Car Boot / Flea Market PC Finds. Retro Gaming PC Repair & Refurbishing

LER #235
This weekend I found two retro gaming PCs at the second hand market. Let's fix them and get them working

N2U400-A Motherboard Review (PhilsComputerLab)

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The Electronics Channel (live streams with Carlos and Detlef)

Gran Canaria Uncovered

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TEST METERS
ANENG AN8009 MULITIMETER
KAIWEETS HT118E MULTIMETER
VC480C+ MILLIOHM METER
MESR-100 ESR METER
XC6013L CAPACITOR METER

TM-902C TEMPERATURE METER
LCR-T4 COMPONENT ANALYZER
FNB58 USB ANALYZER
PCI POST ANALYZER
TL460S PLUS PCI_E ANALYZER
TOOLTOP ET120MC2 SCOPE
FNIRSI 1014D SCOPE
NPS3010W 30V 10A PSU
T12 STATION WITH M8 9501 HANDLE
M8 9501 HANDLE
YIHUA 982 Soldering Station C210/C245
FNIRSI HS-02 PORTABLE SOLDERING C210/C245
QUICK 861DW
PROS'KIT SS-331H

INFIRAY P2 PRO IR CAMERA + MACRO LENS
TOOLTOP ET13S THERMAL CAMERA METER
ET13S MACRO LENS
OPTICAL MICROSCOPE
TOMLOV TM4K AF FLEX
TL866 II+ PROGRAMMER
CH341 PROGRAMMER
NC-559-ASM FLUX

DESOLDER BRAID (I use size 8045)
HX-T100 SOLDER (0.6MM)
ESD-11 TWEEZERS

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Thank you
Richard

[supercomputing]

I agree best thing to do is to sit on the old 32bit hardware like this since its value will only go up over time. I also got a few 32bit P4s and Athlon Xp 32bit board bundles im holding on to waiting for a time when they'll be really really well sought after in the near future.

[allthegearnoidea]

I’m really amazed at the prices of these old computers. Frightening the amount of 8086 and 286 computers I have skipped.

[davebilson]

I threw so much away the last couple of years, as it was taking up space. I think I still have some old cards laying around, mainly Adaptec scsi controllers. Its a long time since I have had to deal with the master and slave configuration on IDE HDD's

[kztech]

Fortunately you managed to put some paste when testing those athlons.
I heard even the Athlon xp's thermal protection is still iffy so if one thinks it's fine to leave it bare for just a few seconds and it actually overheated before shutting down, one kills the chip

[jaimemarmolejo]

you know, you also can use a cutted syringe tip to straighten the cpu pins like a pro.

[mesterak]

I love your guides and have learned a lot from them, but I have a socket 478 board that has no visually defective components, does not turn on or post, and as soon as power is turned on I can hear a ticking sound from onboard piezo speaker every second. Does it regardless if a cpu or ram are installed. PSU is known working. Is this a short or open and where should I troubleshoot first?

[danielarnott]

Got an HP A430N on my desk right now. It features an Asus A7N8X -LA socket A nforce2 motherboard, and the Athlon XP 3200+. Looked like it smoked a pack day, new power supply and it booted right up. I'm not so sure if these will ever be worth anything in the future, but I'm glad there free or extremely cheap here in Canada.

[lajavimilei]

Hi, i found one of those old coolers that has 3 leds that are 3mm in diameter with a copper strip surrounding it. My problem is the same as yours, none of them work, but taking the strip out, i did not see any smd resistor in the strip. I am wondering what they did, there should be a 150 or 125 ohms resistor in there if the leds are blue. Do you think it is possible without a resistor and the amount of light is not full?

[BrianSmith-owgy]

Surprised that people throw out PCs without zapping the drives first. DBAN is free after all.

[kruno]

21:11 - original CPU is Athlon XP 2800+

[juliusvalentinas]

Can you take a look at thread badcaps
"problem with Delta GPS750AB A PSU. No +5v VSB" PSU fixed but chirping sound how to fix it??

[hoobsgroove]

I wouldn't formatted look for some bit coins could be worth a fortune

[davebilson]

Are any of the following of any use to you?

Adaptec AVA 2904
Adaptec AVA 2904 with SCSI Cable
Adaptec 39320 SCSI CARD
Adaptec SCSI card 29160

[simonbaldwin]

Abit were acquired in 2006 after it lost a lot of money in 2005 by usi, the company was closed the brand in 2009.

[bones]

Loads of fun over an end of day beer. Thanks Richard.

[johnprescott]

that ABIT heatsink, engineering resources used wisely, no wonder they went out of business.