eBay bargains - what's your latest conquest?

[TheShortTimer]

Going back to what the repairer is trying to do, I did wonder how long it will take before people crack it, if possible and third party sellers produce RAM/storage chips to be soldered onto closed systems assuming that stuff like OpenCore could get past any firmware/EFI limitations. Apple's move to SoCs has probably killed that one off, though.

Reportedly, a Chinese engineer has managed to upgrade the M1's SSD and RAM but unsurprisingly it was an arduous task and vulnerable to retaliatory measures by Apple, similar to the efforts mentioned here to discourage and prevent user-repairs on newer iPhones.

As for the repairer, here's an update on their saga.

No spoilers from me. I'll be interested in your comments once you've seen it.

 

[lepidotós]

800DP Quicksilver for $80.50, though after S&H and tax it ended up being $130. I'll run trials between it and Aleister Crowley to decide on a server and use the other as my desktop, though I'm predicting both will do fine since the pages are static. Yeah, a Pi is going to do a potentially better job, and I have one on hand, but part of the point is in proving these machines can still do serious work.
I was offered my choice of a community member's collection of extras a while ago for the same price, but I'm in the middle of moving away and won't be able to drive back to take him up on it.​

 

[z970]

A Chinese engineer has managed to upgrade the M1's SSD and RAM.

Approximately ten years ago in most industries, this statement was laughable at best.

It goes without saying of course that something has gone terribly wrong in the world of general purpose computing since then, but I suppose I'm just preaching to the choir ...

 

[weckart]

Reportedly, a Chinese engineer has managed to upgrade the M1's SSD and RAM but unsurprisingly it was an arduous task and vulnerable to retaliatory measures by Apple, similar to the efforts mentioned here to discourage and prevent user-repairs on newer iPhones.

Thanks for that. I hadn't paid close attention to the hardware and assumed that SoC really meant that RAM and storage were combined on one mega chip such that it wasn't possible to separate out the individual components. At least, this doesn't mean the immediate death of a notebook just because the storage wore out, assuming that this sort of invasive surgery gets a little easier and cheaper with practice.

 

[Rikintosh]

Bought this unit for $53 with a bad psu. It's a G4 733, overclocked to 800mhz, rock solid, and very quiet.
I changed the psu, made some adjustments to get 28v, and did a complete overhaul/restore.

 

[Rikintosh]

Apple's policies are ridiculous, I buy a product, but according to them, I don't have full ownership, it's like I rented the equipment. I can't take it to a third-party service or try to fix it at home, I'm forced to pay exorbitant amounts in apple authorized technical assistance.

I like old computers a lot, but I don't buy anything current from apple. It's funny how 30 years ago they criticized companies like IBM for doing just that kind of thing, and today they are. That's what they say: Die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Thanks for that. I hadn't paid close attention to the hardware and assumed that SoC really meant that RAM and storage were combined on one mega chip such that it wasn't possible to separate out the individual components. At least, this doesn't mean the immediate death of a notebook just because the storage wore out, assuming that this sort of invasive surgery gets a little easier and cheaper with practice.

Speaking of surgery, here's the final instalment of the MBA repair.

The videographers channel is interesting but he often struggles due to a failure to carry out research beforehand on the items that he's going to tackle and in this instance he's unfamiliar with Macs.

 

[LightBulbFun]

with another ebay find on its way I figured I should get round to posting the last one I got a couple months back but never got round to posting

which is this 1.42Ghz eMac I have always had a soft spot for the eMac (many years ago one was going to be my first Macintosh but the seller back then never did ship it out) and I have always wanted a 1.42 on account of being a CRT Mac with a decent core image GPU a fun mix of old and new

so decided to set out to pick one up before they all vanish

so I was pleased to find this one for a good price and where it was close enough that the seller was able to personally deliver it to my door so I did not have to risk it to the postal system

oh and of course I managed to shoehorn Mac OS X 10.1.5 onto it

as a fun side note I got the User manual with it, which contains a System profiler shot of an EVT Prototype as well as the prototype serial number, note the early BootROM version relative to the production model and also the fact its running Panther (or a Beta of Tiger? I dont know when System profilers design changed if it was during the beta or if it had already been changed by tiger Beta 1)

