Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-15, 14:22:

I'm mostly in a bit of a pickle there... […]
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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-04-15, 13:51:

Meatball wrote on 2022-04-15, 13:43:

I usually take the leap on expensive untested equipment if it looks good and the seller has a good track record. You cannot hid […]
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I usually take the leap on expensive untested equipment if it looks good and the seller has a good track record. You cannot hide behind the “parts only” crap description on eBay, which is why I pay the premium prices.

Ironically, in the 2 last years, I’ve only had tested equipment fail, and usually on first boot; 1 sound card, 1 scsi cdrom, and 4 video:

Soundblaster Live!
NEC SCSI
Voodoo3 3000
S3 Trio 3D
Rage XL
Voodoo1 Pure3D (locks up on 3D initialization)

I got my money back or seller exchanged on all of them. That’s good service.

I find the Parts only tags to be hilarious .. do they not know that such tags mean very little and offer no protection to the seller, here in Australia our consumers laws cannot be overridden by anything or any other countries laws, you want to sell stuff here in Australia or to Aussies then you abide by our consumer laws so for us here eBay will always refund if there is any issue with the item(s).

That said .. I as a buyer accept that if its listed as parts only or untested then its really on me if it doesnt work or fails at POST, I could get a refund but I usually wont even bother unless its obvious that the seller is being shady on purpose or it was listed as tested and working, as good as our consumer protection laws are here it doesnt mean I should abuse them just to screw over honest sellers.

I'm mostly in a bit of a pickle there...

Pretty sure the European and German law protects quite a bit better than Ebay rules. EU law permits private sellers to disclaim return rights and warranty by declaring it a "private sale". But German 14 day return right applies to pretty much anything bought remotely, I'm rather confident.

But, the key to a happy life is not to argue with stupid people.
And the point for me where I'd start with that and going all Karen on some small time clutter monger on the bay, would be around a hundred, I'd say.
The thing is - I almost never buy anything retro for more than 30 and never over 99 😉

What I find really, really annoying: Idiots/ f*ckfaces who declare stuff "used" but then put untested, "as is" or "parts only" in the description.

Ahhh... That's why I see 'Private Sale' on euro-listings.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-04-15, 13:51:

Meatball wrote on 2022-04-15, 13:43:

I usually take the leap on expensive untested equipment if it looks good and the seller has a good track record. You cannot hid […]
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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-04-15, 07:34:

I've bought a number of GPUs untested and so far gotten lucky enough to have them all work just fine, if the seller has decent enough photos it helps to identify possibly bad GPUs but for me .. I honestly dont mind the gamble so long as the buy in price isn't something stupid. $20 - $30 bucks isn't terrible, 35 euro is a bit steep for most untested GPUs but for a 3DFX card its just low enough to be a decent gamble and not feel terrible if it doesnt work. Banshees can be repaird pretty easy if there is no physical damage to the PCB.

I can say that my biggest gamble was a HD4870x2 for 150 AUD, the seller tried testing it but didn't have a PSU capable of powering the GPU up, was interesting times testing when it arrived but the old girl roared into life when hooked up to a PSU with a high AMP 12v rail. (in my experience 4870x2s wont even post if they cannot get the required minimum power from the PSU)

Honestly the noisiest GPU I have ever used but the thing is a pure joy to see working and just eating whatever old games you throw at it. (I still prefer 4890s in Xfire however)

I usually take the leap on expensive untested equipment if it looks good and the seller has a good track record. You cannot hide behind the “parts only” crap description on eBay, which is why I pay the premium prices.

Ironically, in the 2 last years, I’ve only had tested equipment fail, and usually on first boot; 1 sound card, 1 scsi cdrom, and 4 video:

Soundblaster Live!
NEC SCSI
Voodoo3 3000
S3 Trio 3D
Rage XL
Voodoo1 Pure3D (locks up on 3D initialization)

I got my money back or seller exchanged on all of them. That’s good service.

I find the Parts only tags to be hilarious .. do they not know that such tags mean very little and offer no protection to the seller, here in Australia our consumers laws cannot be overridden by anything or any other countries laws, you want to sell stuff here in Australia or to Aussies then you abide by our consumer laws so for us here eBay will always refund if there is any issue with the item(s).

That said .. I as a buyer accept that if its listed as parts only or untested then its really on me if it doesnt work or fails at POST, I could get a refund but I usually wont even bother unless its obvious that the seller is being shady on purpose or it was listed as tested and working, as good as our consumer protection laws are here it doesnt mean I should abuse them just to screw over honest sellers.

I agree. As a seller myself, I want to be treated the same as I treat sellers. With that said, there certainly are sellers even on this board, which have what is perceived to be valuable items. There's a high probability they can test these items, but they don't. Why? I surmise it is because they don't want to take the risk the pot of gold turns out to be a lump of coal, thereby only being to sell it at a fraction of the price; putting 100% of the risk on the buyer. It doesn't work, though. Fortunately for them, most of the items they are selling turn out to work.

