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I decided to look around on ebay the other day. Someone was selling two (Z97? I can't remember) motherboards with bent pins (a relatively easy fix) for less than $20. In addition, some newer samsung ssds have a problem where windows doesn't recognize them unless you power cycle them for a specific time, and another seller had them listed for $5 according to this video.

I have a couple questions. First of all, how cheap would as entire system of parts that are broken but not completely beyond repair be? What are some other easily fixed broken devices? Is using such easily fixed components worth the risk? Is it ethical to buy something incredibly easily fixed off of someone without first telling them just how easy it is to repair their item?

I have no problem with it from an ethical standpoint. I just don't think it is worth the hassle to deal with stuff like that, because you are probably going to have some that turn out to not be salvageable, and some that'll more or less work but never be 100% stable.

I suppose if you're trying to cobble something together on the cheap it's worth a shot.

Just think of all the "broken" computers out there that end up in e-waste and only needed a reformat (or something similarly easy), but the owner didn't want to pay geek squad to fix it. Many of those systems never get listed for sale and if you knew the person, they'd probably rather give it to you than to pay to bring it to the e-waste recycler.

Like JBI said, don't expect to get 100% successful revival rate out of stuff like this.

There are even people who will buy a new desktop or laptop just because they got a malware infection.

just brew it! wrote:

There are even people who will buy a new desktop or laptop just because they got a malware infection.

My boss's girlfriend at an old job was going to do that until he talked her into letting me check it first.

I used to enjoy taking apart a stack of broken PCs and Frankensteining together the best possible combinations of working parts.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

I used to enjoy taking apart a stack of broken PCs and Frankensteining together the best possible combinations of working parts.

I still Frankenstein systems together, but it is generally from parts in my own stash. I know the history, what the issues (if any) are, and whether the part in question has been abused in any way.

coolflame57 wrote:

I have a couple questions. First of all, how cheap would as entire system of parts that are broken but not completely beyond repair be? What are some other easily fixed broken devices? Is using such easily fixed components worth the risk? Is it ethical to buy something incredibly easily fixed off of someone without first telling them just how easy it is to repair their item?

It would be one thing if you were coercing elderly people into selling their PCs for a fraction of their value due to insignificant issues, but that's not remotely what's happening. If someone is savvy enough to put discreet PC components up on Ebay, then they're also fully capable of determining the item's correct value or ease of repair. If they weren't willing to spend the time to do this, then that's on them. I see no ethical issue whatsoever.

With that said, I think you're asking for a headache and approaching things wrong if you're trying to build complete systems. Not only will you force yourself to include components which might not necessarily be profitable for resale, but it also opens a can of worms as far as tech support and software/OS's and such. Your best bet would be to find specific components which you're able to easily and confidently restore to full working order, and then flip them separately for a profit. Of course you would want to give full disclosure of whatever repairs were made, though I don't know that you'd necessarily have to divulge being the 2nd owner unless they ask (or it's somehow pertinent to an expected manufacturer's warranty).

The Egg wrote:

It would be one thing if you were coercing elderly people into selling their PCs for a fraction of their value due to insignificant issues, but that's not remotely what's happening. If someone is savvy enough to put discreet PC components up on Ebay, then they're also fully capable of determining the item's correct value or ease of repair. If they weren't willing to spend the time to do this, then that's on them. I see no ethical issue whatsoever.

^ This.

The Egg wrote:

With that said, I think you're asking for a headache and approaching things wrong if you're trying to build complete systems. Not only will you force yourself to include components which might not necessarily be profitable for resale, but it also opens a can of worms as far as tech support and software/OS's and such. Your best bet would be to find specific components which you're able to easily and confidently restore to full working order, and then flip them separately for a profit. Of course you would want to give full disclosure of whatever repairs were made, though I don't know that you'd necessarily have to divulge being the 2nd owner unless they ask (or it's somehow pertinent to an expected manufacturer's warranty).

