unluckybob wrote on 2025-11-29, 19:43:

asdf53 wrote on 2025-11-29, 19:27:

Ouch. Damaged in what way exactly? Did the purchase have some kind of money back guarantee? Is the seller going to refund anything, what's going to happen now?

The plastic housing is cracked and broken, the tube has some problems with maintaining a stable brightness and the focus is way off. I'm sure some of it can be fixed but I paid good money for a CRT that was listed as being perfect I tried to open a return but the seller blocked me so I really have no way of contacting the seller but given how they shipped it to a PO box in anther area and postage due I would say they are a scammer, they're a dime a dozen in the retro/vintage PC market place anymore. I did a charge back with my bank and got my money back already.

That's a crappy situation to be in.

What selling platform did you buy it from? I can't think of any that will be too happy about you doing a credit charge back. For example, ebay will ban your SSN for life, so I have heard, and the money owed to them (as the payment processor) will go to collections and will follow you until you pay it off. (Possibly wrong... I just read this several places and thought it sounded feasible. I'll strike it to avoid spreading any misconceptions). Paypal is basically the same way. You will have a negative balance until you send them funds somehow, and if you don't it will eventually go to collections and you will be banned. EDIT: Though I guess this only applies either to sellers or to buyers who get a charge back that is then reversed on appeal.

Also, chargebacks usually take months... seems odd that it was completed so quickly for you.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-11-30, 00:37:

That's a crappy situation to be in.

What selling platform did you buy it from? I can't think of any that will be too happy about you doing a credit charge back. For example, ebay will ban your SSN for life, so I have heard, and the money owed to them (as the payment processor) will go to collections and will follow you until you pay it off. Paypal is basically the same way. You will have a negative balance until you send them funds somehow, and if you don't it will eventually go to collections and you will be banned.

Also, chargebacks usually take months... seems odd that it was completed so quickly for you.

eBay does not block ssn or even ask for them in the first place... eBay reps will even tell customs to file a charge back if you lose a case, its the sellers that get dinged not the buyers. No clue about paypal as I do not use them. You can't send (at least in the USA) a charged back transaction to collectors, charge backs are a consumer right protected under law and backed up by both card holder policies by visa, master card, discover and amex (both credit and debit cards have the same charge back rights even if your banks website/app dose not give the option to file one online) and the merchant services used my retailers to accept cards, if eBay tried to send a charged off transaction to collections you can sure as heck bet they will be in a world of trouble. Now the law will not stop anyone from trying to send something to collections but that would not be hard to get rid of as its not a legal debt, a debt validation letter will clear that up fast.

Not all banks are equal in how fast they handle charge backs, my brokerage firm gives the merchant a week to respond and me up to 90 days, the last bank I was with gave 3 business days for both me and the merchant to reply. Others give the seller upto 90 days, looking at you huntington. 😒 I buy everything with a debit card tied to my brokerage firms CMA and when it comes to online market places like ebay or newegg and so on they just close the case in my favor right away. Given the amount I have with them I don't see them wanting to lose me as a customer 🤣 over a silly charge back.

asdf53 wrote on 2025-11-29, 20:50:

I bought 7 CRTs online so far, most were failures in various ways (worn out CRT, flyback failure, scratches, shipping damage). One of them was particularly maddening because it was in pristine condition with a nice bright tube, but the seller decided to clean the screen with a scrub sponge before sending it out. Since that happened, I always tell sellers to not clean it at all. I never paid more than 100€ shipped for any of them though.

I had bad luck buying CRTs in the past online too, heck anything older online anymore so I more or less stopped buying any older parts anymore. Most of the CRTs I bought arrive broken from poor shipping with one needing a hazmat clean up team at the tube shattered in a million bits.

Also most of the time scuffs in the screen can be fixed by removing the anti glare coating. If you want to replace it thick window tent can be used in its place.

unluckybob wrote on 2025-11-30, 06:40:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-11-30, 00:37:

That's a crappy situation to be in.

