VOGONS


First post, by Cerberus73

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Ok got handed a old PC from my brother in law. as he knows i mess about with old kit. He couldn't remember anything about it, and it was just a work machine from back in the day. Upon opening it, it was nothing special, or so I thought (probably still isn't).

A P4 based system.. Nvidia MX.. blah blah.. and a Gigabyte GA-81DX Rev 1.0 socket 478 SDRAM Intel 845 Chipset. I thought ok, its semi interesting.. not the usual 775 board etc.. I went googling.. one shows up on eBay US.. hes asking $895 dollars for it... to quote a guy I know.. "shut the front door" here the listing: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255784825069

Why in the name of all that is holy. is this clown asking nearly $900 for a middle of the road, but somewhat interesting transitional board from the early 2000's? was it used in some fancy industrial application? as I know companies would and do pay insane cash for crap hardware just because it was used back in the day and it means not having to down tools or shut lines too long to swap out and dick around with obsolete code to make it play nice with existing equipment.. better a grand than and a hr of a techs time than a million bucks of lost time and expense.

The board in question is going to need a complete recap, as they are all swole like they been on the roids. so initially I thought ill stick it in the "get round to" pile. But am i missing something? Will it be worth my time to do it now? im thinking the only pluses might be its a early P4. and i believe can be used with 98SE.. it came new with ME on it.. so the case sticker states. but the SDRAM seems more expensive to get, and the AGP slot is only 4x so limits the cards that can be used.

Reply 1 of 5, by dominusprog

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This is the reality of this hobby. People are greedy, they always want more. They don't care who's going to buy them.

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Reply 2 of 5, by PcBytes

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Industrial sellers (like them) have those prices to deter consumer people from buying the hardware. (my best guess)

Figured it's an industrial HW seller from the name and page.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 3 of 5, by StriderTR

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And doesn't even have the common decency to offer free shipping at that price. 🤣

Yep, this hobby + eBay = crazy at times. I'm often blown away by some of the prices.

Edit: I also think this specific listing price it probably becasue it's an industrial seller. There's a chance that MB is used in some industrial equipment. To you and I, that price is madness, but to a business with a machine not running due to a bad board, it's much more reasonable. Having worked on that side of the fence, I've seen it first hand, and very often.

DOS, Win9x, General "Retro" Enthusiast. Professional Tinkerer. Technology Hobbyist. Expert at Nothing! Build, Create, Repair, Repeat!
This Old Man's Builds, Projects, and Other Retro Goodness: https://theclassicgeek.blogspot.com/

Reply 4 of 5, by sunkindly

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StriderTR wrote on 2025-10-25, 17:23:

Edit: I also think this specific listing price it probably becasue it's an industrial seller. There's a chance that MB is used in some industrial equipment. To you and I, that price is madness, but to a business with a machine not running due to a bad board, it's much more reasonable. Having worked on that side of the fence, I've seen it first hand, and very often.

Heheh...I can just imagine it:

"The motherboard for the Shuckmaster 9000 finally gave out."

"The Gigabyte one with the bad caps?"

"That's the one, where can we find one just like it?"

"Well..."

SUN85-87: NEC PC-8801mkIIMR
SUN88-92: Northgate Elegance | 386DX-25 | Orchid Fahrenheit 1280
SUN94-96: BEK-P407 | Cyrix 5x86 120MHz | Tseng Labs ET6000
SUN98-01: ABIT BF6 | Pentium III 1.1GHz | 3dfx Voodoo3 3000

Reply 5 of 5, by StriderTR

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sunkindly wrote on 2025-10-25, 17:34:
Heheh...I can just imagine it: […]
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StriderTR wrote on 2025-10-25, 17:23:

Edit: I also think this specific listing price it probably becasue it's an industrial seller. There's a chance that MB is used in some industrial equipment. To you and I, that price is madness, but to a business with a machine not running due to a bad board, it's much more reasonable. Having worked on that side of the fence, I've seen it first hand, and very often.

Heheh...I can just imagine it:

"The motherboard for the Shuckmaster 9000 finally gave out."

"The Gigabyte one with the bad caps?"

"That's the one, where can we find one just like it?"

"Well..."

You're not that far off. 🤣

I can recall having to buy old ISA and PCI video cards for machines, often costing several hundred dollars . Cards that you and I would have given away for free. A lot of industrial equipment it setup to only accept very specific components. While I can't recall ever having to track down a consumer grade MB in my limited time doing that job (most of them were custom to the machines), I did have to locate and buy several video cards, processors, network controllers, and sticks of RAM. All consumer parts, but well past it's life and all no longer being made. I was paying new high-end prices for 20+ year old video cards. It's definitely a different world.

DOS, Win9x, General "Retro" Enthusiast. Professional Tinkerer. Technology Hobbyist. Expert at Nothing! Build, Create, Repair, Repeat!
This Old Man's Builds, Projects, and Other Retro Goodness: https://theclassicgeek.blogspot.com/