Picked up this basket-case of a Compaq laptop. Not really worth saving on its own (HDD & RAM stripped, lots of broken plastic tabs & missing panels, no charger), but I suspected there was something cool inside:

^^ 500MHz 2.1V K6-2 with a 1999 date code (so it should be compatible with bugged Asus P5As - not that mine exhibits that bug.) I was hoping for a 2+ or 3+; can't complain though.

The rest of the laptop went back in the bin, but at least its heartbrain will live on!

xjas wrote:

Picked up this basket-case of a Compaq laptop. Not really worth saving on its own (HDD & RAM stripped, lots of broken plastic ta […]
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Picked up this basket-case of a Compaq laptop. Not really worth saving on its own (HDD & RAM stripped, lots of broken plastic tabs & missing panels, no charger), but I suspected there was something cool inside:

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^^ 500MHz 2.1V K6-2 with a 1999 date code (so it should be compatible with bugged Asus P5As - not that mine exhibits that bug.) I was hoping for a 2+ or 3+; can't complain though.

The rest of the laptop went back in the bin, but at least its heartbrain will live on!

Damn it. I wish you would saved that motherboard. I have that exact same model but someone destroyed all the traces around the ramslot removing the RAM. So all I needed was a good motherboard and ram cover to have an immaculate machine.

I have a Pavilion N3350 that runs on an AMD K6-2+ 550 Mobile. Wish I had a Socket 7 board that can run it someday and the worst thing about the laptop is the display is set to be stretched at all times and can only be temporarily disabled until a restart or power cycle is performed. HPA display, which is better than the DSTN display.

It has been a while since I posted in this thread. I still find alot of crap I have just been to buisy to share.

Yesterday evening when I went out for a short walk I stopped at the "waste recycling room" to see if some neighbour had dumped something useful in the electronic waste bin...

The loot this evening turned out to be a VERY heavy custom built computer.

The SSD the sticker on the side of the case was advertising seemed to be missing but otherwise it seemed to be a compete system. The only issue was that the case was locked and I could not find a matching key in my key collection.

With the other case panel removed we get a good look at the Power Supply, a Corsair HX1000. Nice!

By sliding the PSU twords the front of the case I could access the case lock from the inside.

We can finally see all the hardware!

To be continued in the next post...

Cable management for the win!

With everything removed from the case I found this sliding drawer...

... In the sliding drawer among loads of memory cards there was a key

In the next post we will take a closer look at the loot.

An overview of the loot.

The motherboard is an Asus P7P55D LE s1156 motherboard and the video card a GTX560Ti. The memory turned out to be a real find as they are among the fastest low latency DDR3 modules ever made.

The CPU is an i7 860.

3x 2TB HDDs, the PSU, a HD DVD drive and the memory cards in the drawer, all useful stuff.

This is probably my best computer dumpster find this year eventhough it's not very retro! 😀

^ ^ Boy would I like to have such dumpsters in my country.

Quite surprised that the previous owner didn't remove the other drives.

woah that's insane! what a find, enjoy it!

Turbo -> wrote:

^ ^ Boy would I like to have such dumpsters in my country.

With a bit of luck I think great finds can be made almost everywhere. 😀

Vynix wrote:

Quite surprised that the previous owner didn't remove the other drives.

Perhaps he forgot that he put the case key in the plastic drawer... and also forgot about all the memory cards...

I find it just as likely that he/she/it just diddn't care with the old heavy computer since long replaced with new fancy Apple iStuff. Threre are lots of university students living in this apartment block and when they move out after 3 - 6 years of studying they often tend to just throw out everything they don't think they need.

oeuvre wrote:

woah that's insane! what a find, enjoy it!

I will, especially the 4x2GB Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 memory with Elpida "Hyper" ICs!

It has been a bit too hot around here to mess with computers but I have now tested most of the parts from the latest dumpster find. No issues so far!

I only put in two of the memory sticks just to see that the CPUs both memory channels are working but I'm confident the other two modules also work.

The PSU was totally caked with dust but I diddn't see any bad caps when I cleaned it.

Perhaps I will do a rebuild in the original case, the system needs a better video card than a GTX 560Ti though.

Scrapping out a lot of our lab at work. Saving all the things I can that are decent enough to keep. Most is lightly used or installed but never used, some new old stock. This is about 1/100th of it. Already scrapped about 4500lb worth of stuff, mostly proprietary and of no use at home since it would require far too much space and power. More pix later..

