Did I get a good deal on this? Or should I have resisted...

Lipservice

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
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Well I was surfing around Fleabay this afternoon and saw this...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISA...Item&item=140236012429

So I figured what the heck. The auction only had a few hours left and the starting minimum bid was $75 with no reserve and no bids yet. So I put $101.03 as my maximum bid in. I figured it would go for a lot more and I guess I was fooling around more than anything. So the wife and I were outside doing yard work and later when I came in and turned the PC on I about died when I saw I won it for only $78 + $50 shipping.

Whatcha think? Deal or no deal??? How much hardware do you guess got wiped out?
 

Soundmanred

Lifer
Oct 26, 2006
10,780
6
81
There's really no way to tell. Just hope for the best!
Like he said, you'll get a decent case and hopefully some other decent stuff as well.
I would count on much since he seems to know a little bit about computers and would probably take out stuff he knew still worked before selling, but you might get lucky with someone who truly doesn't care about keeping anything after getting a new computer.
I've known people like this, they get something new and the old item has zero worth and they sell it for pennies.
 

Lipservice

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
542
0
71
I just emailed him and he is (appears) somewhat naive about PCs. He had it built for him and when it died he took it to a shop to have them look at it. He said it will be shipped complete with nothing removed from it. I asked him if the X2 4800+ was a S939 or an AM2. He says he does not know. If that is true he probably does not know the value of the componets left that are perhaps OK.

We'll see when it gets here.
 

robisbell

Banned
Oct 27, 2007
3,621
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well, considering the P180 is going for $120 on ebay new shipped, hope the components are salvageable.
 

Lipservice

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
542
0
71
Suppose I am gettin ants in my pants since I have not even got it yet. I guess I have always been 'lucky'. Meaning I have fixed several PCs where the power supply went bad.
Somtimes the PC just needed a new PS
Somtimes the PC just needed a new PS & motherboard
Somtimes the PC just needed a new PS & motherboard & memory

I personally have never seen a HDD/CPU/Optical drive go bad after a PSU went out. BUT I was just thinking. Maybe the PSU had a little help... like a lightning hit or something :(
 

zelx

Junior Member
Jun 4, 2008
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0
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Great find. The case is worth $100 vista $100 each Hd is $100 if they work. id be a happy camper.
 

bruceb

Diamond Member
Aug 20, 2004
8,874
111
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If it comes with a real Vista DVD and the license sticker, it is a great deal
for that alone. It didn't say if it was OEM or Retail Vista and he says DVD
players only, not writers, but he could be mistaken. And then you have 2
hard drives and likely some RAM .. so all in all, it seems like a decent deal.
Figure on about $300 or so to get it up and running depending on power
supply, mobo and video card choices .. if it needs all that.
 

Lipservice

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
542
0
71
I'm back and pumped up! Man... It is a S939 setup! I got it today and it weighs a ton. Anyway I stripped it down. Have not tested any parts yet but gonna pull apart my Opteron 180 setup to test the componets on.

So a list of what I got:
S939 Athlon 64 X2 4800+. I just checked on Ebay and a guy has 4 hours to go on his auction and his X2 4800+ is up to $250!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Used-AMD-A...2&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

AMD factory heatpipe version heatsink/fan
2x1gb Corsair XMS3202v2.2 CL2 PC3200 Platinum Series DDR
Asus ABN-SLI Premium S939 board
Antec P180 case
2x74gb Western Digital Raptors
Antec TP 2.0 550w PS
PNY 7900GS 256mb DDR3 PCI-E video card
Creative Soundbalaster Live! #SB0410 24bit soundcard
Seig 4 port USB 2.0 card
Ratoc 2 port firewire card
Black floppy drive
Sony DRU-810-R DVD Burner (same as a BenQ DW-1650) OH YAAAAA!!!!
Sony DRU-820A DVD Burner (same as a BenQ DW-1670) another great burner
Vista Home Premium 64bit OEM with factory case and COA
All the software CDs for the cards and stuff that were installed

Even if JUST the 4800+ is good I almost doubled my investment. The rest, whatever is good, is all freebies! If good, I'm goona Ebay the 4800+ and heatsink. Sell the memory if good. By a Q6600 and a board and build another Quad setup. Hope the Raptors are good, I'll put em to use.
 

Old Hippie

Diamond Member
Oct 8, 2005
6,361
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I just checked on Ebay and a guy has 4 hours to go on his auction and his X2 4800+ is up to $250!!
I knew I shouldn't have sold mine for a song and a dance!