What selling platform did you buy it from? I can't think of any that will be too happy about you doing a credit charge back. For example, ebay will ban your SSN for life, so I have heard, and the money owed to them (as the payment processor) will go to collections and will follow you until you pay it off. Paypal is basically the same way. You will have a negative balance until you send them funds somehow, and if you don't it will eventually go to collections and you will be banned.

Also, chargebacks usually take months... seems odd that it was completed so quickly for you.

eBay does not block ssn or even ask for them in the first place... eBay reps will even tell customs to file a charge back if you lose a case, its the sellers that get dinged not the buyers. No clue about paypal as I do not use them. You can't send (at least in the USA) a charged back transaction to collectors, charge backs are a consumer right protected under law and backed up by both card holder policies by visa, master card, discover and amex (both credit and debit cards have the same charge back rights even if your banks website/app dose not give the option to file one online) and the merchant services used my retailers to accept cards, if eBay tried to send a charged off transaction to collections you can sure as heck bet they will be in a world of trouble. Now the law will not stop anyone from trying to send something to collections but that would not be hard to get rid of as its not a legal debt, a debt validation letter will clear that up fast.

Not all banks are equal in how fast they handle charge backs, my brokerage firm gives the merchant a week to respond and me up to 90 days, the last bank I was with gave 3 business days for both me and the merchant to reply. Others give the seller upto 90 days, looking at you huntington. 😒 I buy everything with a debit card tied to my brokerage firms CMA and when it comes to online market places like ebay or newegg and so on they just close the case in my favor right away. Given the amount I have with them I don't see them wanting to lose me as a customer 🤣 over a silly charge back.

Interesting. I've never had to deal with any of that personally, I've just heard horror stories and did a bit of research after reading about your chargeback. Apparently the ebay SSN banning thing I read was mainly related to sellers getting chargebacks. Sellers are required to have an SSN submitted to ebay now for tax purposes, so it is possible to basically follow them to their grave with any ebay related grievances 😅. Still, ebay has processes for getting refunds and has buyer protection. If the buyer requests a refund for an item not as described, the seller denies it (or doesn't respond), the buyer asks ebay to step in and then EBAY denies the return... I can't imagine that the buyer's ebay account gets away unscathed after filing a charge back and forcing ebay to return the money anyway. I think you can actually lose certain buyer protection features and have other nasty side effects, including possible account bans if they decide to go that route.

I think things can escalate to collections if a buyer were to, for example, request a charge back, win, get the money back temporarily, close the credit\bank account and then the seller actually has the chargeback reversed on appeal. The money is then not available to go back to the payment processor (ebay) since the account is closed, so it could go to collections. In the case of sellers it could happen if they sell an item, receive payment, remove access to the account that received the payment and then lose a chargeback later on.

Sellers are also within their rights to involve lawyers over whatever they want if ebay and banks are seemingly in the wrong when siding against them... that is always, of course, a matter of effort\money vs reward, which is rarely worth it.

Anyway, I'm glad you got your money back at least, though it is sad about the monitor getting trashed. I will say, I don't know how they could have possibly sent it to the wrong address since ebay provides the label and it fills the address for you. Ebay actually warns sellers that they could lose seller protection (meaning, buyer gets a refund in nearly any situation) if they change the address from what is provided. I don't think there would be anything to gain from deliberately sending it to the wrong address, since that could destroy any chance they have of using ebay's protections to scam you. More likely they were just inept and did something stupid that caused it to be sent to the wrong place. They actually had and shipped the monitor, which is far more effort than most scammers are willing to go through.

Sadly, shipping CRTs is just not worth it unless you're dealing with a company\individual who has a track record of doing so safely and are willing to stand behind it if it doesn't. I've had some get thrashed badly and sustain damage, including a Sony GDM-FW900 that was actually packed by the carrier to make sure they were 100% on the line for delivering it safely (received the monitor functional but with some damage and later got a full reimbursement of value on that one... after many calls and at least one appeal), and later a Sony CPD-1302 multiscan Trinitron EGA monitor. I've lamented that one several times here... in fact it is still in a cupboard in my garage with the shattered tube and broken plastic. So sad. Why would someone ship that in a bubble wrap bag inside an oversized carboard box?