Yeah, back in the days of the capacitor plague I thought about doing motherboard and video card repairs as a sideline. I actually got pretty good at it, just repairing stuff for myself and family (and a couple of people here on the forums). Never really pursued it; probably for the best, I imagine it would've been a royal PITA. I do have a small stockpile of spare capacitors though... probably a lifetime supply now. (Though I imagine the non-polymer ones will eventually dry out just sitting unused.)

just brew it! wrote:

(Though I imagine the non-polymer ones will eventually dry out just sitting unused.)

Put them in a vacuum bag and toss them in the fridge.

Captain Ned wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

(Though I imagine the non-polymer ones will eventually dry out just sitting unused.)

Put them in a vacuum bag and toss them in the fridge.

Interesting idea. The leads will tend to poke holes in the bag though; and won't the vacuum tend to accelerate any electrolyte loss?

Plus I've already got enough fridge/freezer space dedicated to my other hobby.

just brew it! wrote:

Interesting idea. The leads will tend to poke holes in the bag though; and won't the vacuum tend to accelerate any electrolyte loss?

Well, I figured a few wraps of paper towels or that green potting foam would fix the pointy lead problem, but I never did think about the pressure dynamics in an electrolytic cap can. Would be worth a quick experiment if a gerbil has a FoodSealer just to see if the electrolyte does bleed out under pseudo-vacuum.

Since I designed this concept in the time it took me to type the first sentence, I shan't stand by my "observations".

I'm thinking maybe just chuck 'em in a Mason jar with some silica gel desiccant and put that in the fridge.

just brew it! wrote:

I'm thinking maybe just chuck 'em in a Mason jar with some silica gel desiccant and put that in the fridge.

Sounds like the way to go.

Photographers used to store their unused film in the fridge, now it's the solder jockeys who keep their parts in the fridge. Just like modern photographers will never get the fridge part, there are multiple generations that will never get this:

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

Tomorrow morning will be unpleasant, but I will be the only one in the office.

Or just use polymers whenever possible, too...

Which, I need to pull the Abit BP6 out of my "new" build, because, as it turns out... original Jackcon caps. There was one that looked like it miiiiiiight have been slightly bulged a week ago before I did the build. It stopped POSTing today (before I even took any serious attempts at overclocking it...), and there's now several that are obviously bulged. At least I went ahead and ordered the caps...

bhtooefr wrote:

Or just use polymers whenever possible, too...

Which, I need to pull the Abit BP6 out of my "new" build, because, as it turns out... original Jackcon caps. There was one that looked like it miiiiiiight have been slightly bulged a week ago before I did the build. It stopped POSTing today (before I even took any serious attempts at overclocking it...), and there's now several that are obviously bulged. At least I went ahead and ordered the caps...

So how are Socket 370 dual Celerons these days?

Surprisingly snappy for how slow they are (they're 366s), and that was with the Chromatic Mpact2, which was using VgaSave.

Although, I need to try for Win7 once I get the board resurrected.

bhtooefr wrote:

Surprisingly snappy for how slow they are (they're 366s), and that was with the Chromatic Mpact2, which was using VgaSave.

Although, I need to try for Win7 once I get the board resurrected.

Weren't overclockers getting a 50% overclock on those? I recall wanting to build a BeOS workstation at that time.

On 366s, it usually required some more voltage - 2.1-2.2 V usually, stock being 2.0, as Mendocino didn't like going much over 500. My pair of 366s crashed quite quickly at 550 @ 2.0 V. Tonight's project was going to be cranking it up to 550, but the motherboard had other plans.

Now, 300As or 333s, on the other hand... especially 300As could do 450 on stock voltage all day long. Combine that with modded dual slockets in a Slot 1 board, or the Abit BP6... OK, the shortage of L2 cache did hurt SMP performance, but you still got the creamy smoothness that, nowadays, we all take for granted with dual cores, and it was quite quick for the time.

bhtooefr wrote:

On 366s, it usually required some more voltage - 2.1-2.2 V usually, stock being 2.0, as Mendocino didn't like going much over 500. My pair of 366s crashed quite quickly at 550 @ 2.0 V. Tonight's project was going to be cranking it up to 550, but the motherboard had other plans.

