A Tale of broken laptops, trades, and epic wins :D

[micropage7]

This thread needs another update...

First off i got an older i5 HP desktop for $80. no HD, but a 3.2Ghz 2C/4T i5 w/ 6GB DDR3 1333Mhz. Currently my new games server, because the damn thing idles at 39W.
has 4x PCI-E slots, so i've put my E-sata and USB 3.0 cards in and its my file server now as well.


And the real joy - got myself one hell of a laptop for $175 + $80 for an LCD.

HP G6-2148TX

i7-3632QM (2.2-3.2GHz, 4C/8T)
Radeon 7670 2GB (OC's like a bitch)
640GB HDD (swapped to a 60GB SSD with the 640GB in the optical bay)
8GB 1600Mhz DDR3 1600Mhz
Wifi was wonky, but that was easily fixed - got a 150Mb wiffi N + bluetooth atheros in there now out of my spares.

USB 3.0, HDMI, etc.

Stock clocks while the CPU was overheating before regrease and dust removal.

HP stuck some filter over the CPU fan intake, that more than doubled the noise. smart guys.

Regreased and overclocked GPU:

just repaste and not using thermal pads?

 

[Mussels]

just repaste and not using thermal pads?

socketed CPU, had paste originally. I just repasted with arctic silver ceramique that i had on hand. went from 95C and throttling to 70-75C Wprime load.

 

[Sasqui]

This thread needs another update...

First off i got an older i5 HP desktop for $80. no HD, but a 3.2Ghz 2C/4T i5 w/ 6GB DDR3 1333Mhz. Currently my new games server, because the damn thing idles at 39W.
has 4x PCI-E slots, so i've put my E-sata and USB 3.0 cards in and its my file server now as well.


And the real joy - got myself one hell of a laptop for $175 + $80 for an LCD.

HP G6-2148TX

i7-3632QM (2.2-3.2GHz, 4C/8T)
Radeon 7670 2GB (OC's like a bitch)
640GB HDD (swapped to a 60GB SSD with the 640GB in the optical bay)
8GB 1600Mhz DDR3 1600Mhz
Wifi was wonky, but that was easily fixed - got a 150Mb wiffi N + bluetooth atheros in there now out of my spares.

USB 3.0, HDMI, etc.

Stock clocks while the CPU was overheating before regrease and dust removal.

HP stuck some filter over the CPU fan intake, that more than doubled the noise. smart guys.

Regreased and overclocked GPU:

My first reaction is "you suck" Where'd you score the laptop?

 

[Mussels]

My first reaction is "you suck" Where'd you score the laptop?

facebook sale - the price kept dropping and dropping due to no-shows over the damaged screen. once i realised it was a true quad core i was interested and went for a look, and she lowered the price even further since i was the only one to have shown up with cash ready to go instead of a sob story.

Oh i got it from $200 to $175 after the dumb face i made when i saw chocolate melted over the outside of the CPU fan intake. didn't have to say a word.

 

[Sasqui]

facebook sale - the price kept dropping and dropping due to no-shows over the damaged screen. once i realised it was a true quad core i was interested and went for a look, and she lowered the price even further since i was the only one to have shown up with cash ready to go instead of a sob story.

Oh i got it from $200 to $175 after the dumb face i made when i saw chocolate melted over the outside of the CPU fan intake. didn't have to say a word.

Huh, they didn't charge extra for the chocolate? lol

Jokes aside, nice score! Buying and selling - it's all about patience and luck.

 

[Mussels]

it almost upsets me, i spent about $300 getting a secondary desktop up and running, and native res vs native res, this laptops faster XD

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

I cannot find any deals for stuff in my area. People think a x4 955 combo with 8 gb of mem is worth $650. Hmm I don't think so.

 

[Jetster]

I was given a HP laptop that a coworker said "the shop" said it needed a motherboard and too costly to fix. Sure enough it would boot but screen would go black shortly after. I pulled the MB out and put a heat gun to the Graphics chip put it back and fixed. Sold it for $100

 

[Mussels]

screen arrived today (fast shipping!)

within 30 minutes had it all back together and working perfectly

any benchies you guys want ran on it?