You did good! :thumbsup:
 

Lipservice

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
542
0
71
This is getting better by the minute. I'll test the rest of the parts tomorrow but for now I was looking at the power supply. I didn't pop it open or anything but I gave it the old sniff test. Hmmm... nothing SMELLED burnt. So I have a power supply tester for 20 pin power supplys. I unhooked the extra 4 pin plug off the 24 pin plug and connectedit to the tester. WTF??? It tests good. So I checked the unhooked 4 pin plug with a digital multimeter. Voltages are good. Then proceeded to check every single connector on the PS with the multimeter except the SATA connectors. All are good! Voltages are spot on. Ya know what? I think the power supply is good. This has me bugged. Time to put the vid card/memory/cpu/heatsink back on the board and see what gives here before I strip my Opteron setup apart tomorrow to test stuff. Weird!
 

bruceb

Diamond Member
Aug 20, 2004
8,874
111
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Power supply can still be bad, even if voltages are correct.
You are currently testing with little or no load. When a current
draw is on the voltage outputs, that is when you will see if the
power supply is really good or not. It may smoke under a load
and not under no load. It can also have what is known as ripple
or ac voltage on the dc outputs, which a simple voltage test will
not detect. You can only see that with an oscilloscope.
 

daveybrat

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jan 31, 2000
5,782
997
126
Originally posted by: bruceb
Power supply can still be bad, even if voltages are correct.
You are currently testing with little or no load. When a current
draw is on the voltage outputs, that is when you will see if the
power supply is really good or not. It may smoke under a load
and not under no load. It can also have what is known as ripple
or ac voltage on the dc outputs, which a simple voltage test will
not detect. You can only see that with an oscilloscope.

Bruce is right. I've had power supplies that all lines pass on my power supply tester, but are still bad. Once i replace them, the system's power right up.

You still hit a goldmine with that system though! ;)
 

Lipservice

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
542
0
71
I couldn't wait. Found out the video card is FINE! I put the CPU/Heatsink/Memory/Vid card/1 Raptor in my Opteron system. Ran Western Digital Lifeguard tools. No errors on that Raptor. Then I wrote zeros to the entire drive. Installed Windows XP with no problems. Spent all night running memtest/Everest Stress Test/OCCT/3DMark2003/and HD Tune. The CPU/Memory/Video Card/and that Raptors all passed everything I threw at them. This is incredible!
What I discovered so far: The CPU Heatsink/fan was clogged solid with dust and so was the Heatsink/fan on the video card. A couple minutes with my air compressor fixed them right up. The CPU does get 65c using OCCT. That stock heatsink would not cut it for any overclocking (which I did not do). Is it possible that was what was wrong with that computer??? Later today I'll check the other Raptor out and the DVD burners. I do not have a power supply on hand that has an 8 pin power connector so guess I'll try the Antec that came with it. The way this is going the board MIGHT be good :

Couple more pics...
http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/2164/41065094zi7.jpg
http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/6792/13944013ye5.jpg
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1958/27436726tk5.jpg
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/3352/85978349oz1.jpg
 

Lipservice

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
542
0
71
The motherboard is whacked. No video.
Green light on board comes on
CPU fan runs
Keyboard lights flash on for a second
Optical mouser laser flashes on for a second
Tried all the usual stuff/clear CMOS/New CMOS battery/switched memory around in different slots and tried different memory/tried different vid card/etc. Tried the PS that came with it 1st then tried an Earthwatts 500w (good one out of my Opteron PC) and it made no difference. Don't know... maybe there is something about this board I am unaware of?

The Antec 550wEPS TP 2.0 that came with it MAY be good but I am gun shy to try it out in of my good PCs if you know what I mean.

The DVD burners work AFAIK. They read CDs and DVDs OK but I did not try to burn anything with them. The soundcard/Firewire card/USB card all work too.

The final status. Everything works except the motherboard and the power supply is up in the air. It runs and all the voltages are OK but I am not going to try it out on any of my good PCs. Maybe it ruined the motherboard and maybe it didn't.

Going to sell off everything but the case, Raptors, and video card. Ain't too often anyone comes out ahead in this hobby but I think I did this time :)

BTW that P180 case is awesome but man is it heavy,
 

Martimus

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2007
4,488
153
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Originally posted by: Lipservice
The Antec 550wEPS TP 2.0 that came with it MAY be good but I am gun shy to try it out in of my good PCs if you know what I mean.

Pop it open and see if there are any bulges on the Primary or Secondary caps. Those were notoriously bad on that model PSU (at least at the temps that unit saw since the cooling was inadequate). Even if the PSU didn't have a catastrophic failure, it may have some leakage at the capacitors.
 

Lipservice

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
542
0
71
Thanks for the tip Martimus I popped it open and looked it over real carefully. No bulged or leaking caps at all, and I checked every single one. I wonder if I ought to try it out on a system???

I had an Enermax 431w a couple years ago that died and I took it apart for a look see. That bad boy had several leaking and bulging caps.
 

Martimus

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2007
4,488
153
106
It might be a good unit. I too am gun shy with PSU's just because I have had one take out my MB, CPU and RAM before; but if none of the caps have any visible signs of failure you might keep it around as a backup. Of course, not all caps will show visible signs of failure so it may truly be bad.