Thought I'd post this in here because people like threads about gear that's been thrown out don't they?! I was throwing some scrap out of the back garden away at the local tip, this tip is a series of containers with ramps up to them. On popping the scrap fencing in the one container I saw something in the next container, right on top luckily so I could get at it. Now I am not sure on the rules with local tips with regards taking stuff but I figured the worst anyone could do is stop me, which fortunately nobody did I had to smash the front panel off as it was lose and snagged on stuff. I for some reason thought it was a AM2/3 set up but when I got it back I seemed to have got a bit better than that as on closer look it was a 1156 Asus board. I stuck some ram in it but no post so started stripping it. X-Fi Card Nvidia 470 OK PSU So I stripped it down to just the board and CPU and tried to fire it up with onboard graphics. Again no dice. At this point I thought maybe dead CPU, so I took it out and cleaned it off to reveal a i5 760. That would explain the no boot as no GPU on that CPU. Next I tested the i5 in a known ok motherboard: So then I took the i5 and stuck it back in the original board but jigged the ram around. Super. So played about a bit and then tried to get the 470 to work. No dice, and no luck in a spare machine I have either At this point I have done pretty well but I want the whole lot of it to work so I strip the 470 for some oven time. No idea why Nvidia use thread lock on every sodding screw on these Anyway 7 mins at 200, and another 3 at 220 seemed to get it quite toasty. So toasty all the stickers frazzled off Anyway stuck her in and she fired up first time Put it all back in original case for now for that Skip PC vibe. Will have to clock it next
Brilliant find! On the other hand, give or take a bit, my PC is about as powerful as a PC you found in a skip. That's just great that is. Really great.
Everytime I go to the tip I see piles of pc's in the skips and think I bet people have thrown it away because one failed component has stopped it from working. Could probably make a decent living out of salvaging them and stripping out decent working parts.
Just my small local tip, it obviously had only just been put there so have been quite lucky. Have it looping the Nvidia Village screensaver for a couple of hours and seems ok so hopefully the card wants to live.
Good work! I hate seeing decent kit scrapped. I only ever see beige boxes at the tip, and I don't think you can take stuff out at mine. I did have a result last year, a nearby office dumped a load of PC kit in a skip separately from the wood etc. I asked about taking stuff out, and they were happy. An HP PC s775 E5400 (No hdd) 2 basic PCI-E graphics cards DDR2 RAM sticks 4x 17" LCD monitors (1 was dead...) 3 keyboard/mouse combos Enough to revive some old kit to sell or donate - all saved from landfill
Never mind what individuals throw away, the real money is in what business throws away. My local electronics recycler for example: http://www.ebay.ca/sch/m.html?_nkw=...=&_ssn=calgarycomputerwholesale&_sac=1&_sop=3
This totally still works. Been playing Left for Dead 2 all week on it and it refuses to die again. Games feel better when the computer was a freebie, I'm sure of it.
I, in my time, have found some cracking stuff in skips. A leather office chair which needed a minor repair, an industrial microwave in perfect working order. A beautiful shag pile carpet to name but three. But I was driving a van for a living and found the best gear in the so called better areas who perhaps could not be bothered selling or donating.
Definitely not a bad find. a i5-750 would actually be an upgrade for many, including all those still running Q6600s
haha this is brilliant. I've had a 0% success rate with the "oven method" but where RAM is concerned the freezer has worked pretty well in the past. Somebody obviously couldn't be bothered selling individual components so just skipped it... understandbable.
I've never been this lucky at all with finding stuff at my local tip. I'm pretty sure they don't allow us to take stuff thats been put in. I did score an old school Pentium 3 system that got left behind at a car boot sale which was fully working and I use for my old school gaming. When I go to the tip next I'll see if I can dig anything out, would love to pull something like this.
