The [H]ardForum Perpetual Freebies Thread

mvmiller12 said:
Figured I'd post an inspirational Trash-to-Treasure update on here.

About a month ago, GiGaBiTe posted an old iMac up on here that only booted to the flashing Folder icon (Mac for "Dude, Where's my Boot Drive?"), and I took him up on it. I was looking for a neww fun project, and this seemed like it would fit the bill fine. It was $90 for the shipping which was very fair - it is heavy and kinda awkwardly large, and there was probably at least $20 of raw packing material in the box alone :). I got the machine with keyboard and mouse in GREAT condition.

First things first, I look up the model and this particular machine is a Model A1174 - the premium Early 2006 20" Intel CoreDuo model. Power it on and the classic Mac chime sounds and the flashing folder appears. I grab my nifty empty giftcard to pop some cleverly hidden plastic clips and get to work. Sure enough - there is no hard drive in the unit. However, whoever took out the hard drive was a person after my own heart, because they left all of the original mounting hardware and the temperature sensor taped up inside a plastic baggy. No problem - my local Best Buy had a sale on a 1TB SATA SSD for $50 and I grabbed that.

Problem #1 - It detects the SSD just fine, but this thing tops out at Snow Leopard, and a Snow Leopard bootable disk image was surprising difficult to find. Believe it or not, the Internet Archive had an ISO. - Resolving Problem #1 made the machine very workable in MacOS 10.6.8 (and diagnostics concluded the iMac was ENTIRELY functional AND I discovered it had 2G of RAM installed - yays!), but Macs are weird relative to Windows. On Windows machines, a LOT of software is both forward and backwards compatible with the OS. I could install Windows XP on a machine right now and there would be a ton of working software for it out there. Microsoft has gone through great pains in the past to make sure it works this way, but Apple sure as hell does not. It is super difficult to get any working software for OS X Snow Leopard. The best I could do was get a newer-but-still-REALLY-ancient FireFox on there which would at least let me access newer web sites, because the built-in Safari wouldn't open anything more complicated than Google :). Problem #1 is solved! It's a Mac running MacOS!

Problem #2 - Snow Leopard is useless, let's go with Windows! Machine supports BootCamp with Windows 7, so it should theoretically work just fine with Windows 10. Well... not so much. The WiFi worked great right out of the box, I had full access to both 802.11g and .11n networks. I was able to get the necessary device drivers for everything out of BootCamp pack 4, and it worked... sort of. 1) I could only install Windows 10 32-bit. 64-bit was just not happening. 2) The graphics drivers for the Mobile Radeon x1600 in Windows 10 suck donkey balls. Missing textures on the desktop, video corruption, the works. 3) The default generic video driver ALSO sucks donkey balls because it does NOT properly support the resolution of the screen, AND compositing is V E R Y S L O W. Never fixed this - trashed the Windows install.
Problem #2 is now and will forever remain unresolved.

Problem #3 - Snow Leopard is useless, the Windows experience on this machine sucks, let's go with Linux! This was somewhat more complicated than I had expected. Long story short - I DID eventually get the machine triple-booted (after installing rEFInd) with Snow Leopard, Windows 10 32-bit, and Linux Mint DEBIAN 32-bit, but the Linux experience was sub-par. A lot of packages have apparently moved on from 32-bit and have become 64-bit only going forward. Debian is one of the few distributions that seems actively committed to 32-bit development, so I was at least able to get it to do something. The trick is, the only Linux Mint DEBIAN based 32-bit modern distro runs Cinammon, and Cinnamon is a little too "heavy" for this machine and so performance was sluggish. Also it was a pain in the ASS to get the WiFi working. Time to figure out why x64 is not working on this machine (and I bet you guys already knew why :)). Problem #3 is now irrelevant BECAUSE...

