VOGONS


First post, by Skyscraper

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

There have been a few of these threads the last couple of years, I was thinking we could use a common thread to post our recent finds in.

I just found an Asus X38 system and a Dell Dimension 9100.

The previous owner to these two systems seems to really be in need of screws because every single screw in both boxes are missing. The sad thing is that all the parts of the X38 system were littered around in the dumpster and the X38 motherboard was resting against a wall with a 50+ KG TV on top of it 🙁. The X38 board is now a new and improved curved edition! I hope the copper heat pipes havent crused any of the VRMs. The CPU is a Q6700 so thats 30 Euro of easy money in any case. I have not checked the video card closer but I guess its a Geforce GTS 250 with a huge dent in a corner.

Some images.

The X38 system.
X38system.jpg

The somewhat warped Asus X38 board
NewandimprovedX38boa.jpg

The Dell Dimension 9100
DellDimension9100.jpg

Inside the Dell Dimension 9100
DellDimension9100ins.jpg

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 1 of 4742, by shock__

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Nice thread ... dumpsterdiving/free-boxing <3

Haven't found anything retro related recently anymore, since electro-junk usually gets found by recyclers first here. But recently got a GF210GT (Asus, passive cooled) for free - works perfectly.

Current Project: new GUS PnP compatible soundcard

[Z?]

Reply 3 of 4742, by ODwilly

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Very nice haul! Does that Dimension only have pci slots?

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 4 of 4742, by Skyscraper

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
ODwilly wrote:

Very nice haul! Does that Dimension only have pci slots?

No I think the video card sits in a PCI-E x16 slot, I have not checked what model the video card it is. The fastest CPU the motherboard supports is the Pentium D 960, so it wont exactly be a speed demon. The motherboard seem to have one cap in need of replacment, but I think the board will run just fine for the moment.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 5 of 4742, by ODwilly

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Very cool!

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 6 of 4742, by shamino

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Quite a transitional board there. I can't say I've ever seen a desktop board with PCI, PCI-X, Express, and dual Express16 slots before. Whoever bought that would have to be pretty indecisive about what cards they were going to have.

Reply 8 of 4742, by Skyscraper

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
smeezekitty wrote:

That bent board 😲

I am curious if it works though.

The board dosnt work at the moment.

I tried it both with and with out the heatpipe mounted and there is a short somewhere and I cant be bothered to investigate further right now as I have lower hanging fruit to pick 😀. I have not even tried to remount the CPU so the fix could be really easy, the board will go in the rainy day pile. I will however try out the Q6700 with the Asus P5E3 X38 DDR3 board I have bought.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 9 of 4742, by 133MHz

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Today a friend called me to inform me that the commune next to the one I live was having an "e-waste day" in case I was in the mood for some treasure hunting. I'm not exactly in full health at the moment so I just hopped on my bike for a very light ride, not really expecting to pick anything up, but I did end up bringing something home:
dscn2021.jpg?w=800

I believe it might be a 486 class machine, which aside from being dirty looks to be in fairly good condition. Haven't had a look inside yet because the warranty seal seems to be intact:
dscn2023.jpg?w=800
The hard drive might've been pulled out if it happened to be sitting in the open bay under the floppy drive.

I haven't seen the "Novell Netware Compatible" logo in ages!
dscn2024.jpg?w=400

EDIT: Used the good 'ol hair dryer trick to open the case without voiding the warranty 🤣
Turns out it's a 16MHz Intel 386SX with a C&T Super Math copro:
dscn2027.jpg?w=800

Two megabytes of onboard memory, and the hard drive was indeed pulled out:
dscn2031.jpg?w=800

Acumos AVGA1 onboard video with 256KB DRAM (and yes, it seems to be an Acer motherboard):
dscn2030.jpg?w=800

And these empty sockets labeled "DOS ROM" and "SHELL ROM" really caught my attention:
dscn2028.jpg?w=800

http://133FSB.wordpress.com

Reply 10 of 4742, by Skyscraper

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Nice!

Here is my latest find, not very exiting but its from the local electronic waste bin for my house so its a gift from a neighbour.