 

[Adarna]

with another ebay find on its way I figured I should get round to posting the last one I got a couple months back but never got round to posting

which is this 1.42Ghz eMac I have always had a soft spot for the eMac (many years ago one was going to be my first Macintosh but the seller back then never did ship it out) and I have always wanted a 1.42 on account of being a CRT Mac with a decent core image GPU a fun mix of old and new

so decided to set out to pick one up before they all vanish

View attachment 1946997
so I was pleased to find this one for a good price and where it was close enough that the seller was able to personally deliver it to my door so I did not have to risk it to the postal system

oh and of course I managed to shoe horn Mac OS X 10.1.5 onto it

View attachment 1947000

as a fun side note I got the User manual with it, which contains a System profiler shot of an EVT Prototype as well as the prototype serial number, note the early BootROM version relative to the production model and also the fact its running Panther (or a Beta of Tiger? I dont know when System profilers design changed if it was during the beta or if it had already been changed by tiger Beta 1)

View attachment 1947004

What I miss the most about these paper manuals is the smell.

 

[B S Magnet]

as a fun side note I got the User manual with it, which contains a System profiler shot of an EVT Prototype as well as the prototype serial number, note the early BootROM version relative to the production model and also the fact its running Panther (or a Beta of Tiger? I dont know when System profilers design changed if it was during the beta or if it had already been changed by tiger Beta 1)

View attachment 1947004

First, awesome find! The end of the CRT line! Also, yours was built in the Czech Republic. Nice.

Second, I’m mesmerized by that EVT unit screencap — particularly because the manufacture location is identical to that found on the Pismo and early titanium PowerBooks (Taiwan) and the manufacture date puts it, inexplicably, at the 21st week of 2002. That is exactly when the first eMacs went into production.

It’s almost as if they had a testing mule which probably didn’t look anything like an eMac (i.e., no case), but which had an EVT logic board from 2002 kicking around, and they were able to shoehorn in a 1.42GHz CPU with probably some custom-rigged cooling system… and along the way, did all of this when the current OS was still Panther. Like, sometime in 2003 or 2004, when they had a bunch of 1.42GHz chips handy from the making of the MDD 1.42GHz Power Mac G4s and were trying to figure out whether a 1.42GHz variant could be in the eMac’s product future.

Now I’m idly wondering whether they contemplated anything faster and found there wasn’t a good way to dissipate the heat — or whether the PowerPC’s lease on life in Macs simply ran out.

 

[lepidotós]

I needed a mouse since my normal one is on loan, so $20 and I get to experience the horror. I wasn't sure if it was bondi or blueberry from the pictures, but it's blueberry. I don't mind, it looks nice either way.​

 

[LightBulbFun]

with another ebay find on its way

and here it is A MacBookPro4,1 I managed to pickup for a very nice price (especially as it came with a fairly good condition first gen magsafe 1 charge thats worth what I paid for the whole machine)

have wanted one of these for a fair while now because they are able to run a very wide range of OS X versions, from Tiger to 10.13.6 (and beyond even if you dont mind serious system patching)

the MBP4,1 is basically a MacBookPro3,1 but with a Penryn CPU upgrade which thanks to Penryn's SSE4.1 support allows it to un-officially go far beyond its official 10.11.6 maximum, but because it is very similar to a MBP3,1 and Apple kindly added Penryn CPU support to Tiger (despite no penryn mac ever shipping with tiger) you can also shoehorn 10.4.11 onto it with full graphics acceleration too

as you may have noticed from the decreasing PCIe lane width in the pictures, this machine sadly is not one with the revised GPU and the ticking time bomb has already started counting down so its a case of placing bets on how long it will keep going! I actually kindly got given a dead MBP4,1 a while back with suspected GPU issues, so when this one dies, it can Join it in the queue to my BGA rework station LOL

no green dot as expected but the 4GB of RAM is nice at least

it came to me without a Battery which I thought "ah no problem ill grab the still good battery from the other dead MBP4,1 I have!"