Problem #4 - I never realized that CoreDuo processors ever made it into commercial desktop machines - I had also thought they were mobile-only chips that were rapidly replaced by the Core2Duo (which is an x64 chip). Well, I was entirely wrong about that. This machine can only run ia32 software - x64 is right out... BUT... the CPU in this machine is socketed! Internet research indicates that these machines are drop-in compatible with some Core2Duo T-series CPUs, so another $11 to eBay and a 2.16GHz T7400 Core2Duo is on its way (Pro-tip - the machine supports all the way up to the 2.33GHz T7600, but that thing is dramatically more expensive than the T7400 was - don't be afraid to look a step or 2 down when looking to do these sorts of upgrades because you can get most of the performance lift for a bunch less $$$). Installation went smoothly and I now had an x64 CPU in the machine. Getting TO the CPU required puling the mainboard entirely out to get to the backside, which was a slog, and of course, the plastic plug for the built-in camera and mic broke right off the motherboard because the old plastic plug was very brittle (fortunately it was the plug on the cable that shattered and not the actual socket) - this was another $20 down the hole to a Mac used parts seller. Easy fix.

Problem #5 - The EFI in this machine is 32-bit only, and it apparently gets super confused with multi-book ISOs. Long Story Short, I was eventually able to install Linux Mint xFCe in it's 64-bit glory, but tis was again more complicated than it initially appeared. I had to "patch" the Linux Mint ISO prior to burning it to DVD to remove the UEFI multibook "partition" from the volume, rendering it Legacy BIOS boot only (which the iMacs 32-bit EFI can emulate - its the core they added to make Boot Camp work for Windows installs). I patched the ISO using the instructions I found on an internet page hosted by a guy who helps people with 32-bit EFI Macs ('cuz apparently Apple stuck with that 32-bit EFI for a WHILE) and WSL on my Windows 11 machine. I got the new Linux Mint installed just fine after that, and xFCe is MUCH faster on the machine. WiFi was still a pain to get working, but the machine is now fully function and comfortably performant with a fully modern OS installed. Which left me with my last problem...

Problem #6 - Need More RAM! This is ALSO a little tricker than it first appears. The CoreDuo iMac only officially supported 2G of RAM. You could get 3G in it with mismatched sticks, but then you lose dual channel memory support. 2x2G would not work and would cause the Mac to hardlock on startup. the later LATE 2006 iMacs were still limited to 3G RAM tops, but would work fine and keep dual channel memory support with 2x2G sticks installed. Interestingly, the Late 2006 iMacs used the exact same mainboard as the Early 2006 iMacs did. This is where I went down the rabbit hole of updating my iMac 4.1 (what Apple calls the Early 2006 iMacs) firmware to iMac 5.1 (Late 2006 iMac). As you can imagine, Apple does NOT make this easy to do. There IS a script that does it, but the script and the instructions to use it are on a website forum that no longer exists and all direct links to it were dead. I was able to get the script from a guy who had posted it in a different forum talking about having used it, but the script did NOT work. It would crash with an obscure error message. I had to use the Internet Wayback machine to find the relevant posts on how to fix this issue on the original forum where the script was created - apparently the script craps out because Apple renamed and moved the download files on their servers, because of course they did :). The updated instructions describe how to manually download and rename the correct files from Apple, and how to manually run the internal btis of the script to make it actually patch and bless the iMac 5.1 firmware to work on the iMac 4.1 machine. That worked very well, and I packaged up the script, the firmware files from Apple and the instructions on my server in case I (or anybody that happens to ask me) needs them again. Another $7 to eBay and I received and installed my 4G of RAM just fine.


That puts my project totals at: $90 shipping + $50 new SATA SSD + $20 new camera/mic cable + $11 new CPU + $7 new RAM = $178. Not too shabby. It was quite the journey, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. The machine runs VERY well with Linux Mint xFCe with my only complaint being that WiFi is limited to 802.11g speeds in it. I cannot get the open source drivers for the Apple Airport Extreme (really, a Broadcom card) to see my 5GHz .11n networks for anything. I CAN use Ethernet to the machine if I happen to need full network speeds, but as a web browser, Discord, TeamSpeak, Steam Chat machine in my living room by the couch, it does not really NEED anything faster, and it only feels marginally less snappy for this purpose than my main machine in my sig. If I have any takeaway from this, it is to reaffirm what I already knew. Apple really does seem to go the extra mile to lock down their hardware, though I have heard that they have been better about this in recent years. Overall a great fun project that kept me occupied for a while, and kept another working machine out of the garbage. Thanks again GiGaBiTe!!
Click to expand...
Awesome adventure--thank you for posting! Also reminds me why I came to the conclusion that period hardware just needs 'period correct' software and that's the limited use of it. Although it is interesting that a win98se machine can rdp into a win7 machine which is rdp'd into a win10 one. :D
 
This is a long-shot, but has anybody got the mounting clip lever for a Zalman CNPS-series cooler (specifically a 9500A)? This is specifcally the part I've lost:
lever.PNG


Unfortunately, the only site I found selling spares has long since discontinued them. Looking to reuse my old 9500A on a retro project I'm building for my partner - an "Ultimate Pentium 4" build (they're big fans of the Pentium 4, I'm an Athlon 64 gal lol).
 
