What the heck happened in this thread? Anyways... Found this eMachines T3065 Athlon XP-based system over at the dump today, along with a Soyo-branded 17" LCD monitor that I didn't notice had a crack in the panel until I got home.

I found it kinda funny how the eMachines emblem on the front of the case is missing, considering I actually have a use for this case. Here's a shot of the insides:

The motherboard is an FIC AU31 with an nForce2 chipset. It did come with a hard drive caddy (no hard drive though), but I removed it because A. it was kinda bent, and B. it was covered in this yellow greasy substance. Interestingly enough, the CMOS battery is also missing. I did go ahead and briefly try to see if the motherboard and Bestec ATX-300-12E power supply came alive or went bang when I pressed the power button. They did seem to want to work, but the PSU was making this hissing noise whenever the system wasn't on.

Those Bestec supplies are notorious hardware killers. I'm not surprised it's causing issues.

I'm honestly surprised it even worked to begin with.

Sutekh94 wrote:

I did go ahead and briefly try to see if the motherboard and Bestec ATX-300-12E power supply came alive or went bang when I pressed the power button. They did seem to want to work, but the PSU was making this hissing noise whenever the system wasn't on.

One of the most common problems with those is in the +5vsb which is likely what you would be hearing with the system off.
That's also IIRC the Bestec problem that blows motherboard chipsets.
I don't do Bestec but there are a number of threads about fixing them up over at badcaps.net.
.

I did a little looking. The 300W unit may not be as susceptible to 5V SB overvoltage. Still pretty crappy, though, with shitty caps and shitty transient suppression. Plus, who knows what kind of protection has been built into the platform as the 250W had almost none.

gdjacobs wrote:

I did a little looking. The 300W unit may not be as susceptible to 5V SB overvoltage. Still pretty crappy, though, with shitty caps and shitty transient suppression. Plus, who knows what kind of protection has been built into the platform as the 250W had almost none.

There were different revisions and I think it was the last (ATX-xxx-12Z) that finally fixed that problem.
There were 1 or 2 people at BCN that actually sought out Bestecs so they could mod them into something decent.
Not me. - I keep a pallet in the back where I put things for the scrap metal guy and that's where I put Bestecs.
http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=26747
http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=51254
http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8878
.
I really like the style of case Sutekh94 scored though.
Those have always looked attractive to me.
.

In the end, it was only the 250-12E that lacked the 5VSB IC.

Both 300-12E and 300-12Z are ok.

PCBONEZ wrote:

I really like the style of case Sutekh94 scored though.
Those have always looked attractive to me.
.

I've always liked these eMachines cases, not just because of their style, but because they seem to have pretty good build quality. I'd say it's better than some of the cheaper (<$50) cases you can find on places like Newegg.

Derped around local flea market and nearby entry found ruined package stuffed with chips,they were stacked one at other,i take only one pair because saw 80 marking at one of em and.

it turned into Soviet z80 clone,meet the 80H-CPU PLATAN

joy came after i rotate it to look at second and it turned into Zilog Z-80

rein_ein wrote:

Derped around local flea market and nearby entry found ruined package stuffed with chips,they were stacked one at other,i take o […]
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Derped around local flea market and nearby entry found ruined package stuffed with chips,they were stacked one at other,i take only one pair because saw 80 marking at one of em and.

it turned into Soviet z80 clone,meet the 80H-CPU PLATAN

[...]

joy came after i rotate it to look at second and it turned into Zilog Z-80

sweet! nice find - now you can build your own 8-bit computer 😀

rein_ein wrote:

Derped around local flea market and nearby entry found ruined package stuffed with chips,they were stacked one at other,i take o […]
Show full quote

Derped around local flea market and nearby entry found ruined package stuffed with chips,they were stacked one at other,i take only one pair because saw 80 marking at one of em and.

it turned into Soviet z80 clone,meet the 80H-CPU PLATAN

joy came after i rotate it to look at second and it turned into Zilog Z-80

You have very good hawk-eyes, cheers! 😁

brassicGamer wrote:

sweet! nice find - now you can build your own 8-bit computer 😀

Thanks,any success with crafting ZX like anyone here?

Tetrium wrote:

You have very good hawk-eyes, cheers! 😁

One more thanks 😊

Sutekh94 wrote:

What the heck happened in this thread? Anyways... Found this eMachines T3065 Athlon XP-based system over at the dump today, al […]
Show full quote

What the heck happened in this thread? Anyways... Found this eMachines T3065 Athlon XP-based system over at the dump today, along with a Soyo-branded 17" LCD monitor that I didn't notice had a crack in the panel until I got home.

Thank you from bringing this thread back on track!

