Bargain PC parts shopping lately!
bill190
Posts: 769
I seem to recall paying upwards of $1000 for 1 megabyte of ram memory back in the early 80's. Not to mention thousands more for monitors, PC's, and whatnot...
So I was more than delighted to find 3 broken laptop computers at a yard sale the other day. The guy said he would take $15 for all 3. I offered $10 and they were mine...
Two of them did not work at all, but there was a Toshiba·which tired to run, but was missing a dll. It had XP and the license # on the bottom, a·60 gigabyte drive, and 500 megabytes of ram.
I was able to boot it up in protected mode (by removing power when on and rebooting), then simply go into the recycle bin and restore the dll files someone had deleted.
Then I swapped the memory from another of the laptops and now have around 1.90 gigabytes of ram. And another laptop had a 250 gigabyte drive I can swap later (Has bootable Vista on it).
Then two keytops were missing. I was able to order those for around $10. And found a new battery for around $50.
Once I got it working, I noticed it was locking up. So I got some thermal grease (best kind) for $10, took it apart, and cleaned -·then reapplied the thermal grease to the CPU heat sink.
Problem solved!·I now have a working laptop·for very little money! I can't believe this good fortune, but I am not done...
I've not had anything to do with serial cables for a long time until buying Parallax products, and also working on a serial connection to my truck computer, and I needed some connectors/cables...
I remembered seeing used computer stuff at a 2nd hand store, so I went to one and there were ALL SORTS of cables for 50 cents or $1 each. These cables cost upwards of $20 EACH in the stores. I found the serial connectors/cables I was looking for, plus USB cables, and RCA stereo cables.
Then I found a working USB mouse for $2.
And I found a working CD drive for $5. One broke on a desktop PC I have and I was going to buy a new one (glad I didn't!).
Then I went to another store and found a working 19" flat screen monitor for $5!
I can't believe this!
Anyway if you need computer parts for an older PC, go to the 2nd hand store first! (And check those yard sales...)
Post Edited (bill190) : 4/24/2010 1:51:40 AM GMT
So I was more than delighted to find 3 broken laptop computers at a yard sale the other day. The guy said he would take $15 for all 3. I offered $10 and they were mine...
Two of them did not work at all, but there was a Toshiba·which tired to run, but was missing a dll. It had XP and the license # on the bottom, a·60 gigabyte drive, and 500 megabytes of ram.
I was able to boot it up in protected mode (by removing power when on and rebooting), then simply go into the recycle bin and restore the dll files someone had deleted.
Then I swapped the memory from another of the laptops and now have around 1.90 gigabytes of ram. And another laptop had a 250 gigabyte drive I can swap later (Has bootable Vista on it).
Then two keytops were missing. I was able to order those for around $10. And found a new battery for around $50.
Once I got it working, I noticed it was locking up. So I got some thermal grease (best kind) for $10, took it apart, and cleaned -·then reapplied the thermal grease to the CPU heat sink.
Problem solved!·I now have a working laptop·for very little money! I can't believe this good fortune, but I am not done...
I've not had anything to do with serial cables for a long time until buying Parallax products, and also working on a serial connection to my truck computer, and I needed some connectors/cables...
I remembered seeing used computer stuff at a 2nd hand store, so I went to one and there were ALL SORTS of cables for 50 cents or $1 each. These cables cost upwards of $20 EACH in the stores. I found the serial connectors/cables I was looking for, plus USB cables, and RCA stereo cables.
Then I found a working USB mouse for $2.
And I found a working CD drive for $5. One broke on a desktop PC I have and I was going to buy a new one (glad I didn't!).
Then I went to another store and found a working 19" flat screen monitor for $5!
I can't believe this!
Anyway if you need computer parts for an older PC, go to the 2nd hand store first! (And check those yard sales...)
Post Edited (bill190) : 4/24/2010 1:51:40 AM GMT
Comments
Then I upgraded the RAM and the performance is even better - I can have several applications open at once - no problem, and the video is really not bad at all. Total investment is $65