But not all sellers are like that. There's plenty of great ones (and on this board, also) who take care of the situation. I know it's tough with awful buyers out there, too. I also guess some of these sellers put "parts only" to scare aware the riff-raff and buyers who aren't confident in their technical know-how.

Meatball wrote:

I agree. As a seller myself, I want to be treated the same as I treat sellers. With that said, there certainly are sellers even on this board, which have what is perceived to be valuable items. There's a high probability they can test these items, but they don't. Why? I surmise it is because they don't want to take the risk the pot of gold turns out to be a lump of coal, thereby only being to sell it at a fraction of the price; putting 100% of the risk on the buyer. It doesn't work, though. Fortunately for them, most of the items they are selling turn out to work.

I can somewhat understand the behaviour of selling stuff as broken even if it is tested. If I was to sell something one thing I would not want is a returned item.. Best is to sell locally, where you can actually show the item irl, but has other problems.

Bought a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR with a Core2 Extreme QX9650 and 8 gigs of ram today 😀

Joakim wrote on 2022-04-15, 16:07:

Meatball wrote:

I agree. As a seller myself, I want to be treated the same as I treat sellers. With that said, there certainly are sellers even on this board, which have what is perceived to be valuable items. There's a high probability they can test these items, but they don't. Why? I surmise it is because they don't want to take the risk the pot of gold turns out to be a lump of coal, thereby only being to sell it at a fraction of the price; putting 100% of the risk on the buyer. It doesn't work, though. Fortunately for them, most of the items they are selling turn out to work.

I can somewhat understand the behaviour of selling stuff as broken even if it is tested. If I was to sell something one thing I would not want is a returned item.. Best is to sell locally, where you can actually show the item irl, but has other problems.

As a buyer, the one thing you don't want is a broken item, right? If you're talking about something which works on day 1, but breaks on day 2 - I can see this being out of the sellers hands - that's the risk of buying equipment with no guarantees.

Bought some stuff today

GUS with manual, SoundBlaster 32, Two Tseng ET4000AX, ET3000AX for 8-bit slot and NOS 486 heatsink with fan.

Backplane and SBC 386 with an Intel 386DX-33.

Three T-bred B Athlons. Three 486 boards. Olivetti PCS30PCS40, DataExpert EXP4044 and Azza 4SGS-3VL

Another 486 Board, Soyo SY-030H2, this one with manual and Am486 DX4-100

Quite happy with this purchase.

RGB modded N64 NTSC-U/C

AST RAMPAGE AT-512

CF2IDE to replace the existing one in my Portable 286

Snapshot:

Flea market finds today:
- Asus P/I-P55TP4N ver 1.01
- Leadtek Winfast A280 LE 64 Mb GF4 Ti4200 AGP
- Voodoo 3 2000 (???) PCI in a very bad shape

bearking wrote on 2022-04-16, 10:36:

Flea market finds today:
- Voodoo 3 2000 (???) PCI in a very bad shape

Pretty sure that is one, or what's left of it.
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/voodoo3-2000-pci.c3556
Why do the PCI cards all have the emply RAM solder patches? They all look like that and all have the usual 16 MB, AFAIK.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-16, 11:14:

Pretty sure that is one, or what's left of it. https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/voodoo3-2000-pci.c3556 Why do the PCI cards […]
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bearking wrote on 2022-04-16, 10:36:

Flea market finds today:
- Voodoo 3 2000 (???) PCI in a very bad shape

Pretty sure that is one, or what's left of it.
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/voodoo3-2000-pci.c3556
Why do the PCI cards all have the emply RAM solder patches? They all look like that and all have the usual 16 MB, AFAIK.

It's only like this on the later SGRAM versions. My unproven(!) theory is they either prepared for more smaller chips in case SGRAM was scarce or alternatively they had plans for a 32MB V3 but it never came to be.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-16, 11:14:

Pretty sure that is one, or what's left of it. https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/voodoo3-2000-pci.c3556 Why do the PCI cards […]
Show full quote

bearking wrote on 2022-04-16, 10:36:

Flea market finds today:
- Voodoo 3 2000 (???) PCI in a very bad shape

Pretty sure that is one, or what's left of it.
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/voodoo3-2000-pci.c3556
Why do the PCI cards all have the emply RAM solder patches? They all look like that and all have the usual 16 MB, AFAIK.

Didn't had too many hopes for the v3 pci to work, but I've cleaned it with soapy water, baked it at 50 deg C in the oven and cleaned it also with ipa and it works! Super excited about it! Considering what I paid for it...

The Leadtek works too, have to test the mobo.

