a flea market besides what you've done, but you have ram so now all you need is a processor, cooler, PSU and a monitor so you can just test each out to see which ones POST. Good hunting.

I already have a PSU and monitor. But the RAM I have is PC133 SDRAM not DDR, so it is of no use. Though there were SDRAM based earlier P4 chipsets, none of them in the lot is that type. Anyway even if it was there, I would not go for it as the P4 will be totally starved by it. I have to get it tomorrow as I will be leaving the city this week. Thanks for the wishes.

Edit: I can't test each other out because I don't have any components and my PC is at home in another city. My current PC components won't help in testing anyway other than the PSU.

Please mention if any chipset/motherboard in the lot needs to be avoided.

Edit2: As an alternative, I was also looking for a Geforce 6200 PCI to use it in my P3 system just to rule out the reverse bridge issue. Sadly I could not find one, used graphics cards are hard to come by here. If I find one, I may scrap the above scavenging and directly go for the permanent build, i.e if the gaming experience turned out to be fine.

gandhig wrote:

I already have a PSU and monitor. But the RAM I have is PC133 SDRAM not DDR, so it is of no use. Though there were SDRAM based earlier P4 chipsets, none of them in the lot is that type. Anyway even if it was there, I would not go for it as the P4 will be totally starved by it. I have to get it tomorrow as I will be leaving the city this week. Thanks for the wishes.

Only other thing I'd look at on old boards is if you can visibly notice that fluids have been split into them at some point (water may take some experience to notice, but it's usually not hard to see if someone's spilled a soda or coffee into their computer).

On the P4, RAM, etc: the Intel 845 supports SDRAM and the P4 (but not *all* 845 boards are SDRAM - some are DDR); performance isn't as bad as you might expect (I've had a P4+SDR 845 system since it was new, and it's never had troubles; I've tried the CPU in a system with single DDR on an 845 and the performance difference wasn't anything spectacular for gaming (that is, you really don't notice)). Personally I wouldn't shy away from SDR or DDR - both are cheap and plentiful these days. Just avoid RDRAM. 🤣

Please mention if any chipset/motherboard in the lot needs to be avoided.

I never remember SiS chipsets being highly regarded back in the day, but I haven't had occasion to encounter many of them, and the ones I have tended to produce usable systems. In general if you're going with an Intel CPU, I'd go with an Intel chipset (that's just me). The nVidia-for-Intel chipsets tend to use more power and run hotter than the competition, but they aren't bad; drivers for the old ones are somewhat limited (nVidia seemed to stop a lot of development at Windows XP; I don't know if that will be a problem for this build). Only other thing I could think of would be the odd-ball ATi IGP parts, which can sometimes be a trick to find drivers for, depending on what operating system you want to use (having said that, there is a Radeon 9 based variant that will enable triple monitor with a Radeon 9-based graphics card installed in the system 😀).

Edit2: As an alternative, I was also looking for a Geforce 6200 PCI to use it in my P3 system just to rule out the reverse bridge issue. Sadly I could not find one, used graphics cards are hard to come by here. If I find one, I may scrap the above scavenging and directly go for the permanent build, i.e if the gaming experience turned out to be fine.

Isn't the GeForce 6200 a bridged card as well? If memory serves the 6200/6600 cards are natively PCIe, and bridged back for AGP and PCI; only the 6800 are native AGP. If you want a "true" PCI card, GeForce FX or MX would be where I'd look - the MX cards should be fairly easy to find (they were very popular/common in their day). Personally though, if the system needs to be playing games from 2000-2005, I'd say AGP should be the minimum, and in general I'd just skip right over that (if possible) and go with a PCI Express card (like a GeForce 6/7 or Radeon X). Guess it depends on what kinds of games you're playing though; I'm thinking of demanding 3D titles like Half-Life 2.

Of the boards you've listed, the Gigabyte 8I865GME I remember being relatively popular, and I've always had good luck with Asus boards as well. Biostar and Foxconn should be OK too, assuming the specific examples are in good shape. I don't know Mercury motherboards (if it's the same company that makes the medical versions of the Quadro FX boards, I'd say that probably counts for something).

Thanks for the advice and inputs, obobskivich. It's always a pleasure to read yours and some other vogoner's posts.

I can't reply now to your post(later tonight, I will) as I'm leaving for the market, hopefully to buy something if it turns out OK. I can only keep my fingers crossed and hope to get lucky.

Wish me luck as I don't have much experience in this!!!

P.S. If it comes to worst, I guess it will be more of a disappointment than money lost. And I have to wait till I get back home and buy other components to find that out. Patience...., thankfully I have that in huge amount.

