smtkr wrote on 2023-11-09, 00:26:

"VCR doesn't work."

Challenge accepted.

In my experience, VCRs in TV/VCR combos are very fixable...if you can actually get the VCR mechanism detached from the rest of the unit to repair it.

I've done VCR repairs on a TV/VCR combo unit before. It's probably a bad belt for the load/eject mechanism and I have spare belts from the dead VCR from the Orion unit (the VCR stopped working one day and I was unable to get it going again after many attempts, but it served me well).

Caked up lubricants and sometimes dirty optic sensors are a problem aswell.

Well, I got the stuck tape out. And I have one small piece that slipped out from somewares, but I don't see where. Gotta get me a service manual to find out where the part goes and go from there. It also has purity/color issues that I need to fix, which could mean a lot of things from capacitors to potentiometers.

Are you tired of your boring old Aztech 2X CD-ROM but can't afford a new one? No problem, just spray-paint your drive to give it a much needed makeover!
Courtesy of my friend who gave me this Aztech CDA 268-031 2X drive. Surprisingly it can read a new Verbatim 700 MB CD-R written at 52X speed, it took 40 minutes to complete the test and the read speed never dropped below 1,97X or 290 KB/s.

Lutsoad wrote on 2023-11-12, 17:56:

Are you tired of your boring old Aztech 2X CD-ROM but can't afford a new one? No problem, just spray-paint your drive to give it a much needed makeover!
Courtesy of my friend who gave me this Aztech CDA 268-031 2X drive. Surprisingly it can read a new Verbatim 700 MB CD-R written at 52X speed, it took 40 minutes to complete the test and the read speed never dropped below 1,97X or 290 KB/s.

no cap i found a nice 52x cd burner in the trash and it worked and thats how i was able to backup files

Lutsoad wrote on 2023-11-12, 17:56:

Are you tired of your boring old Aztech 2X CD-ROM but can't afford a new one? No problem, just spray-paint your drive to give it a much needed makeover!
Courtesy of my friend who gave me this Aztech CDA 268-031 2X drive. Surprisingly it can read a new Verbatim 700 MB CD-R written at 52X speed, it took 40 minutes to complete the test and the read speed never dropped below 1,97X or 290 KB/s.

had a similar problem recently.
I have scrubbed it with water, soap and steelwool and the corners very lightly with tweezers.

its not perfect but accaptable.

But be prepared to find a very yellow drive. I have 2 Aztech cd roms and they are yellow like cheese.

DerBaum wrote on 2023-11-12, 18:29:

had a similar problem recently. I have scrubbed it with water, soap and steelwool and the corners very lightly with tweezers. […]
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Lutsoad wrote on 2023-11-12, 17:56:

Are you tired of your boring old Aztech 2X CD-ROM but can't afford a new one? No problem, just spray-paint your drive to give it a much needed makeover!
Courtesy of my friend who gave me this Aztech CDA 268-031 2X drive. Surprisingly it can read a new Verbatim 700 MB CD-R written at 52X speed, it took 40 minutes to complete the test and the read speed never dropped below 1,97X or 290 KB/s.

had a similar problem recently.
I have scrubbed it with water, soap and steelwool and the corners very lightly with tweezers.

its not perfect but accaptable.
2023-09-30 13.50.20.jpg2023-09-30 15.21.33.jpg

But be prepared to find a very yellow drive. I have 2 Aztech cd roms and they are yellow like cheese.

if you squint really hard them aztech cd roms/floppy drives look like the aztech temples if you put them on each other like a 3d temple pyramid

At the usual site of bulk trash drop-off, I noticed two plastic bags among some furniture. There were many CD and DVD inside; most were junks of B movies and CD-R, but I found something nice: XIII and the movie Spartacus, plus an empty multi-disc case that holds 12.

Judging from the price tag, this box was in a bargain bin after August 2016. I wonder how many people would buy an 2003 vintage game for NT$58 in or after 2016 and threw it away a few years later (us vintage gamers would never trash a box like this).

The MSRP was NT$269.

Both bags were taken away by an elder scavenger a few minutes later. 😅

The yellow stuff you can make white (snow-white) with a UV lamp + watter&bleach/peroxid (let it sat for a few hours or overnight).

