Today was quite the day at the flea market. Made a lot more (and bigger) acquisitions than I normally would. But seeing where the prices of retro PC hardware is going and knowing that all of the stuff I got was headed to the scrappers, I did what I could to save a few pieces. Here they are:
- Acorp 6A815E socket 370 motherboard. No CPU and the NB heatsink was popped off already by the scrapper guy... but luckily I caught it in time before he did more damage to it. I really hate dealing with this guy, because he scraps a lot of good retro hardware and some even new-ish hardware, all for pennies. Yet, any time I look at any of the already scrapped stuff and ask for a little part or something already very damaged, he tried to tell me how valuable this stuff is at the metal recycling places and how much he makes. It's all BS, of course, and I know based on the prices the other "sellers" (poor gypsies) at the flea market give me (as most of them also usually send whatever is not sold that day to the metal scrap yards, so they'll take anything that's more than the metal places give them... which isn't a lot.) Anyways, I felt I should save this socket 370 motherboard, so I did. It was my most expensive purchase of the day - a whooping $8. Yes, I know that's a laughable sum compared to the prices on ebay, but it's a lot compared to what else I can buy in that flea market (and more on that in a bit below.) Usually I can get whole desktop PCs for $6-8 with all of the hardware inside (often HDDs too.) So buying standalone motherboards is almost not worth it. But again, it looked like a good P3 / s370 mobo, so I put my foot down this time. The guy also had a K7S5A, K7SOM, a ceramic Athlon 1200, and another s462 board I forgot already. I was eager to ask about the Athlon 1200 too, but I didn't because I knew he'd give me some astronomical price that would be more than the cash I carried with me... so I didn't even bother. This guy is ruthless - will never give you a good deal on anything, even if he sees that you have the potential to become a regular customer. I guess he just doesn't understand the concept of repeat customers. Ah well. Hope I got a working board. Will test it probably next week or whenever I managed to get it washed and dried first. It has a ton of dust on it. No chipped SMD's or damaged traces, as far as I can see.
- next up, a Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L socket 775 mobo with E5200 CPU. Nothing super retro or super special, but a nice late Core 2 mobo all around. Not bent pins in the CPU socket so I felt worth the gamble. Got it from a scrapper lady for $3 with the CPU. Don't know if I'll build something with it or not... but again, worth it just to save from scrapping. And even if it doesn't work, all of the poly caps on it are worth at least that much.
- ASUS M2N-E SLI socket AM2 motherboard with Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor. This was another no-as-cheap (relatively speaking) purchase at around $5. But I figured at least the CPU is probably working and worth that price, being a top-end AM2 CPU. As for the motherboard itself... it's not in great shape, but nothing terribly damaged either. Normally I skip MBs with nVidia chipsets, because reliability-wise, they are shit (at least anything past nForce 3.) But this board is full of blown TK and United Chemicon KZG caps. So there's a good chance it was discarded because the caps made it unstable rather than because of a chipset failure. As such, I do have some hopes that it will work after a recap. Not sure what I would do with it if it works or after I fix it. It's a full ATX board, and I already have many more boards than I do cases. Not to mention how many complete systems I have already. So maybe I'll try to sell it? It's a SLI board and relatively high-end... so maybe it will find a buyer easier? Then again, it not that retro, so maybe not.
- last but not least, a beige Delux (Deer?) ATX case. Now this one purchase really makes me regret how I went about it. Not because the case is not nice (well, it isn't in great shape, but it's not terrible either... but that's not the reason for it.) Rather, the reason I have regrets is because this was a complete system with motherboard, CPU, RAM, GPU, HDD, optical drive, and PSU... and rather retro components inside. Lady wanted $3 for it, but I only had $2.50 left after all of the above purchases (plus a few more cheap non-PC items). She said she's OK with selling it for that too. Of course me trying to be the nice guy, I said, no, I'll give you $3, just give me a few minutes. I was going to borrow $0.50 from one of the regular sellers that knows me as a regular too (and she would have been fine with that, since I helped her load up her mech to protect it from the rain last week when it started raining unexpectedly.) So I did that and came back, only to see one of the regular electronic scrapper buyers in this place just buy the PC from the lady. When I asked him if I can re-buy it, he said, sure, but the price is going to be different now. Then he went on bragging to me (again.. I know this guy too) how much he makes by just scrapping the old wire-bond chips off of these old mobos and smelting for gold. He claims he's making _at least_ $5 per chip... which I KNOW is complete BS. He said it would only be worth it to him if he sold me the mobo now for at least $10 (of course you would, you slime bastard!)... and honestly, I still would have, just to stick it to his face and save that system from getting scrapped. But I was out of $, as noted earlier. So I asked him about the case only. Well, that at least he didn't care much about and said I can have it for (the equivalent) of $1.50. Only caveat was that he didn't want to pull it apart at that moment. Luckily (or thoughtfully) I always carry screwdrivers with me. I offered to do it for him, so he agreed. And so this is the hardware came out of the computer: a late socket 462 mobo Gigabyte with a 4-pin CPU connector (so not a 5V-heavy system), a BFG GeForce FX5200 128 MB 64-bit AGP (meh, not a big loss I suppose), a cheapo Delux PSU (couldn't care less for this heap of junk), a 120 GB Western Digital IDE HDD, and a beige CD-RW/DVD-ROM. Well, RIP... or should I say rest in pieces (to this hardware.) Right as I gave him the video card, he got out his pocket knife, popped off the cooler, and then popped off the GPU chip from the card and bragged again: see, another $5 from this chip. Annoyed, I asked him about the HDD and if he needs that too or what he intends to do with it. Surprisingly, he didn't care that much about it either. Said I can have it for $2... which is more or less what I get them at from the other seller. Of course, not having any money left, I said I couldn't. But he knows I'm a regular too, so just to pay him another weekend when I'm there. So I guess I managed to also save the HDD from that system too. Still, I'm pissed that I just didn't buy the PC for $2.50 when the lady said she was OK with that. So now it's another cool retro board going to the scrap heaven... and meanwhile I'm paying more for getting less. What bothers me the most is that it wasn't just a late socket 462 motherboard - it was a board with an nForce 2 Ultra, as it had FOUR DDR slots. Ah well, I guess can't save it all. On the plus side, it was less weight to carry as I walk to the place, and it's a 35 minute walk - not exactly pleasant with a heavy PC case.