KYJbWT.jpg

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 12 of 4742, by Skyscraper

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Im glad I found it because I have an Abit nForce 4 board with dead PCI slots and its Audio Max card is missing, I had to use an USB soundcard.
I found that motherboard in the same bin like 5 years ago so perhaps they were once together 😁

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 13 of 4742, by Indrid Cold

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Found this next to the dumpster: IBM Thinkpad 1161, in really excellent condition and fully working (though dead battery and no original PSU) - this month has been a lucky one talking about my recently found/bought ThinkPads... this should be AGP based, with Celeron CPU, 32 MB RAM and chipset Intel 440 MX or something like that. Unfortunately I don't think it is compatible with my IBM Dock II 3546, that I'm currently using with ThinkPad 370C.

investigating the HD content, I've found this one was owned by people working in a bank - Here, at least up to a decade ago, some banks donated laptops to their employees to facilitate them in their work or something... I guess this TP was one of these examples - the little use justifies the excellent condition... and the people who work in banks are lazy, preferring to 'throw' things instead of bothering to sell them with a few announcements... good for me.

20151010_001.jpg 20151010_002.jpg 20151010_004.jpg

Reply 14 of 4742, by brassicGamer

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
133MHz wrote:

Turns out it's a 16MHz Intel 386SX with a C&T Super Math copro:

Acumos AVGA1 onboard video with 256KB DRAM (and yes, it seems to be an Acer motherboard):

And these empty sockets labeled "DOS ROM" and "SHELL ROM" really caught my attention:

This is great - I have the exact same system but in an Acer case and with a 20Mhz CPU but no co-pro. I also noticed the ROM sockets, which I think are for an embedded OS? I get the impression these systems were defined for Point Of Sale purposes as mine had an ancient NIC in it complete with AUI socket. The AcuMOS chipset was also interesting as I'd not come across them before (they were bought out by Cirrus Logic, I think). Good find!

Check out my blog and YouTube channel for thoughts, articles, system profiles, and tips.

Reply 15 of 4742, by Caluser2000

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
133MHz wrote:

Acumos AVGA1 onboard video with 256KB DRAM (and yes, it seems to be an Acer motherboard)

My first thought when I saw the case was it was rebranded or very ACER looking.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 16 of 4742, by Logistics

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
133MHz wrote:

I haven't seen the "Novell Netware Compatible" logo in ages!

Awesome find, friend. That Novell sticker made me tickle in places I don't think I should have.

Reply 19 of 4742, by xjas

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Heh, I thought I spotted this thread go by the other day. I have a huge thread on another VC forum where I've been detailing my finds. I won't repost absolutely everything here, but there's a lot... I work at a university so 'not-quite-current' stuff gets whipped out the door as fast as departing grad students or upgrading sysadmins can leave it behind.

Here's probably my best find ever. I'm using one of these right now in fact:
g5-1.jpg
Late-model PowerMac G5 towers. One dual-G5 2.0 tower and one dual-core 2.3. Probably the second- and third-best PowerPC machines ever made. These were high-end ~$4000 workstations when new in 2005, now apparently they're worthless trash.

As the crude marker scrawl indicates, the HDDs were removed but they worked 100% perfectly. I've upgraded the 2.0 to 4GB of RAM and the 2.3 to 7.5GB - one for my office, one for home.

I love working on these things, everything comes apart with simple, solid latches and access is incredibly well thought out. Nothing like the crap made-to-be-scrapped '90s/'00s jobber towers you usually see.
g5-2.jpg
g5-4.jpg
^^ I tried Debian 8 at first but the accellerated desktop was disagreeable with Linux's poor support for Radeon cards. So I got a NIB copy of OSX Leopard for $10 and threw that on both of them.

leopard1.jpg
leopard2.jpg
The monitors and Apple keyboard (got a stack of 5 of them) were also being thrown away elsewhere. Probably the mouse too.

leopard3.jpg
Can't use a Mac without a drop-down terminal, fortunately was able to track down an old version of Visor that still ran on PPC. A fork of Homebrew (Tigerbrew) is delivering ports to these machines.

The only problem was getting power to the later machine:
g5-3.jpg

But I had my usual type of solution:
seems_legit.jpg

twitch.tv/oldskooljay - playing the obscure, forgotten & weird - most Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 6:30 PM PDT. Bonus streams elsewhen!