Buying an OEM desktop is usually cheaper because everything already comes with it. That is what I typically do. Plus it typically comes with manuals / drivers online. 😀

In addition to what others have said, I would also make sure to check around the battery/battery socket on the motherboards to make sure the battery hasn't leaked. Sometimes the damage is fixable with a little vinegar, but if the battery acid has sat on the board for a long time, it can eat right through the traces and make the board useless. The soldered "barrel" batteries are some of the worst offenders, so if you get a board with one of those I would replace it ASAP even if it hasn't leaked yet.

obobskivich wrote:

I never remember SiS chipsets being highly regarded back in the day, but I haven't had occasion to encounter many of them, and the ones I have tended to produce usable systems. In general if you're going with an Intel CPU, I'd go with an Intel chipset (that's just me).

In general, I'm completely partial towards Intel chipsets too. Anyway I read some negative reviews about nvidia's entry level nforce 610i chipset & SiS 661, so it was a no-go

obobskivich wrote:

Isn't the GeForce 6200 a bridged card as well? If memory serves the 6200/6600 cards are natively PCIe, and bridged back for AGP and PCI; only the 6800 are native AGP. If you want a "true" PCI card, GeForce FX or MX would be where I'd look - the MX cards should be fairly easy to find (they were very popular/common in their day). Personally though, if the system needs to be playing games from 2000-2005, I'd say AGP should be the minimum, and in general I'd just skip right over that (if possible) and go with a PCI Express card (like a GeForce 6/7 or Radeon X). Guess it depends on what kinds of games you're playing though; I'm thinking of demanding 3D titles like Half-Life 2.

Though it is a bridged card, the bus interface does show up as PCI in GPU-Z which is not the case with my GT520-PCI-E 1.1 x16 @ 1(I'm on shaky grounds here). I'm also guessing that for a 6200 PCI, as the bridge is probably on the silicon itself (nvidia's own PCI-E to AGP implementation with their suitable driver optimizations) which is extended by GPU vendors(BFG,EVGA) to PCI interface(assuming AGP is just a dedicated PCI bus for the graphics subsystem with extra features), there might be less penalty compared to external PCI to PCI-E reverse bridge(Pericom) deployed by Zotac with no support/optimization from Nvidia in the driver department. However it can be ascertained for sure only if I get hold of one and test it in the P3 system.
The old native FX/MX PCI cards are still hard to come by here and I guess I'm a little bity greedy too, so as to stretch my gaming era to 2004-05(NFS-MW, here I come).

obobskivich wrote:

Of the boards you've listed, the Gigabyte 8I865GME I remember being relatively popular, and I've always had good luck with Asus boards as well. Biostar and Foxconn should be OK too, assuming the specific examples are in good shape. I don't know Mercury motherboards (if it's the same company that makes the medical versions of the Quadro FX boards, I'd say that probably counts for something).

Totally agreed. I'm partial to Asus & Gigabyte, not by experience, but by reviews and hearsays. So that's what I selected from the above lot, details follow. I guess Mercury is a local brand.

PeterLI wrote:

Buying an OEM desktop is usually cheaper because everything already comes with it. That is what I typically do. Plus it typically comes with manuals / drivers online. 😀

That approach would be OK if you could get it cheap, which is not the case here, coupled with the absolutely poor refurbished quality in general. OEM desktop do have less hassles, but what is the fun in it, if it works straight out of the box? It is my personal opinion that there is no gain without pain, here I'm thinking about the knowledge that is gathered due to all the hassles. Always a challenge to mix and match. Heck, I even disassembled half of the 2 MB Award BIOS due to the incompatibility, which I never would have thought possible for me. Thanks for the input.

DelFuego wrote:

In addition to what others have said, I would also make sure to check around the battery/battery socket on the motherboards to make sure the battery hasn't leaked. Sometimes the damage is fixable with a little vinegar, but if the battery acid has sat on the board for a long time, it can eat right through the traces and make the board useless. The soldered "barrel" batteries are some of the worst offenders, so if you get a board with one of those I would replace it ASAP even if it hasn't leaked yet.

The motherboards I snatched did have only coin batteries and no leakage was seen. Thanks for the input.

This might be common sense, but I'd look for scratches across the traces if your getting the boards out of a haphazard pile of them.
That's the biggest problem with getting parts from junk piles. Top boards scratch the bottom ones, so gotta be careful.

AlphaWing wrote:

This might be common sense, but I'd look for scratches across the traces if your getting the boards out of a haphazard pile of them.
That's the biggest problem with getting parts from junk piles. Top boards scratch the bottom ones, so gotta be careful.

Don't they have protective coating which helps to avoid that to some extent during unintentional scrapings. Anyway I have got the motherboards now and didn't find such scratches, prima-facie at least.

