I visited an mom & pop type computer shop that I've passed on the way too and from work about 400+ times but I'd never gone in before. Thought it'd be a new place to maybe find some new-old-stock old hardware for a Win98 build I'm plotting? Up on the shelf I spot an Asus P9X79 LE motherboard NIB, these go for about CAD$150-CAD$225 on eBay?

"Well, how much is that X79 board?"
"You have CPU?"
"I can get one off eBay."
"I do for you $30."
"I have cash."
"No tax if cash."

So yeah... He didn't know what he had on the shelf and it was there for who knows how many years? I tested it with a 4930K I had, wondering if it was dead and yup, it works!

I went back the next day cause I had also spotted a PCIE X800 XL NIB and he dig around. Got the X800 for CAD$10 and then he pulled a disassembled R9 280X out of a box and sold it to me for CAD$20. Pretty sure it works but I don't have any thermal pads for the RAM, so it crashes super fast, I'll test it again once I can re-assemble it properly.

Sadly the X800 seems dead. In a Haswell system I tested it on, I only got video out over VGA and it was half-corrupted. In an A8 3870K system it refuses to POST with it installed... Maybe it's a PCIE 2.0 issue? But it shouldn't be. I'd happily give it to someone who things they can salvage it for free plus the cost of shipping from Canada.

In one of my previous posts in this thread, I showed off a textbook I got for BlitzPlus/Blitz BASIC. But since my computer programming class has moved on to Java programming, I decided I could get my own Java textbook.
Here is this so called Java textbook I'm talking about,

It's the ninth edition of "Java Programming" written by Joyce Farrell.
This might not fully have to do with "hardware", but it does have to do with general tech, so I'd say it's moderately relevant 😀

Hmm, I wonder what this could be.

standard def speakers?

oeuvre wrote:

standard def speakers?

No, it’s not exactly a speaker, although it does have a built in 2.1 audio system. That black circle is the 8” standard def subwoofer driver.

close enough!

doesn't feel tall enough for an arcade cabinet?

After 25 years of making do with Epic Pinball, I'm finally moving on to the Real Thing.

The Standard Def Batcave is also getting a 4K projector! I unpacked this beaut today. This ain't no office Powerpoint beamer or some pixel-shifting hack job. No, this is an honest-to-goodness 4K machine, and it runs at the full DCI resolution (4096x2160) instead of the more common 3840x2160. Behold, the JVC DLA-NX7:

And she's yuge! The sheer size of this thing reminds me of the old Sony CRT projector that I used to beam crisp 480i LaserDisc imagery on to the wall, back in the day. Here's the JVC sitting next to the HTPC that'll be feeding it, and that's no SFF computer!

your nickname seems kind of inadequate now? 🤣

Bought a new fan by Noctua from Amazon. Took it out of the box. The fan is completely destroyed and its connector is snipped off. Great job, Amazon.

Poor packaging is my guess. When I bought a cheap Bluetooth scan tool for my cars, the package was open and nothing in there and this was 8 months ago. In current events, the other day, I bought a good, used Nexus 7 2013 32GB model on eBay that has a screen protector on there and a spare. The tablet will be modified with an AOSP 8.1 ROM (Wi-Fi or flo) and rooted with Magisk and apps for my job will be installed and configured.

bjwil1991 wrote:

Poor packaging is my guess. When I bought a cheap Bluetooth scan tool for my cars, the package was open and nothing in there and this was 8 months ago.

Nope, it was clearly somebody’s return, because the box with the fan itself was in perfect shape and the connector was snipped off with a sharp tool.

Reasons why not to trust Amazon. When an item is returned, it cannot be sold. Is it not that hard? Heck, I saw a Samsung QLED (must've been a 4K display) monitor at the return spot for Amazon at Kohl's a while back.

Context: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

Bought this beast earlier in the week for a very fair price.
Intel i7 950
ASUS Sabretooth X58 motherboard.
Xigmatek Samurai 700w PSU
Titan Fenrir Cooler.
12 GB (6x2 GB Corsair DDR 3 1600).
Samsung 840 EVO 120 GB SSD
1 TB Western Digital Blue.
Silverstone FT-02 case(it's bloody huge!!).

Added a EVGA Geforce GTX 760.

Really happy with this so far 😀

Bought a charger board for my Nexus 7 2013 as the USB port on the board wasn't working correctly, only charged the tablet, but not get detected at all in any Windows OS I throw at it (XP and higher).

Some Mini HDMI to HDMI female adapters, and HDMI to DVI adapters for my Raspberry Pi 4 build. I got 2 separate adapters so I can plug into regular HDMI and/or DVI if I need to. They were only about $7 on Amazon for each set.

^^ I can't decide whether I love or hate your cooling solution there. I'm leaning towards love though. Isn't that complete overkill for a Pi4?

xjas wrote:

^^ I can't decide whether I love or hate your cooling solution there. I'm leaning towards love though. Isn't that complete overkill for a Pi4?

Well, the initial firmware caused it to run super hot, so with overclocking a simple tiny heatsink didn't do the job. Yes, this one is overkill but I think it looks pretty neat. (like a Lian Li with a Coolermaster Hyper 212 sticking out the top) --- Now however, a new firmware was released that significantly dropped CPU core temps, so you can get away with a smaller heatsink + fan for normal operation and overclocking without running into thermal throttling.

Original video I watched when making my decision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyUXC3886Ic