Now and forever, your Voodoo 3 will bake itself!

bearking wrote on 2022-04-16, 15:59:

Didn't had too manny hopes for the v3 pci to work, but I've cleaned it with soapy water, baked it at 50 deg C in the owen and cl […]
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Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-16, 11:14:

Pretty sure that is one, or what's left of it. https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/voodoo3-2000-pci.c3556 Why do the PCI cards […]
Show full quote

bearking wrote on 2022-04-16, 10:36:

Flea market finds today:
- Voodoo 3 2000 (???) PCI in a very bad shape

Pretty sure that is one, or what's left of it.
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/voodoo3-2000-pci.c3556
Why do the PCI cards all have the emply RAM solder patches? They all look like that and all have the usual 16 MB, AFAIK.

Didn't had too manny hopes for the v3 pci to work, but I've cleaned it with soapy water, baked it at 50 deg C in the owen and cleaned it also with ipa and it works! Super excited about it! Considering what I paid for it...
20220416_185619.jpg

The Leadtek works too, have to test the mobo.

We're all very proud of you.

I know it means short for isopropyl alcohol, but in a city plagued by craft beer snobs, I can't help thinking if "indian pale ale".

I need a drink. Have a nice festival of the undead Rabbi, everyone. Cheers!

I bought this Geforce 2 MX 200/400. I think it's nothing special, but she seems unused.

Doornkaat wrote on 2022-04-16, 11:23:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-16, 11:14:

Pretty sure that is one, or what's left of it. https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/voodoo3-2000-pci.c3556 Why do the PCI cards […]
Show full quote

bearking wrote on 2022-04-16, 10:36:

Flea market finds today:
- Voodoo 3 2000 (???) PCI in a very bad shape

Pretty sure that is one, or what's left of it.
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/voodoo3-2000-pci.c3556
Why do the PCI cards all have the emply RAM solder patches? They all look like that and all have the usual 16 MB, AFAIK.

It's only like this on the later SGRAM versions. My unproven(!) theory is they either prepared for more smaller chips in case SGRAM was scarce or alternatively they had plans for a 32MB V3 but it never came to be.

I wonder if you solder more SGRAM chips to the pads if the V3 will detect the extra memory and be able to use it, might be worth testing by salvaging ram from a dead V3.

Turbo -> wrote on 2022-04-16, 16:49:

I bought this Geforce 2 MX 200/400. I think it's nothing special, but she seems unused.

The MX400 is a really nice little GPU, great for throwing in to test retro motherboards that you dont know the working status of, I have both a AGP and PCI version I keep on my test bench for just that reason. (Thus far have been unkillable, been through a lot of old boards of late)

They also make great DOS rig GPUs since they have great Vesa support, though older DOS games may have issues with the newer 3.0 Vesa.

The other great GPU to have is a PCI GF6200 its also a really solid test rig GPU.

Added a couple of things to little retro collection, a GeForce2 Ultra which I didn't need but the seller took a lowball offer on it and I couldn't pass it up, also saw a 9800Xt in the flesh tested and working for 75 USD which the seller took an offer of 50USD for, it'll be replacing the 9800 XXL in the Socket 462 machine. Also picked up a Solo-1 with a wavetable header and a Matrox Millennium II from local Aussie sellers. I wish the Solo-1 had a SB header or PCPCI header but it does have a WT header, I want to see how it sounds with the X2GS Dreamblaster on it.

I may go find the 4mb upgrade card for the MII but its headed for a DOS rig so I'm not sure it needs it but it might be useful for Win 3.11/9x in the future.

I consider the 9800XT in working condition to be the win of this bunch, now if it lasts a year Ill be very happy but like most 9800xt I fully expect it to fall over at some point in the near future 😁

I bought some more stuff today

Four motherboards. Top left: BCM LX400P Top right: Asus ISA-486SIQ Bottom left: Acer 386-AS Bottom right: Lucky Star UCM-486V30 with an AMD 486 SX2 66 CPU.

Two CPUs, Cyrix Cx486DLC and P3 450 SL35D

Three graphics cards. Massive EIZO card. NOS Rage card. Another S3 Virge is always useful.

And last out is this. NIB EIZO Enhanced graphics board. Seems to have been bought with a monitor since the manual is there for a monitor.

Picked up a Gigabyte GA-686-LX3 motherboard to test a big lot of Celerons I have on the way, but it is no good and is going back to the seller. It powers up, but nothing else. I also added a Yamaha SCSI CD drive and A Matrox G200. These work fine.

This Mac Plus Platinum - basically 'like new' condition, I don't think it saw much use if any because it wasn't even dusty, everything looks and smells almost new, and Apple IIGS in very nice condition as well. Irony is I'm Apple hater (always have been), but these I found in the stash of my supplier (or actually my 'emissary' found because my supplier is located in another town) and he offered them in VERY reasonable prices too.

I also don't connect Mac products, although I do keep one PowerBook G4 Titanium laptop, just in case. It's in good condition and doesn't take up much space.

Early Macs have always fascinated me from a distance. I grew up with PCs and did interact with Macs on occasion in the 90s, even some Apple IIs, I think. But since I never used them regularly, I have no nostalgia for them or any of their software.

So my experience now is kind of the same. I enjoy interacting with them on rare occasion, with no commitments to the platform.