 

[Devon68]

Maybe you could run Cinebench R 15 if it's not any trouble.
I want to see how much better it is than my CPU which scores 375 cb

 

[Naito]

Ah the good old Facebook buy, sell and swap groups. The perfect place for your friendly neighborhood burglar to off load their latest loot.

 

[Mussels]

Maybe you could run Cinebench R 15 if it's not any trouble.
I want to see how much better it is than my CPU which scores 375 cb

I think it varies based on temperature because a second run got a lower score (not shocking, its a laptop)

First run - you can see why i pooped myself a little when i first benched this laptop.

 

[Mussels]

oh god it happened again.


so i think i mentioned a while back i bought a laptop for like $30, with a smashed LCD and used the HD i found in it? Lets call that laptop A


Well my dad visited after a thailand holiday, hotel staff dropped his laptop and smashed it. image came on screen once for me, and wouldnt boot after that.

i had a laptop that worked but needed ram and HDD, so we put his in and... instant success. same CPU, chipset, wifi adaptor, the whole lot - despite being a different brand. pure random luck.


well today i found a 4GB stick of SO-DIMMM DDR3 1333MHz ram and a 250GB HDD in a spare parts box (i was given this box of parts with the empty case that came with the free i5 system mentioned earlier) and thought to see if i could make laptop A work through HDMI without a screen... and i noticed that a lot of the parts looked very, very similar. same sata connectors for example. same size. same resolution.

Those of you who have read this thread know what happened already. heres the pics.


Rainbow sparkles from the compaq laptop

LCD from the good laptop looking suspiciously similar to sparkles above thanks to ebay

dont touch? oh no i better put it back together

now to go find a wifi card...

 

[brandonwh64]

I know there are bios hacks to allow unsupported cards. I used one on a old IBM Thinkpad to install a intel wireless G card. Try to google the model number around and see if someone has modded a bios for it.

 

[Mussels]

I know there are bios hacks to allow unsupported cards. I used one on a old IBM Thinkpad to install a intel wireless G card. Try to google the model number around and see if someone has modded a bios for it.

i had a compatible atheros chip on hand, its working fine in windows 7 already

$20 for a new battery, will be here before friday.

 

[Mussels]

bump for another win

a friend moving overseas donated his 'old dual core' PC to me - minus video card and RAM, which he took with him. friggin i5 with a mobo better than my main PC (same socket, 1155)

http://ark.intel.com/products/53446/Intel-Core-i5-2320-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_30-GHz
http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Z77AG45.html#hero-overview

 

[Jetster]

A friend gave me this highly abused Toshiba C855D S5303
AMD Dual core and DDR3 Hard drive was good
WTF did her kid do to this thing?
Sold it for $30 on CL

She also gave me this ASUS Eee
Missing the D key but it works

 

[Mussels]

front USB ports were smashed, mobo and CPU look shiny (i cleaned off the paste to ID it)

 

[P4-630]

front USB ports were smashed, mobo and CPU look shiny (i cleaned off the paste to ID it)

How can someone damage ALL front usb ports like that!?

 

[Mussels]

How can someone damage ALL front usb ports like that!?

my current goal is to find out how to replace them, as its a very nice case. (antec solo II)

 

[P4-630]

my current goal is to find out how to replace them, as its a very nice case. (antec solo II)

Hope you can fix it, good luck with it!

 

[Jetster]

my current goal is to find out how to replace them, as its a very nice case. (antec solo II)

Just e mail them. They will probably just mail you one for free. Same thing happen to my P180 and they sent me one. My kids were little then and just jammed stuff in them
Case Front I/O Panel http://support.antec.com

 

[Mussels]

Just e mail them. They will probably just mail you one for free. Same thing happen to my P180 and they sent me one. My kids were little then and just jammed stuff in them
Case Front I/O Panel http://support.antec.com

i'm trying that now, but if logitech and other companies are anything to go by the Au versions of their support is a joke.

 

[remixedcat]

While Logitech has given me two G700s's this year from problems with the G700.

 

[Jetster]

Yeah if you get the right person sometime they will do you a solid. Problems is most of the good support people have moved on from dealing with idiots