Rather than outright scamming or malicious intent, I think a lack of an understanding of physics and\or a lack of respect for others is usually to blame in these cases. 🙁

Got these new NOS vintage socket A coolers, Alpha PAL6035MFC and Akasa Silver Mountain. These both are from the early half of the socket A era, 2000-2001 or so.

I am fond of the coolers of this era. It is like the thermal requirements went through the roof, but manufacturers hadn't yet figured out how to make good heatsinks, so often they sucked and had interesting or odd features. Cooling performance was more often than not achieved with fast and loud coolers, not through sophisticated fin structures or materials. These both are also 60mm coolers, which is often not optimal. It took couple of years for manufacturer to realize that they can actually make larger heatsinks than the socket is by making sides at an angle and then being able to fit a 80mm fan. The good thing with these 60mm heatsinks is that they will fit 100% with every motherboard.

Both of these are high quality. Alpha PAL construction is exactly like PAL coolers are, a copper core and octagonal fins. Alpha coolers were top performers back in the day and expensive. Silver Mountain was perhaps Akasa's first cooler. It was also a good performer and had terrific bang for buck. It is a full copper cooler with silver plating. It weights quite a lot for it size, but Alpha isn't exactly light weight either.

Another 1990 Novell/Anthem NE2000 so the 8bit drivers might be fixed in 286/386/486 machines some day.

Havent got anything for a while , but recently found this . It arrived today and i was very pleased.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-11-30, 07:42:

Interesting. I've never had to deal with any of that personally, I've just heard horror stories and did a bit of research after […]
Show full quote

unluckybob wrote on 2025-11-30, 06:40:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-11-30, 00:37:

That's a crappy situation to be in.

What selling platform did you buy it from? I can't think of any that will be too happy about you doing a credit charge back. For example, ebay will ban your SSN for life, so I have heard, and the money owed to them (as the payment processor) will go to collections and will follow you until you pay it off. Paypal is basically the same way. You will have a negative balance until you send them funds somehow, and if you don't it will eventually go to collections and you will be banned.

Also, chargebacks usually take months... seems odd that it was completed so quickly for you.

eBay does not block ssn or even ask for them in the first place... eBay reps will even tell customs to file a charge back if you lose a case, its the sellers that get dinged not the buyers. No clue about paypal as I do not use them. You can't send (at least in the USA) a charged back transaction to collectors, charge backs are a consumer right protected under law and backed up by both card holder policies by visa, master card, discover and amex (both credit and debit cards have the same charge back rights even if your banks website/app dose not give the option to file one online) and the merchant services used my retailers to accept cards, if eBay tried to send a charged off transaction to collections you can sure as heck bet they will be in a world of trouble. Now the law will not stop anyone from trying to send something to collections but that would not be hard to get rid of as its not a legal debt, a debt validation letter will clear that up fast.

Not all banks are equal in how fast they handle charge backs, my brokerage firm gives the merchant a week to respond and me up to 90 days, the last bank I was with gave 3 business days for both me and the merchant to reply. Others give the seller upto 90 days, looking at you huntington. 😒 I buy everything with a debit card tied to my brokerage firms CMA and when it comes to online market places like ebay or newegg and so on they just close the case in my favor right away. Given the amount I have with them I don't see them wanting to lose me as a customer 🤣 over a silly charge back.

Interesting. I've never had to deal with any of that personally, I've just heard horror stories and did a bit of research after reading about your chargeback. Apparently the ebay SSN banning thing I read was mainly related to sellers getting chargebacks. Sellers are required to have an SSN submitted to ebay now for tax purposes, so it is possible to basically follow them to their grave with any ebay related grievances 😅. Still, ebay has processes for getting refunds and has buyer protection. If the buyer requests a refund for an item not as described, the seller denies it (or doesn't respond), the buyer asks ebay to step in and then EBAY denies the return... I can't imagine that the buyer's ebay account gets away unscathed after filing a charge back and forcing ebay to return the money anyway. I think you can actually lose certain buyer protection features and have other nasty side effects, including possible account bans if they decide to go that route.