I've been quite tempted to rebuild my 2004\2007 computer that was based on a Athlon XP 2700+ and a Asus A7N8X-X. I still have all the original parts aside from the case and hard drive. That computer gave me some really good gaming\mIRC\msn\teamspeak\HI5 times. Today i don't even have facebook..
I'm just wondering what type of data medium i should use, if a sata hard drive with IDE converter, a SSD with IDE converter or if a plain old IDE hard drive.

rick6 wrote:

I've been quite tempted to rebuild my 2004\2007 computer that was based on a Athlon XP 2700+ and a Asus A7N8X-X. I still have all the original parts aside from the case and hard drive. That computer gave me some really good gaming\mIRC\msn\teamspeak\HI5 times. Today i don't even have facebook..
I'm just wondering what type of data medium i should use, if a sata hard drive with IDE converter, a SSD with IDE converter or if a plain old IDE hard drive.

In my XP builds of late, I've found that a clean install with just the required updates from Windows Update, are incredibly responsive on standard HDDs. Typically 30 second or less boot time and <150MB of used RAM after a clean boot. I try to avoid any optional MS updates and antivirus because they end up bloating the system and using lots of RAM. If you skip A/V, just don't use the machine as your daily web and email browser. There are other protections that are more than enough for such a system--Malwarebytes Anti-malware and Cryptoprevent, for example.

I really like using bootable pci SATA cards and new SATA hard drives.

Found a GeForce4 MX440 64MB AGP card, a Syntax 1.3GigaPlus board, a beige DVD-RW IDE drive, and some DDR RAM for the Syntax board. When I'm done with getting the Syntax board working again I'll make a post in the Specs section, I have a very interesting piece of furniture standing in for the case.

I needed a few odd components for a project (namely VGA D-sub connectors) so I went digging through a pile of video cards I'd spotted earlier in the week. I grabbed a few generic Radeons and GeForces and also these two:

Those would be an ATI Mach 64 PCI with upgraded RAM, and some sort of Matrox dual-DVI PCIe card, which is interesting because I didn't know Matrox were still around let alone making new stuff into the PCIe era. No idea what chipset it is.

Unfortunately you don't have to be too observant to spot the problem - someone has cut the PCI(e) headers off to recycle for gold already. A sad end to two potentially neat gfx cards, but what can you do. They will at least live on as parts for my crazy projects.

...Unless someone wants to try to take a stab at grafting a new header onto them. 😜 Or maybe a PC/104-plus conversion? It's theoretically possible!

Last Saturday I rescued a Dell Dimension 4100 from the local e-waste center that I visit occasionally. They don't seem to mind me taking stuff... I think.

P3 866MHz, Nvidia Geforce 2 MX, Sound Blaster Live Value. It had no hard drive so I plugged one of my spares in and did a fresh install of Win98SE + unofficial service pack 3. Then I got the drivers for everything and got this USB Wi-Fi stick working with it. I'm making this post on that computer right now.

It's gonna be a great little 1998-2002 gaming rig. Only thing it's missing is an ISA port, so that pretty much rules out most DOS games sadly. (And I can't seem to get the SB16 emulation working on the Live)

Unfortunately there was a sign at the e-waste center stating that they are to close down on the 29th. Turns out, recycling stuff is actually really expensive. Another place a couple miles north closed down last year for the same reason. Are people just gonna start throwing their junk in the trash now? Hope not.

Ooh, that brings back memories - I used to have two Dell Dimension PIII systems almost exactly like that.

ElementalChaos wrote:

It had no hard drive so I plugged one of my spares in and did a fresh install of Win98SE + unofficial service pack 3.

What is the unofficial SP3 for Win98? I haven't heard of that. What sort of stuff does it have in it?

ElementalChaos wrote:

Only thing it's missing is an ISA port, so that pretty much rules out most DOS games sadly. (And I can't seem to get the SB16 emulation working on the Live)

Funny thing, my machines both had one or two ISA ports each, and a built-in Yamaha DS-XG (or something...) sound board that had 100% perfect Sound Blaster 16 + OPL3 emulation.

ElementalChaos wrote:

Turns out, recycling stuff is actually really expensive.

You better believe it. That's why governments have to subsidize it to make it work - people don't want it enough for companies to jump in, innovate, compete, and drive the price down.

ElementalChaos wrote:

Are people just gonna start throwing their junk in the trash now?

Yes. Unfortunately.

This is the HDD that came with my Packard Bell Multimedia C110. It was given me by a friend who would've otherwise taken it to the dump. 1GB Seagate ST51080A. I ran SpinRite on it and it is completely healthy. Not even a hint of a bad sector. It is before the time of SMART though, so I have no idea of power on hours or other health stats.

And this is a Genoa 8500VL. I don't even remember this card, but it was in my bedroom at my parents house, so I know I owned it. My sister is going through the old bedroom and cleaning stuff out. She mailed me all of my old games, manuals, hint books and hardware. It was a great gift to have all these with me again after over 20 years.