CapnCrunch53 said:
This is a long-shot, but has anybody got the mounting clip lever for a Zalman CNPS-series cooler (specifically a 9500A)? This is specifcally the part I've lost:
View attachment 561808


Unfortunately, the only site I found selling spares has long since discontinued them. Looking to reuse my old 9500A on a retro project I'm building for my partner - an "Ultimate Pentium 4" build (they're big fans of the Pentium 4, I'm an Athlon 64 gal lol).
Click to expand...

that part is for the AMD hardware not for Intel. I know cause i just send a member both parts, the one circled and the long piece. You need the pieces that are circled in the image below which are for intel.
 

Attachments

  • zalman 9500 (2).jpg
    zalman 9500 (2).jpg
    73.5 KB · Views: 1
Last edited:
Beaflag VonRathburg said:
You need it for certain Intel sockets:

https://www.quietpc.com/instructions/zalman/CNPS9500A.pdf
Click to expand...

I had a similar Zalman cooler with the same mounting bracket and it used the above mentioned two screws and the long piece. It came with two different mounting hardware for AMD and Intel. Let me see if i can still find that manual. I keep old shit like that.

Just looked at an YT video for the cnps 9500AT and it uses the above mentioned hardware. But i do remember that the AMD hardware what the member is looking for can be used on the same mounting stand.
 
Last edited:
buschman31 said:
that part is for the AMD hardware not for Intel. I know cause i just send a member both parts, the one circled and the long piece. You need the pieces that are circled in the image below which are for intel.
Click to expand...
Beaflag VonRathburg said:
You need it for certain Intel sockets:

https://www.quietpc.com/instructions/zalman/CNPS9500A.pdf
Click to expand...

So my manual definitely matches the PDF posted by Beaflag VonRathburg - somehow I still have that piece of paper from all those years ago. However, the image on Zalman's own page for the product matches what buschman31 posted. I'm now trying to figure out whether there were two revisions of this cooler, or whether the manual was (and still is) incorrect in its instructions for use on Intel 775.

Thinking back 15 or so years go, I vaguely recall having some confusion over the included parts not matching the parts described by the manual. Also, when I found the cooler in my parts drawer, it had the "AMD" arm - the one that uses clips rather than screws - attached to it (sans lever, of course). I only ever used this cooler on my socket 775 E8400.

So the conclusion I'm leaning towards now is that the manual for this cooler was incorrect and did not match the included parts. I believe 16 year old me, not realizing the manual's error and attempting to follow it, forced the AMD lever to work. I do recall being amazed at the pressure it took to install, but it was my first build and I assumed that was normal. And honestly, it worked fine, so maybe that is an acceptable solution.

At any rate, I'll now revise my request: if anybody has a spare 775 mounting arm and pair of screws for a Zalman CNPS 9500A, as shown in buschman31's post above, I would greatly appreciate them.
 
CapnCrunch53 said:
So my manual definitely matches the PDF posted by Beaflag VonRathburg - somehow I still have that piece of paper from all those years ago. However, the image on Zalman's own page for the product matches what buschman31 posted. I'm now trying to figure out whether there were two revisions of this cooler, or whether the manual was (and still is) incorrect in its instructions for use on Intel 775.

Thinking back 15 or so years go, I vaguely recall having some confusion over the included parts not matching the parts described by the manual. Also, when I found the cooler in my parts drawer, it had the "AMD" arm - the one that uses clips rather than screws - attached to it (sans lever, of course). I only ever used this cooler on my socket 775 E8400.

So the conclusion I'm leaning towards now is that the manual for this cooler was incorrect and did not match the included parts. I believe 16 year old me, not realizing the manual's error and attempting to follow it, forced the AMD lever to work. I do recall being amazed at the pressure it took to install, but it was my first build and I assumed that was normal. And honestly, it worked fine, so maybe that is an acceptable solution.

