Here's my scores from the car boot / weekend flea market today:
- Delta DPS-400MB 1A 400 Watt ATX power supply for ~$3
- 19" LG Flatron 5:4 LCD ~$1
- 32 MB PC100 SDRAM ~$1
- laptop DVD-RW drive by Pioneer, IDE type ~ $0.25
- a bunch of old 12" vinyl records for $0.30 total
- 80's standard Bulgarian rotary dial phone in bright red - FREE (abandoned)
- the usual assortment of old (70's and 80's) resistors, capacitors, and other random crap leftover on the ground at the lot after certain "sellers" (scrappers) leave the boot sale... so yes, these are FREE too
- Logitech wireless mouse that surprisingly still has its transmitter inside (though I haven't checked if it's the right one yet) - free (abandoned)
- black Microsoft PS/2 keyboard of some sort - free (abandoned)
- blue Gigabyte IDE cable - free
- a few free / abandoned tapes and CDs that ended up being a disappointment (nothing interesting that I'd care to listen to again... ever.) But no problem - the CDs all had cases, so they are useful at least for that.
And that sums it up, more or less... at least for the retro computer and electronics items. I was loaded up like a mule. Need to make me one of those "gypsy carts" so I can haul more stuff. Last time I was at the boot sale, I missed a really cool early 2000's PC - one of those cases with a handle at the top (I always wanted one.) Guy was ready to give it to me for $5. It was complete inside with a late Gigabyte s462 mobo and a Gigabyte Radeon 9550 128bit, 2 HDDs, ODDs, and ect. I just couldn't carry it all. Already ended up picking 2x Fujitsu LGA1155 motherboards with i5-2500 each for $7.50, among other stuff.
Anyways, back to the discussion of today's haul...
Nothing's been tested so far.
The DPS-400MB PSU is faulty for sure. I knew that before getting it, though. Its case shell was open and put on backwards. Someone had removed the fan too. Looking inside, I saw several places where the primary side had arced to the case. I also saw what was poop spots from some sort of arachnid (probably spider) that I'm guessing must have started the arc, which then vaporized a trace. Other than that, the fuse is not blown and all of the primary-side silicon appears to be OK. So there's some hope for now that I'll be able to revive it.
As for the 19" LCD... haven't looked at it closer yet. The screen didn't look obviously cracked and it isn't according to the guy who sold it to me. But that means absolutely nothing, as most of the "sellers" at this weekend flea market are usually garbage pickers and/or re-sellers of garbage pickers' stuff... thus, very few test anything or know anything about the condition of the item they are selling. But for $1, it's not a big loss. The seller wanted $3 at first. But seeing I was gonna walk away and that everyone was already closed up and packed away, he was ready to give it to me at any price just so that he wouldn't have to deal with it anymore.
The 32 MB SDRAM... yeah, I know, why even bother with such low amount of RAM. 🤣 Reason I did, though, is I have a Compaq socket 7 mobo that IIRC only accepts up to 32 MB sticks. It's one of those highly-integrated mobo's that already has everything onboard, including 32 MB of RAM. Figured if I can make that to 64 MB, that would be cooler. But that's a built for much further out in the future. Anyways, not sure if this RAM stick is working. Have to wash it first as it's very dirty. I think I saw one of the strap array-resistors near the slot cracked from improper handling. Shouldn't be too hard to change, though. The guy that sold it to me also had some other scrap PC mobos. The most interesting one was a socket 3, complete with CPU and RAM. On a 2nd thought, I don't know why I didn't buy it. I suspect he wouldn't have given it cheap to me. He didn't know what it was though, nor how much it was worth, since he asked me. I gave him a completely fair answer and said he could sell it for quite a lot more online. After all, socket 3 and 5 stuff is a bit too early for my PC knowledge/collections, so I'd rather it end up with someone else. Hopefully the guy will take my advice and sell it online (or give it to someone to sell it online for him, since he seemed like the typical uneducated scrapper that wouldn't know how or where to sell it online.)
Anyways, it was a decent haul of stuff today, but I'm completely exhausted. Standing in the sun for 5 hours and walking all of the stuff back home several Kilometers just did me in. Not even enough strength to take a shower before bed ATM, and I got quite dusty there.
PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-25, 19:20:
Thankfully I was smart enough to finally pick up some mechanical pencils. Made straightening much easier.
I do mine with an old credit card. The width of the CC fits perfectly between s478 and s754/939/AM2/AM3 CPU pins. The nice thing is, I can straighten a whole row of bent pins with a CC. Of course, any pins that are too bent need to be manually addressed first... and for those, indeed it's easier to do with either tweezers or a mechanical pencil.