I think things can escalate to collections if a buyer were to, for example, request a charge back, win, get the money back temporarily, close the credit\bank account and then the seller actually has the chargeback reversed on appeal. The money is then not available to go back to the payment processor (ebay) since the account is closed, so it could go to collections. In the case of sellers it could happen if they sell an item, receive payment, remove access to the account that received the payment and then lose a chargeback later on.

Sellers are also within their rights to involve lawyers over whatever they want if ebay and banks are seemingly in the wrong when siding against them... that is always, of course, a matter of effort\money vs reward, which is rarely worth it.

Anyway, I'm glad you got your money back at least, though it is sad about the monitor getting trashed. I will say, I don't know how they could have possibly sent it to the wrong address since ebay provides the label and it fills the address for you. Ebay actually warns sellers that they could lose seller protection (meaning, buyer gets a refund in nearly any situation) if they change the address from what is provided. I don't think there would be anything to gain from deliberately sending it to the wrong address, since that could destroy any chance they have of using ebay's protections to scam you. More likely they were just inept and did something stupid that caused it to be sent to the wrong place. They actually had and shipped the monitor, which is far more effort than most scammers are willing to go through.

Sadly, shipping CRTs is just not worth it unless you're dealing with a company\individual who has a track record of doing so safely and are willing to stand behind it if it doesn't. I've had some get thrashed badly and sustain damage, including a Sony GDM-FW900 that was actually packed by the carrier to make sure they were 100% on the line for delivering it safely (received the monitor functional but with some damage and later got a full reimbursement of value on that one... after many calls and at least one appeal), and later a Sony CPD-1302 multiscan Trinitron EGA monitor. I've lamented that one several times here... in fact it is still in a cupboard in my garage with the shattered tube and broken plastic. So sad. Why would someone ship that in a bubble wrap bag inside an oversized carboard box?

Rather than outright scamming or malicious intent, I think a lack of an understanding of physics and\or a lack of respect for others is usually to blame in these cases. 🙁

ebay buyers protections is a hot load of garbage, any good scammer knows how to weasel around it. I dealt with scammers knowing how to work around it dozens of times as eBay is chocked full of scammers selling junk vintage computer parts anymore. same goes for the feedback system, it's very simple to remove negative feedback anymore.

I have always went right to filing a charge back when dealing with ebay scammers and scammers in general. but the crt wasn't bought on eBay, IDK why you're so keep bringing that up like I bought it there.

as for getting lawyers involved 🤣 good luck with that, like I said charge backs are a consumer right protected under law and back up by card holder policies and merchant services policies. Most lawyers are not going to take such a case and most judges would toss the case out once finding out the details. If fraud isn't involved it's very much a go pound sand thing. and even then the retailer risks everything if they try to take legal action or bill them for a charge back. If the customer reports the case to their merchant services provider or to visa, master card or amex they'll going to be in a mess of trouble. Amex in particular is extremely protective of it's card holders and will black list entire companies for going after card holders for filling charge backs.

ciornyi wrote on 2025-11-30, 15:45:

Havent got anything for a while , but recently found this . It arrived today and i was very pleased.

nice clean system!

Baleog wrote on 2024-04-02, 16:16:

Picked this up today. Goldstar Midi Art GS1000R. It's not a motorcycle despite its name. Sold as defective but since I saw that is has reverse polarity just like Roland I took a chance. And it's working fine!
The jury is still out about the samples thou... Since there are so few videos of this one on youtube I will try to record some of the usual tunes this weekend.
Other Vogon-users are discussing the model in this thread: Midi Art GS1000R Synthesizer?