At any rate, I'll now revise my request: if anybody has a spare 775 mounting arm and pair of screws for a Zalman CNPS 9500A, as shown in buschman31's post above, I would greatly appreciate them.
Click to expand...

I still have the screws but dont have the lever arm. That part was sold yrs ago with the Zalmam cooler. If anyone is needing socket 478 hardware, please contact me. I can post pics of what i have if needed.
 
Just got a free code for Redfall if anyone wants. I haven't added it to steam yet but did pull it up the geforce program so and it recognized my GPU (4090) so hopefully this works for anyone now. First come, first serve:

Code: iHzv7Zi8LBkos5xQrp8xRdPM

1. Install your qualified graphics card.
2. Update or install the latest version of GeForce Experience (Version 3.18 or higher).
3. Open and log in to GeForce Experience.
4. Go to the Account drop-down menu select “REDEEM”.
5. Enter your bundle code from your qualifying bundle purchase.
6. Follow the remaining instructions on screen.
 
buschman31 said:
I still have the screws but dont have the lever arm. That part was sold yrs ago with the Zalmam cooler. If anyone is needing socket 478 hardware, please contact me. I can post pics of what i have if needed.
Click to expand...

I'd be interested in that socket 478 mounting hardware, if still available. Will you please post a pic just to be sure?
 
Andrew_Carr said:
Just got a free code for Redfall if anyone wants. I haven't added it to steam yet but did pull it up the geforce program so and it recognized my GPU (4090) so hopefully this works for anyone now. First come, first serve:

Code: iHzv7Zi8LBkos5xQrp8xRdPM

1. Install your qualified graphics card.
2. Update or install the latest version of GeForce Experience (Version 3.18 or higher).
3. Open and log in to GeForce Experience.
4. Go to the Account drop-down menu select “REDEEM”.
5. Enter your bundle code from your qualifying bundle purchase.
6. Follow the remaining instructions on screen.
Click to expand...
This would be awesome but sucks you have to have a RTX 4000 to redeem
 
Anyone want some Game Informer magazines?





They're quite heavy, rather old, and just taking up space. I figure someone might want them... you don't even need to send me money! Just send me a prepaid shipping label for a Priority Mail Medium Flat Rate Box, and I'll wrap them in bubble wrap, stick them in a box and drop them off at my post office.

Please lemme know if you want these! I'd prefer to not have to throw them out.
 
I have:
- A Verizon Jetpack Netgear Aircard 791L
- A dozen laptop WiFi 5 cards (Mostly RTL8822BE and RTL8822CE, 1x Intel 3165NGW, 1x RTL8723BE)
- Ubiquiti Unifi U6 LR box and mounting hardware (AP was RMA'ed and is NOT included)
- Ubiquiti Litebeam LBE-5AC-GEN2 box, dish, and mounting hardware, just no antenna/radio (also RMA'ed)

EDIT:Just to be clear, neither Ubiquiti item includes the primary device, just everything that would come in the box along with the device in question. In the case of the Litebeam, that does mean the whole metal dish, but again, not the Litebeam device.
 
Last edited:
I'll report back with specifics, but I was wondering if anyone might be interested in a Dual Opteron + Mobo + DDR2 + PCI-X SATA cards? I don't know models just yet, but I'm hopefully going to liberate the hardware from the chassis this weekend, and I can get specs.
I don't imagine it's worth anything other than shipping, but I'll send it out if someone wants it.
 
Kelvarr said:
I'll report back with specifics, but I was wondering if anyone might be interested in a Dual Opteron + Mobo + DDR2 + PCI-X SATA cards? I don't know models just yet, but I'm hopefully going to liberate the hardware from the chassis this weekend, and I can get specs.
I don't imagine it's worth anything other than shipping, but I'll send it out if someone wants it.
Click to expand...
I'm sure several of us that have an affinity for 'ye olde crappe' would have fun with it. :)
 
By any chance would anyone have one of these Asus Vertical M.2 brackets they don't need? Got an X99 Deluxe that has a single vertical m.2 slot, but unfortunately don't have the vertical bracket. Picture below.