1024x768 @ 75Hz, beige, never used -- was going to be hooked up to some Alpha DS10 and DS25E's that I'm taking home in a future trip. (about 15 Alpha's)

Not exactly a dumpster find, but a co-worker gave me a box of old stuff he had sitting in his basement. Inside the box was a Sound Blaster Live SB0100, a bunch diskettes including MS Excel 4.0, MS Powerpoint 3.0, MS Office 3.0, Windows 3.1 Compaq OEM Rev. G, Acer 56x CD-ROM drive, Philips external CD-RW, various AT<->PS/2 adapters, Mac->VGA, VGA->13w3, but the biggest kicker of them all...a Voodoo 4 4500 AGP! I have always wanted a 3dfx Voodoo card since the late 90s / early 2000s. These were always elusive to me, but now I've finally gotten my hands on one...for FREE. 😁 😁 😁 😁

Brickpad wrote:

Not exactly a dumpster find, but a co-worker gave me a box of old stuff he had sitting in his basement. Inside the box was a Sound Blaster Live SB0100, a bunch diskettes including MS Excel 4.0, MS Powerpoint 3.0, MS Office 3.0, Windows 3.1 Compaq OEM Rev. G, Acer 56x CD-ROM drive, Philips external CD-RW, various AT<->PS/2 adapters, Mac->VGA, VGA->13w3, but the biggest kicker of them all...a Voodoo 4 4500 AGP! I have always wanted a 3dfx Voodoo card since the late 90s / early 2000s. These were always elusive to me, but now I've finally gotten my hands on one...for FREE. 😁 😁 😁 😁

Nice.. with the prices the V4-4500 commands since it is somewhat rare, you might be able to trade up for a V5-5500.

oh that v4 is a beauty ... damn I wish I had one

Brickpad wrote:

Not exactly a dumpster find, but a co-worker gave me a box of old stuff he had sitting in his basement. Inside the box was a Sound Blaster Live SB0100, a bunch diskettes including MS Excel 4.0, MS Powerpoint 3.0, MS Office 3.0, Windows 3.1 Compaq OEM Rev. G, Acer 56x CD-ROM drive, Philips external CD-RW, various AT<->PS/2 adapters, Mac->VGA, VGA->13w3, but the biggest kicker of them all...a Voodoo 4 4500 AGP! I have always wanted a 3dfx Voodoo card since the late 90s / early 2000s. These were always elusive to me, but now I've finally gotten my hands on one...for FREE. 😁 😁 😁 😁

marry him

oeuvre wrote:

Brickpad wrote:

Not exactly a dumpster find, but a co-worker gave me a box of old stuff he had sitting in his basement. Inside the box was a Sound Blaster Live SB0100, a bunch diskettes including MS Excel 4.0, MS Powerpoint 3.0, MS Office 3.0, Windows 3.1 Compaq OEM Rev. G, Acer 56x CD-ROM drive, Philips external CD-RW, various AT<->PS/2 adapters, Mac->VGA, VGA->13w3, but the biggest kicker of them all...a Voodoo 4 4500 AGP! I have always wanted a 3dfx Voodoo card since the late 90s / early 2000s. These were always elusive to me, but now I've finally gotten my hands on one...for FREE. 😁 😁 😁 😁

marry him

Nah, a Voodoo card is only worth going to second base. You marry the person that gives you Tandy gear, IBM MCA gear, GUS cards, etc.

While I sadly lost a Voodoo3 auction by one dollar with literally seconds to go, I was able to grab some stuff out of the “boneyard” at work. I will split this post in two, because there is a bunch of memory that I need your help identifying. I do believe that the memory has something to generally do with the Pentium and 486, since they were in the same box.

Otherwise, would the AWE64 be a better choice than my previously posted Yamaha card for late DOS?

Depends on whether your Yamaha card has a wavetable daughterboard. If not, the AWE is better for late DOS because it offers basic GM MIDI through its AWE extensions for many if not all games. On the otherhand, CQM is inferior to OPL3 so it's a tradeoff, but not one you will lament too much for late DOS.

appiah4 wrote:

Depends on whether your Yamaha card has a wavetable daughterboard. If not, the AWE is better for late DOS because it offers basic GM MIDI through its AWE extensions for many if not all games. On the otherhand, CQM is inferior to OPL3 so it's a tradeoff, but not one you will lament too much for late DOS.

I doesn't have a wavetable board, but I do have an SC-55 Mk1 sitting on my desk.