Just purchased a boxed unit of it including its manuals and the PROCYON Pro 2.07 software + serial MIDI driver disk, that arrived quick!
The manual has now been scanned!
PROCYON Pro 2.07 (+ Serial MIDI Driver for Windows 3.1/95) will be preserved and available to Internet Archive (at some time).
Hooked it up to my laptop to record the audio goodness of it.

Got a budget gaming PC from 1998: Intel 440ZX MB, Celeron 300A CPU, Riva TNT video, CT1740 audio and working HDD.

Where do you guys find your goldmines?

MattRocks wrote on 2025-12-01, 11:07:

Where do you guys find your goldmines?

Heavily depends on the area. For some, it's flea markets, for others, it's junkyards, classifieds, random street finds etc. Facebook marketplace also has some good stuff too once in a while.

Iomega Jaz 2GB (internal SCSI)

sunkindly wrote on 2025-11-26, 18:50:

I finally got a chance to open it up: […]
Show full quote

I finally got a chance to open it up:

The attachment IMG_8120.jpg is no longer available

The attachment IMG_8123.JPG is no longer available

The attachment IMG_8124.JPG is no longer available

The attachment IMG_8128.JPG is no longer available

In my ignorance I don't see anything obviously wrong. The exposed wire ends don't seem ideal though?

Sorry it took me a while to get back to you and thanks for posting the pictures.

I'm actually pleased to say this PSU looks pretty well-built. If anything, it appears to be a true AT PSU from back in the days and not a cheapo ATX gutless unit that has just been converted to AT by not using the 5VSB.

But here is where it gets a little strange: I see a brown United Chemicon KY series capacitor on the output side. I suppose if this AT unit was built really late in the 90's (like in '99 or perhaps in 2000), then I can *somewhat* see such a cap used in the PSU (Chemicon KY was available by then)... though certainly not widely used in PSUs. Most PSUs of that era did not use such low(er) ESR caps. UCC LXY, Nichicon PL, Rubycon YXA, and Panasonic HFQ were more the norm if a manufacturer went with Japanese capacitors. The reason I mention this is because the UCC KY cap really sticks as out-of-place for an AT PSU. Moreover, I can't seem to recognize the brands of any of the small caps. That along with the black anodized heatsinks (which wasn't common in PC PSUs either) and one of the ICs with sanded off markings makes me suspect this could be an old AT PSU that was reworked/e-waste upcycled by some cheap Chinese no-name factory... and if really so, then no telling what else they might have modified / goofed up. It's not something to run into commonly, but I have seen it with laptop AC adapters a few times. Usually the cheapo factory will replace the electrolytic caps, just in case there was anything wrong with the old ones... but they usually end up putting either whatever they find (sometimes used caps too) or much cheaper (but new) and crappier caps. On your particular AT PSU, though, only the UCC KY cap appears to be out-of-place. Otherwise, the rest of the big output caps appear to be original - at least judging by the hot glue between them (again, something that was commonly done on old PSUs that is now usually done with silicon glue.) So I have a slight (but not big... like maybe 10-15%) suspicion you might have an e-waste upcycled PSU here. Can you by any chance see/show what the rest of the output electrolytic caps look like? (Try bending the output wires away from them.) I see "CEHTR" written on two of the caps, but can't quite make out what brand that is. And perhaps a picture of the PSU's label too? Sometimes, the design of the label can hint at who made it.

Of course, it could also be just a less-than-common build too... hence the above irregularities with the caps and heatsinks.

In any case, though, the PSU looks well-made. The fuse in the fuse holder, along with the AC connector on the PCB are tell-tale of something that was done on really old PSUs (AT and early ATX era) only from the better manufacturers. The twisted AC wires (to reduce common mode noise and EMI/RFI) is another sign that whoever (originally) built this knew what they were doing and put good design effort into the PSU. And moreover, both the driving transistors and the output rectifiers appear to be quite beefy (the 5V rectifier appears to be TO-3-cased, so the 5V rail is very likely good for more than 20 Amps... which should be plenty for any AT PSU.)