M2-2_575px.jpg
 
h_2_o said:
not really free but if you have a 3d printer or know someone you can print it (i think it is the right one) https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3970116
Click to expand...
Yea, was looking at that earlier. I have a brand new ender 5 plus that's been sitting in it's box for months. I just don't have the room to set it up right now, nor the time, considering all the custom DIY addons and stepper motor replacements I have to go through. Will turn into a week long side project knowing me, especially considering I'll be running a third party OS on it. Also don't have any friends with a 3d printer unfortunately.

If worse comes to worse, I'll glue gun the edges of the ssd in place as a temporary measure, but knowing me, I'd forget, and when I go dust out the case with my compressor, might end up snapping the ssd in half...hahaha. So yea, just thought I'd throw a request for the bracket to the wind and see what happens. Good looking out though, much appreciated.
 
I have a Dell Optiplex 790 motherboard with an i3-2105 and 6GB of RAM that I'm trying to get rid of. Anyone want it for the price of shipping? The front panel and fan headers are non-standard, but I'll include adapters for them.

EDIT: Claimed!
 
Last edited:
Mohonri said:
I have a Dell Optiplex 790 motherboard with an i3-2105 and 6GB of RAM that I'm trying to get rid of. Anyone want it for the price of shipping? The front panel and fan headers are non-standard, but I'll include adapters for them.
Click to expand...
Does it take a standard Atx Psu? If so I’d be interested as my kids want to set up a Minecraft server.
 
atwood7fan said:
ISO a USB 3.0 pci-e card if anyone has one.
Click to expand...
I have a sealed Mediasonic HP1-SU3 card (UPC 629329000494) you can have for the cost of shipping, but it's 12 years old so it's super early USB3.0 and might be wonky (the reviews suggest that anyway.) I can ship it out first class in an envelope since it's still boxed. I planned to install that on my system, but I ran out of PCI-E slots, so it's been in a shelf for a few years. Feel free to PM me if you want it.
 
I have an older Corsair HX520w psu that i removed from a computer system i bought off facebook . Like to know if anyone have any modular cables from any of the older HX series psu's that they are no longer using?
 
I did some more cleaning / sorting recently and have a few things to list here for the cost of shipping before I pitch them out. Hopefully someone can use them!!

$10 Shpped - Crucial 2GB-DDR2 -800 SODIM
$10 Shipped - Seagate 1TB 3.5" HD
$10 Shipped - Toshiba 1TB 3.5" HD


PXL_20230503_185810841.jpg


PXL_20230503_190432589.jpg


PXL_20230503_190452215.jpg
 
Your order entitles you to a promotional code.

Your promotional code: 49BYtRfTg1FAkiWWfGbGZKxf

Thank you for your GeForce RTX 40 Series purchase.

To redeem your promotional code for Overwatch 2 Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle, please follow the steps below:

REDEEM YOUR COUPON THROUGH GEFORCE EXPERIENCE.

1. Install your qualified graphics card.
2. Update or install the latest version of GeForce Experience. (Version 3.18 or higher)
3. Open and log in to GeForce Experience
4. Go to the Account drop-down menu and select “REDEEM”.
5. Enter your bundle code from your qualifying bundle purchase.
6. Follow the remaining instructions on screen to sign in through your Battle.net account.
7. Select “REDEEM” to redeem Overwatch 2 Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle to your Battle.net account.
8. LAUNCH Battle.net to begin installation.
9. For troubleshooting help, please visit our FAQ here. If you’re still experiencing problems please contact our customer support team.
Click to expand...
 
Might be a longshot - but does anybody have a mini-ITX LGA1155 or LGA1150 board they have collecting dust?
 
Ikasu said:
Yea, was looking at that earlier. I have a brand new ender 5 plus that's been sitting in it's box for months. I just don't have the room to set it up right now, nor the time, considering all the custom DIY addons and stepper motor replacements I have to go through. Will turn into a week long side project knowing me, especially considering I'll be running a third party OS on it. Also don't have any friends with a 3d printer unfortunately.

If worse comes to worse, I'll glue gun the edges of the ssd in place as a temporary measure, but knowing me, I'd forget, and when I go dust out the case with my compressor, might end up snapping the ssd in half...hahaha. So yea, just thought I'd throw a request for the bracket to the wind and see what happens. Good looking out though, much appreciated.
Click to expand...
Send the 5+ to me, and I will print your bracket. 😁
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top