So, I selected 2 motherboards out of the lot after careful scrutiny(looked that way at that time) and to cover a broader range of processors.

1. Asus P5KPL AM/PS - G31 Chipset with solid caps, FSB 1600(OC), DDR2 1066
2. Gigabyte GA 8I865GME 775 - P4 with HT, FSB 800, DDR 400

Poor Quality Pics courtesy of smartphone camera:

1(a) Asus P5KPL AM/PS (Front):

1(b) Asus P5KPL AM/PS (Back):

2) Gigabyte GA 8I865GME 775:

Here comes the bummer, I slipped up big time in the case of G31 chipset based Asus P5KPL(serves me right for that little greediness that is on my hitlist)
I guess a pin or 2 is bent/broken in the CPU socket, which I observed only after coming back from the market. I missed it because the CPU sockets were covered with some tissue paper as some sort of rudimentary protection. Didn't occur to me to remove and check the socket, learnt a lesson, but probably I deserved it.

1(b) Asus P5KPL AM/PS (CPU Socket):

I have to get a magnifying glass to check it properly, bent or broken. Any chance of redemption? If worse comes to worst, I will just live with it.

A friend has the same problem and will be attempting to bend pins back into position. Damage appears to be about the same and looks fixable if none of the pins are broken. There are quite a number of helpful how-to videos on Youtube - here's one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhOYEQ65a94

tincup wrote:

A friend has the same problem and will be attempting to bend pins back into position. Damage appears to be about the same and looks fixable if none of the pins are broken. There are quite a number of helpful how-to videos on Youtube - here's one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhOYEQ65a94

The video had me slightly confused as to the orientation of the socket pins. I know that all the pins should be vertical and parallel to each other. But it almost looked like that around 30% of the pins are in a different orientation, sort of an illusion.
Edit 2: I got it wrong, it's not an illusion. The socket in the video is a 1155(unlike the 775 I got) and it does have half the pins pointing in the opposite direction to the other half of the pins. My eyesight is OK!!!

When I pointed the LED flash from my phone on it, I still could not make out whether there is a broken pin or a bent one or 1 bent, 1 broken.

Am I correct in saying that at the bottom where the pins are coming out of the motherboard, it is somewhat flat at an angle and then at some point above it becomes vertical creating the illusion. Edit : Sort of a spring mechanism without a spring with movement in the vertical y-axis for ensuring better contact between the CPU and the socket pins.

Another thing I wonder is whether if someone had fired it up in that condition(without a CPU) and burnt out the motherboard due to a short. Guess I have to wait for few more days till I get back home. Or else should I just return it back to the seller?

While it may be possible to try and fix that socket on the Asus, personally I'd return the board if that's possible - for exactly the reason you worry about "what if someone blew this up trying to start it up like this." I know, not very adventurous of me. 😊

The Gigabyte looks okay enough in the picture, except for the missing DIMM retention clip, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem to either work around or live with (the easiest answer is to just use one DIMM).

On the bridge thing: I wasn't aware that modern PCI cards were using third-party controllers; I assumed they still were packaged with the nVidia bridge (itself not perfect, but generally better than the ATi/3rd-party solutions). I'd pass on them as a result. 😒 Another card you might look for would be the Quadro FX 600 PCI - it's the "Quadro-ified" version of the FX 5200 Ultra, and it's a PCI card. It will, of course, have all of the GeForce FX's faults with some SM2.0 titles, but otherwise should be a decent performer. Out of curiosity though, with something like that Gigabyte or Asus, couldn't you use an AGP or PCIe board like a GeForce 6600 or 7900? I'd think finding a decent-performing AGP or PCIe card would be easier than shopping off of a short-list of high-performing PCI cards.

The pins can be hard to see clearly without good lighting and decent magnification. But If you paid very little for the board or can't return it - flea market - I'd give it a shot.

obobskivich wrote:

While it may be possible to try and fix that socket on the Asus, personally I'd return the board if that's possible - for exactly the reason you worry about "what if someone blew this up trying to start it up like this." I know, not very adventurous of me. 😊

I tried to return it, but he would not take it back. Guess I have to live with it.

obobskivich wrote:

The Gigabyte looks okay enough in the picture, except for the missing DIMM retention clip, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem to either work around or live with (the easiest answer is to just use one DIMM).