As far as the "exposed" wires you mentioned - this is pretty common in PSUs. If anything, the manufacturer actually did a pretty good job to cover them as best as possible with heatshrink tubing. On cheap PSUs, this is almost never the case. So this is definitely not a cheapo PSU. Speaking of wires, I see the wires all have proper names and labels on them, and appear to be of proper size (thickness)... so again, this is likely not a cheapo PSU.

With that said, I don't really see anything wrong with this PSU. In regards to the issues you are describing (with the monitor "flashing" and CMOS resetting), are you sure that's not caused by something else? I've repaired a lot of PSU over the years - both cheapo units and well-made PSUs, and I have never seen a PSU send a "power surge" through components and not cause them to die. If/when a PSU causes something in the PC to "bug out", it's always due to poor output filtering (be it due to bad capacitors or just not adequate filtering from undersized output capacitors).
The LEDs on the HDDs flashing during power up could be due to the PG rail taking a bit longer to signal that the PSU voltages are ready (or alternatively, on shut down, signaling to the PC that AC power is lost and thus telling PC components to shut down properly ahead of time before the PSU looses power.)
And lastly, regarding the monitor "flashing"... do you by any chance have the monitor's power cable plugged into the outlet of the PSU? (Like was done back in the day.) It appears that on this PSU, the power switch on the PC cuts out power not only to the PSU itself, but also to the monitor power plug on the PSU... so that could be why you see the monitor flash. But not 100% what you mean by "flash" with your description.

All in all, this PSU is based on a pretty standard, tried and true, half-bridge design. So if its output voltages are in spec, and since it does appear to have a good amount of output capacitors on the output, I don't see how it can be causing all of those other issues you mentioned. Not saying you're making stuff up, but rather just trying to see if you can confirm / repeat the results you saw from using this PSU.

Anyways, that's all from me on this one. Hope someone finds this info useful.

momaka wrote on 2025-12-01, 20:44:

Sorry it took me a while to get back to you and thanks for posting the pictures. […]
Show full quote

sunkindly wrote on 2025-11-26, 18:50:

I finally got a chance to open it up: […]
Show full quote

I finally got a chance to open it up:

The attachment IMG_8120.jpg is no longer available

The attachment IMG_8123.JPG is no longer available

The attachment IMG_8124.JPG is no longer available

The attachment IMG_8128.JPG is no longer available

In my ignorance I don't see anything obviously wrong. The exposed wire ends don't seem ideal though?

Sorry it took me a while to get back to you and thanks for posting the pictures.

I'm actually pleased to say this PSU looks pretty well-built. If anything, it appears to be a true AT PSU from back in the days and not a cheapo ATX gutless unit that has just been converted to AT by not using the 5VSB.

But here is where it gets a little strange: I see a brown United Chemicon KY series capacitor on the output side. I suppose if this AT unit was built really late in the 90's (like in '99 or perhaps in 2000), then I can *somewhat* see such a cap used in the PSU (Chemicon KY was available by then)... though certainly not widely used in PSUs. Most PSUs of that era did not use such low(er) ESR caps. UCC LXY, Nichicon PL, Rubycon YXA, and Panasonic HFQ were more the norm if a manufacturer went with Japanese capacitors. The reason I mention this is because the UCC KY cap really sticks as out-of-place for an AT PSU. Moreover, I can't seem to recognize the brands of any of the small caps. That along with the black anodized heatsinks (which wasn't common in PC PSUs either) and one of the ICs with sanded off markings makes me suspect this could be an old AT PSU that was reworked/e-waste upcycled by some cheap Chinese no-name factory... and if really so, then no telling what else they might have modified / goofed up. It's not something to run into commonly, but I have seen it with laptop AC adapters a few times. Usually the cheapo factory will replace the electrolytic caps, just in case there was anything wrong with the old ones... but they usually end up putting either whatever they find (sometimes used caps too) or much cheaper (but new) and crappier caps. On your particular AT PSU, though, only the UCC KY cap appears to be out-of-place. Otherwise, the rest of the big output caps appear to be original - at least judging by the hot glue between them (again, something that was commonly done on old PSUs that is now usually done with silicon glue.) So I have a slight (but not big... like maybe 10-15%) suspicion you might have an e-waste upcycled PSU here. Can you by any chance see/show what the rest of the output electrolytic caps look like? (Try bending the output wires away from them.) I see "CEHTR" written on two of the caps, but can't quite make out what brand that is. And perhaps a picture of the PSU's label too? Sometimes, the design of the label can hint at who made it.