Now, 300As or 333s, on the other hand... especially 300As could do 450 on stock voltage all day long. Combine that with modded dual slockets in a Slot 1 board, or the Abit BP6... OK, the shortage of L2 cache did hurt SMP performance, but you still got the creamy smoothness that, nowadays, we all take for granted with dual cores, and it was quite quick for the time.

By the time I was ready to build a new computer in 2000, I think Abit went belly up, and AMD released their Socket A Athlons and Durons.

They were still around and made a lot of really good socket A boards, I have a huge pile of them from back then. They actually didn't go under until late 2005, I have one of their last AM2 boards they released.

Starfalcon wrote:

They were still around and made a lot of really good socket A boards, I have a huge pile of them from back then. They actually didn't go under until late 2005, I have one of their last AM2 boards they released.

Hard to remember since this was 17 years ago. Too 3Dfx didn't make it past year 2000,and Matrox are they still around?

yeah matrox is still around, although they haven't made a consumer card since the parahelia. They mostly just make specialty cards for industrial and other oddball stuff.

And they don't have their own silicon any more, they're just using AMD silicon.

bhtooefr wrote:

Or just use polymers whenever possible, too...

My original point was that I already have a stockpile of capacitors, many of them non-polymer.

Which brings up yet another tangent: I believe there were some video cards back in the mid-aughts which were using "fake" polymer caps. A few of the dead video cards in my collection (long since disposed of) had exploded caps that looked like polymer caps (plain metal cans with numbers on the top instead of the plastic band with the capacitance and voltage rating on the side).

Starfalcon wrote:

They were still around and made a lot of really good socket A boards, I have a huge pile of them from back then. They actually didn't go under until late 2005, I have one of their last AM2 boards they released.

I thought AM2 came out in 2006?

Abit was still around in mid-2007, as I bought my IP35 Pro based on this TR roundup review. It was about a year after I bought the board that Abit went Tango Uniform.

http://techreport.com/review/12747/five ... s-compared

just brew it! wrote:

bhtooefr wrote:

Or just use polymers whenever possible, too...

My original point was that I already have a stockpile of capacitors, many of them non-polymer.

Same. Every now and then I use a few to repair an old motherboard or, more recently, the power supply boards in LCD monitors. The shortened life of the re-used capacitors is probably about equal to the remaining life in the repaired equipment, and some of the repairs wouldn't even be worth it if the parts had to be bought new.

ludi wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

bhtooefr wrote:

Or just use polymers whenever possible, too...

My original point was that I already have a stockpile of capacitors, many of them non-polymer.

Same. Every now and then I use a few to repair an old motherboard or, more recently, the power supply boards in LCD monitors. The shortened life of the re-used capacitors is probably about equal to the remaining life in the repaired equipment, and some of the repairs wouldn't even be worth it if the parts had to be bought new.

Gave a few of mine to a friend about a year ago to repair his 1980s-era (maybe even 1970s) Jameco LED clock. The capacitors that came with the original clock kit finally gave out after 3+ decades of continuous use!

Captain Ned wrote:

Abit was still around in mid-2007, as I bought my IP35 Pro based on this TR roundup review. It was about a year after I bought the board that Abit went Tango Uniform.

http://techreport.com/review/12747/five ... s-compared

Yeah the US subsidiary went under late 05, the taiwan HQ kept going for a few more years. They merged with another company when things went south and partnered with ECS to release boards in the US for a couple more years. They finally closed down officially in 2009, although they were mostly just a name at that point.

DFI is another manufacturer that did some good stuff back in the day, but have completely disappeared from the enthusiast motherboard market. Much like Matrox they're still around, but cater to specialized niche markets. Looks like their target market these days is industrial automation; for example, they make a motherboard that will take a modern(ish) CPU (Haswell), but has ISA slots (for those legacy industrial control interfaces).