I noticed it too. Well, you have said it all.

obobskivich wrote:

On the bridge thing: I wasn't aware that modern PCI cards were using third-party controllers; I assumed they still were packaged with the nVidia bridge (itself not perfect, but generally better than the ATi/3rd-party solutions). I'd pass on them as a result. 😒 Another card you might look for would be the Quadro FX 600 PCI - it's the "Quadro-ified" version of the FX 5200 Ultra, and it's a PCI card. It will, of course, have all of the GeForce FX's faults with some SM2.0 titles, but otherwise should be a decent performer. Out of curiosity though, with something like that Gigabyte or Asus, couldn't you use an AGP or PCIe board like a GeForce 6600 or 7900? I'd think finding a decent-performing AGP or PCIe card would be easier than shopping off of a short-list of high-performing PCI cards.

Think, I wasn't clear in my earlier posts. My line of thought was based on these points which are also in sequence:

1. Spend as little as possible on these temporary systems (either the existing P3 or the scavenged parts system) till it is time to splurge on my 'mothership' build.
2. Get a used 6200 or FX5500 PCI and if it delivers better performance than my current one, continue with it till something fails or the games from that era get completed, whichever is earlier. If this works out, skip the next 2 points and directly go for the mothership build.
3. If I could not find the above PCI or equivalent cards, then go for a temporary system assembled from minimal cheap parts(purpose of this thread). So presently I'm 'here', as I have failed in the above point.
4. As I already possess a PSU, Monitor, IDE HDD, Keyboard & Mouse, the only things I need are CPU with HSF, RAM apart from the motherboard. Probably I could get all these three within a equivalent of 10 to 15 $ 😊

So I would now go for one of the above PCI cards or the Quadro ones, only to continue troubleshooting the P3 + GT520 issue(I'm still persistent on this even if I get the scavenged parts to work as a system).

If the scavenged motherboards did work and last long enough, I might go for some upgrades(AGP or PCI-E as the case maybe), though I doubt it as the mothership build may rudely interrupt it, who knows. Of course I could use the Gigabyte one(if at all it works) for retro-gaming in which case I would not need those upgrades.

If the scavenged system becomes a dud, then I guess I'm back to square one with the P3+GT520. Then I have to decide when to stop and go for the mothership build. Whew, that's it.

tincup wrote:

The pins can be hard to see clearly without good lighting and decent magnification. But If you paid very little for the board or can't return it - flea market - I'd give it a shot.

You are right, tincup. I guess, magnification is needed more than the light in my case, however(phone LED flash is powerful enough). The phone camera lens focus is 'OFF' (and my eyes too) if I get it too close for more magnifcation. So I'm stuck till I get a proper magnifying class and most of all till I get back home.

Though the guy in the video recommended doing it with naked eyes, he was still taking a peep with the camera's zoom. I think it is more difficult to make it out mainly because of the illusions created by the pattern when viewed from different angles(someone should try it really) and I eat carrots daily!!!.

I will definitely give it a shot if I'm certain that there are no broken pins. As I said, I'm prepared for anything, good or bad.

I decided to try out the Gigabyte 865G based motherboard first. Yesterday, I bought a used Prescott 2.66 GHz (shop owner gave me a 128 MB DDR-400 on loan basis for testing) and a stock Intel HSF, both for an equivalent of 5 dollars. Cleaned the motherboard a little with rubbing alcohol, left it to dry for some time(because of the 70 %) and started assembling for a bare minimum setup:

1. My first time installation of a pinless CPU went fine.
2. Mounted the HSF and connected the fan to the appropriate header(especially liked the simplicity).
3. Connected the keyboard.
4. Connected the cable from my existing monitor to the motherboard's VGA port.
5. Didn't think to clear the CMOS as the motherboard was probably lying unused since 2007(written in the back of the motherboard) and the BIOS should automatically load defaults.
6. Connected the power supply(spare) to the motherboard connectors(ATX+12V)
7. Switched it ON without RAM hopefully to hear beeps. Then I noticed that there is no onboard speaker(felt totally dumb).
8. Connected the Power switch, LED's, PC speaker on the front panel of my existing system to the motherboard's appropriate header
9. Installed the single stick of RAM anyway.
10. Switched it ON, fan started whirring and LED's glowing, but no beeps and display.
11. Tried my existing system's CM 350W PSU too without any success.

After switching OFF, I touched the northbridge and it was warm to the point of hot. The CPU heatsink was cold, however(though I touched it only after sometime). Maybe the case PC speaker possibly went dead long time back (when I had probably connected with reversed polarity as my hardware experience was close to Zero few years back) and I was probably hearing the beep only from the onboard internal speaker in my existing system. BTW, if both internal and case speakers are present and connected, does it beep from both or one of them is disabled (guess, my current experience is also not far from Zero in some aspects)? I'm going to get a new speaker, but it does look bleak.

That aside, I have restored(to my best) the bent pin on Asus P5KPL. Will post some pics later. I'm not going to touch this one now till I get some confirmation about the above situation.