Of course, it could also be just a less-than-common build too... hence the above irregularities with the caps and heatsinks.

In any case, though, the PSU looks well-made. The fuse in the fuse holder, along with the AC connector on the PCB are tell-tale of something that was done on really old PSUs (AT and early ATX era) only from the better manufacturers. The twisted AC wires (to reduce common mode noise and EMI/RFI) is another sign that whoever (originally) built this knew what they were doing and put good design effort into the PSU. And moreover, both the driving transistors and the output rectifiers appear to be quite beefy (the 5V rectifier appears to be TO-3-cased, so the 5V rail is very likely good for more than 20 Amps... which should be plenty for any AT PSU.)

As far as the "exposed" wires you mentioned - this is pretty common in PSUs. If anything, the manufacturer actually did a pretty good job to cover them as best as possible with heatshrink tubing. On cheap PSUs, this is almost never the case. So this is definitely not a cheapo PSU. Speaking of wires, I see the wires all have proper names and labels on them, and appear to be of proper size (thickness)... so again, this is likely not a cheapo PSU.

With that said, I don't really see anything wrong with this PSU. In regards to the issues you are describing (with the monitor "flashing" and CMOS resetting), are you sure that's not caused by something else? I've repaired a lot of PSU over the years - both cheapo units and well-made PSUs, and I have never seen a PSU send a "power surge" through components and not cause them to die. If/when a PSU causes something in the PC to "bug out", it's always due to poor output filtering (be it due to bad capacitors or just not adequate filtering from undersized output capacitors).
The LEDs on the HDDs flashing during power up could be due to the PG rail taking a bit longer to signal that the PSU voltages are ready (or alternatively, on shut down, signaling to the PC that AC power is lost and thus telling PC components to shut down properly ahead of time before the PSU looses power.)
And lastly, regarding the monitor "flashing"... do you by any chance have the monitor's power cable plugged into the outlet of the PSU? (Like was done back in the day.) It appears that on this PSU, the power switch on the PC cuts out power not only to the PSU itself, but also to the monitor power plug on the PSU... so that could be why you see the monitor flash. But not 100% what you mean by "flash" with your description.

All in all, this PSU is based on a pretty standard, tried and true, half-bridge design. So if its output voltages are in spec, and since it does appear to have a good amount of output capacitors on the output, I don't see how it can be causing all of those other issues you mentioned. Not saying you're making stuff up, but rather just trying to see if you can confirm / repeat the results you saw from using this PSU.

Anyways, that's all from me on this one. Hope someone finds this info useful.

Thanks so much for the thorough write up and all of that information! It's greatly appreciated.

The monitor's power cable wasn't plugged into the PSU, it's plugged into a wall outlet. It's hard to describe the flash other than it being like those stereotypical depictions of a CRT (usually a TV) being powered off. There's a garbled white flash before the screen turns to off / blank. This doesn't happen with any other machine connected to the same monitor. With the others it just goes off immediately, no flash. With two AT systems as well, so not ATX. Same for any drives with the other machines, they just turn off immediately instead of their LEDs lighting up beforehand.

I wouldn't suspect the PSU if all these things including the CMOS resets go away with another PSU...but I still have it so if the quality and construction is good I'll have to do some more testing.

Oh, here's the label:

I'll post some more photos of the caps and such when I get a chance. It was sold as a "new" AT PSU so it could very well be upcycled.

TechieDude wrote on 2025-12-01, 14:04:

MattRocks wrote on 2025-12-01, 11:07:

Where do you guys find your goldmines?