I also found a bunch of CDs and DVDs, as usual. The creme of the crop from these was a 10-pack cake box with TDK DVD+R, all complete. There also 3 other 25 and 50-pack cake boxes, fetched out of the dumpster. One had roughly 20 blank DVD-R's and 30-40 CD-Rs. I gave half of these away to a random scavenger who was looking at the abandoned piles of stuff (at leftover discs) at the end of the sale, saying he's usually looking for blank CDs and DVDs. While at it, I saw a bunch of old drivers CDs that no one seemed to care about. So I picked those up. And in between those, guess what showed up? - A genuine retail Windows 98 install disc and also a genuine Microsoft Office 2000 Small Business disc - F*** yea! Funny how no one cared at all to take these two either. I suppose the whole retro PC hobby thing is not quite here yet (and maybe won't be, ever?)
BitWrangler wrote on 2024-10-11, 10:41:
I have been trying to think of a protocol to deal with that possibility. A relative is having a tough time with them, thinking they came in with a yard sale appliance, and there might be an epidemic of them in this area, because they can't find roach control products, they are sold out everywhere local
Thoughts are going to something like a large bag around the thing, where you can flood it with CO2 or nitrogen and leave it for a bit, they can't go without oxygen for shorter time than water or food.
CO2 and Nitrogen flooding can get tricky, as it would take a lot of trial and error to figure out how much you need to put in whatever bag / container you intend to use... and even then how would you know all of the oxygen got displaced already and there aren't any 02 bubbles left somewhere. Furthermore, roach eggs take around a month or so to hatch. So the CO2 or Nitrogen treatment won't do anything for them. This is also why most poison control methods aren't actually very effective with treating against roaches, unless you do it at least several times in the course of a year.
Temperature treatment is the most reliable method, and here you have two options: deep freeze or heat-treat.
Heat-treating is what some exterminator companies actually use to treat houses. Usually the way it works is that they pile up all of your (non-heat-sensitive) furniture in the middle of each room, place thermometers in various parts of the home, and then finally bridge the thermostat to heat the home until the temperatures everywhere inside reach at least 50C (which is a temperature roaches cannot withstand and die within minutes.) This temperature is then maintained for at least 24 hours to make sure everything has a chance to soak up the heat. This not only kills the roaches, but also their eggs. Obviously when they do that, they tell you to go and stay somewhere else for a few days, because such temperatures can also be lethal to humans. This method is also used for treating against bed bug infestations too, as those suckers are even more resilient to pesticides and poisons.
As for deep-freezing / cold temperature treating... that isn't too practical to do for entire homes. However, for smaller items, it's an alternative. Roaches can actually survive cold temperatures even to some extent below freezing. However, they can only do that if they slowly acclimatize themselves to it. So again, for smaller items, you can put them in a (well) sealed bag and put them in your freezer. Several hours should do the trick... but leaving it there for a day or two would be even safer. Of course, putting suspicious stuff with roaches in your freezer is kinda gross (not to mention a bit scary if you find out you didn't seal whatever bag or container you put in there.) Perhaps if you have a 2nd/stand-alone "backup" freezer that's not something you care too much for (or the contents inside), then that might be the better.
I see you list your location as Ontario... so I suppose at least your winters are (usually) relatively cold. In that case, and if you have a home with a backyard, you can just place suspicious stuff outside for several days when the temperatures start dropping below freezing not only overnight, but also stay so throughout the day. Just place the items at least a few inches off the ground so that the warmer ground (overnight) won't conduct heat to the item. This will ensure that the item you're treating will get at least as cold as the outside air temperature. Leave for at least a few days to a week to allow any unhatched roach eggs to also possibly hatch and for the small roach larva to die.
Alternatively, if you want to make a device to treat items throughout the year without having to depend on cold temperatures, then build a "hot box" out of plywood with a baseboard heater (or two) inside. Make sure it's well-sealed and kept at least a few inches off the ground. Add some insulation on the outside so that you use less energy to heat it up. Also, make sure to make the box large enough to fit the biggest item you ever intend to get (I'd say tall and wide enough at least to fit 55-60" TVs and deep enough for at least a microwave or several desktop PCs at once + space for the heater inside. Then do the same as what the roach exterminators do: turn on the heater(s) and allow the box to reach 50C-55C and stay that way for at least a day or two. But just a caution with that - make sure to remove any materials or whatever stuff your items have that can get damaged from this heat... i.e. batteries, pressurized cylinders and cartridges, and similar.)
As for attempting to treat an entire house, like with your relative's case, using the DIY cold/heat methods mentioned above... that can get a little more tricky. In that case, it might be smarter/easier to get some Diatomaceous earth first and put it an as many places inside the house as possible. This should kill a good amount of the roaches.