Not technically a dumpster find but.....rescued this Dell Dimension XPS from going to the scrapper.
Has had the CPU upgraded with a PIII 850mhz at some point. Also has a Vortex 2 sound card and a Geforce 3 ti200.
Pretty good score.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-11-15, 16:29:

Not technically a dumpster find but.....rescued this Dell Dimension XPS from going to the scrapper.
Has had the CPU upgraded with a PIII 850mhz at some point. Also has a Vortex 2 sound card and a Geforce 3 ti200.
Pretty good score.

it is indeed! looks ready to plug in and go, PCs like this in good shape are becoming rarer

gerry wrote on 2023-11-15, 16:37:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-11-15, 16:29:

Not technically a dumpster find but.....rescued this Dell Dimension XPS from going to the scrapper.
Has had the CPU upgraded with a PIII 850mhz at some point. Also has a Vortex 2 sound card and a Geforce 3 ti200.
Pretty good score.

it is indeed! looks ready to plug in and go, PCs like this in good shape are becoming rarer

Yep, it powered right up and booted into Win98 without issue.
I did rob the CPU for my other slot 1 build, replaced it with a PIII 700.
The Geforce 3 will likely go to another build as well, but my Voodoo 3, or Geforce 2 GTS will likely find a home in this one.
That black optical drive has got to go though.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-11-15, 16:29:

Not technically a dumpster find but.....rescued this Dell Dimension XPS from going to the scrapper.
Has had the CPU upgraded with a PIII 850mhz at some point. Also has a Vortex 2 sound card and a Geforce 3 ti200.
Pretty good score.

freaking lucky what are you going to do with it?

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-11-15, 16:29:

Not technically a dumpster find but.....rescued this Dell Dimension XPS from going to the scrapper.
Has had the CPU upgraded with a PIII 850mhz at some point. Also has a Vortex 2 sound card and a Geforce 3 ti200.
Pretty good score.

Replace the few electrolytic caps on the motherboard around the cpu if you end up getting an issue with it not starting and displaying the CPU error code on the diagnostic LEDS. I nabbed one of these a few months ago myself but it didn't work at first and that was the issue. These old Dells are surprisingly well built and nice to work on.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-11-15, 16:29:

Not technically a dumpster find but.....rescued this Dell Dimension XPS from going to the scrapper.
Has had the CPU upgraded with a PIII 850mhz at some point. Also has a Vortex 2 sound card and a Geforce 3 ti200.
Pretty good score.

Nice! I've a generic ATX case that looks very similar to that Dell case, I guess it was the style at the time.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-11-16, 01:03:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-11-15, 16:29:

Not technically a dumpster find but.....rescued this Dell Dimension XPS from going to the scrapper.
Has had the CPU upgraded with a PIII 850mhz at some point. Also has a Vortex 2 sound card and a Geforce 3 ti200.
Pretty good score.

Nice! I've a generic ATX case that looks very similar to that Dell case, I guess it was the style at the time.

Perfect for burning mix CDs for the CD walkman in the back pocket of your JNCOs as was the style at the time.

twiz11 wrote on 2023-11-16, 00:33:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-11-15, 16:29:

Not technically a dumpster find but.....rescued this Dell Dimension XPS from going to the scrapper.
Has had the CPU upgraded with a PIII 850mhz at some point. Also has a Vortex 2 sound card and a Geforce 3 ti200.
Pretty good score.

freaking lucky what are you going to do with it?

Add it to the collection. Might end up being my dedicated VIA C3 machine, not sure yet.

Some years ago i got a Fujitsu Server for free.
The place i got it from gave it to me without the HDDs and the caddys.
I just got some place holder caddys wich can not hold a hdd.
I bought a frame used online and it was way too expensive for my experiments.

So i asked the place i got the sever from if by any chance they still had the drives.
And yes they still had them because nobody took the time to destroy them for several years... But they cant give them to me because of data security...
I asked if i could just have the caddys without the drives... And they said yes. Awesome.

So i got 13 fitting frames for my system for free.

now i need a ton of drives 😁
11 caddys are for 300gb 10k sas drives and 2 caddys are for 146gb 15k sas drives.
The system also takes regular sata drives... so i have a wide range of drives to choose from.
Of course i want the drives that are labeled on the front of the caddys! 😁

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-11-15, 16:53:

gerry wrote on 2023-11-15, 16:37:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-11-15, 16:29:

Not technically a dumpster find but.....rescued this Dell Dimension XPS from going to the scrapper.
Has had the CPU upgraded with a PIII 850mhz at some point. Also has a Vortex 2 sound card and a Geforce 3 ti200.
Pretty good score.

it is indeed! looks ready to plug in and go, PCs like this in good shape are becoming rarer

That black optical drive has got to go though.

mismatched colours are period correct though