Heavily depends on the area. For some, it's flea markets, for others, it's junkyards, classifieds, random street finds etc. Facebook marketplace also has some good stuff too once in a while.

It's been feeling like exponential decay with a half life of 2 years to me... (availability halving every 2 years) ... very little turning up in thrifts, yard sales, fleamarkets etc of late.

sunkindly wrote on 2025-12-01, 21:45:

The monitor's power cable wasn't plugged into the PSU, it's plugged into a wall outlet. It's hard to describe the flash other than it being like those stereotypical depictions of a CRT (usually a TV) being powered off. There's a garbled white flash before the screen turns to off / blank. This doesn't happen with any other machine connected to the same monitor. With the others it just goes off immediately, no flash. With two AT systems as well, so not ATX. Same for any drives with the other machines, they just turn off immediately instead of their LEDs lighting up beforehand.

Ah, OK, got it.
I do recall now a few similar scenarios. Was on some older PCs (IIRC) from the Windows 98/ME era... and more or less just between certain PSU + mobo combinations.
I never looked too deeply into it, as it never caused any issues, aside from the visual anomalies. But thinking about why this happened, I suspect it's probably due to the PSU pulling down the PG signal well ahead of time before its output rails run out of "juice". So in essence, the PSU is telling the mobo (via PG signal) that the power is no longer good and that it should halt / shut off... but because there is still some power remaining on its output rails before running out, this is essentially giving the system more time to show any turn-off "glitches" that you just may not see otherwise with a PSU that has a much shorter interval between the PG signal going low and the actual power rails going down.
So I highly suspect this is causing more of a visual "glitch" than anything.
And it's the same with the HDDs - they are being "told" by the motherboard that the power is no longer "good" (after PG goes low from the PSU), so they go off in their "ready to shut down at any moment" state. But because the power on the output rails from the PSU runs a few moments past that, you're able to see the HDD stay in this "ready to shut down" state.
In other words, think of it like this: have you ever seen an old Windows 98/ME PC with ACPI enabled sometimes very briefly display "It is now safe to shut down your computer" text before going off? Normally, you're not supposed to see that with ACPI enabled. But yet sometimes it is possible. It doesn't cause any damage or harm to the OS, but is more of a visual "glitch"... and I suspect what you see on your hardware is very much like that too.

Now, if the CMOS really is glitching and only with this PSU for sure, then perhaps the motherboard just isn't handling properly the longer period between PG going down and actual power going down... in which case, it may be possible that this PSU and mobo are not a good combo.

sunkindly wrote on 2025-12-01, 21:45:

Oh, here's the label:

The attachment IMG_8139.jpg is no longer available

Interesting.
Looking up the UL number (E129733), it appears that Sunpower *is* the actual maker of this PSU... which actually inspires some confidence. And moreover, it seems UL did test and passed this unit. This means that the PSU at least passed a good number of safety-related and EMI/RFI tests. And from two google images, I see Enhance, a PSU brand that was relatively well-known in the past, used this same exact model (SPQ-4250) for a PSU they sold under their name.
So this looks less and less like an upcycled unit, and more and more truly like a NOS unit.
Also, I just noticed that the PSU's case is made of thicker steel and has metal standoffs for the screw posts for the PCB - again, something that only the better manufacturers bothered with.

Finally found a Libretto 100CT in excellent condition on a Swedish auction site.
It came with the big docking station that has a usb port, whoopie!
It is also maxed out at 64 MB Ram.
Used booth the 70CT and 100CT in the late 90's, while working overseas, so it nice to finally have one of these gems.

steberg wrote on Yesterday, 18:56:

Finally found a Libretto 100CT in excellent condition on a Swedish auction site. It came with the big docking station that has a […]
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Finally found a Libretto 100CT in excellent condition on a Swedish auction site.
It came with the big docking station that has a usb port, whoopie!
It is also maxed out at 64 MB Ram.
Used booth the 70CT and 100CT in the late 90's, while working overseas, so it nice to finally have one of these gems.

Nice! I'm on the lookout for a nice early Win/late DOS era Toshiba!