so much for that Idea LOL, I do have another battery somewhere an Anker one I got many years ago for my long dead MBP3,1, but of course its vanished after regularly being spotted in the past...

at least the machine throttling itself to buggery due to the lack of a battery will keep the dying GPU going for as long as possible LOL (tho I would like to get a battery fitted before I start chucking heavier OS's on it)

 

[B S Magnet]

I needed a mouse since my normal one is on loan, so $20 and I get to experience the horror. I wasn't sure if it was bondi or blueberry from the pictures, but it's blueberry. I don't mind, it looks nice either way.​

View attachment 1948975

Without the finger ridge revision of the later puck mice, those are not fun to use, especially when reaching for it and not looking beforehand.

With the ridge, they become usable and even quite nice to use — at least as rollerball mice go.

and here it is A MacBookPro4,1 I managed to pickup for a very nice price (especially as it came with a fairly good condition first gen magsafe 1 charge thats worth what I paid for the whole machine)

View attachment 1949053

have wanted one of these for a fair while now because they are able to run a very wide range of OS X versions, from Tiger to 10.13.6 (and beyond even if you dont mind serious system patching)

the MBP4,1 is basically a MacBookPro3,1 but with a Penryn CPU upgrade which thanks to Penryn's SSE4.1 support allows it to un-officially go far beyond its official 10.11.6 maximum, but because it is very similar to a MBP3,1 and Apple kindly added Penryn CPU support to Tiger (despite no penryn mac ever shipping with tiger) you can also shoehorn 10.4.11 onto it with full graphics acceleration too

View attachment 1949054

as you may have noticed from the decreasing PCIe lane width in the pictures, this machine sadly is not one with the revised GPU and the ticking time bomb has already started counting down so its a case of placing bets on how long it will keep going! I actually kindly got given a dead MBP4,1 a while back with suspected GPU issues, so when this one dies, it can Join it in the queue to my BGA rework station LOL

at least the machine throttling itself to buggery due to the lack of a battery will keep the dying GPU going for as long as possible LOL (tho I would like to get a battery fitted before I start chucking heavier OS's on it)

Nice find, even if time on this GPU is borrowed! Per the serial, this placed yours at the very end of the 15-inch A1260 run, right before they switched to the unibody replacement. Once you get a good battery in there, you’ll love using this laptop often.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Nice find, even if time on this GPU is borrowed!

Is it a given that the GPU is doomed to inevitably fail?

 

[B S Magnet]

Is it a given that the GPU is doomed to inevitably fail?

With the MacBookPro4,1, the number of PCIe lanes displayed in Graphics/Displays is a telltale sign of impending GPU failure for the GeForce 8600M GT:

A normally functioning GPU will show x16 lanes. A failing GPU will show reduced lanes (if think, in factors of 2, so x16 falls to x8, then to x4, then to x2, then to x1):

On @LightBulbFun ’s unit, the Graphics/Displays shows “x1” and not the nominal “x16” (as with the above example). So for that MBP, it’s only a matter of time before complete GPU failure occurs — probably sooner than later.

I learnt all this from the giants of graphics and GPUs on here — @dosdude1 and @Amethyst1 — and I am only a tiny person who’s standing on their shoulders.

 

[TheShortTimer]

So for that MBP, it’s only a matter of time before complete GPU failure occurs — probably sooner than later.

Understood, thanks for the concise explanation.

I learnt all this from the giants of graphics and GPUs on here — @dosdude1 and @Amethyst1 — and I am only a tiny person who’s standing on their shoulders.

Ah, far too modest methinks!

 

[Wild Hare]

Didn't really need another B&W G3... but upon close inspection,
couldn't really pass up a Sonnet Tempo ATA133.
For that price.
On Christmas Eve!

 

[LightBulbFun]

First, awesome find! The end of the CRT line! Also, yours was built in the Czech Republic. Nice.

Second, I’m mesmerized by that EVT unit screencap — particularly because the manufacture location is identical to that found on the Pismo and early titanium PowerBooks (Taiwan) and the manufacture date puts it, inexplicably, at the 21st week of 2002. That is exactly when the first eMacs went into production.

It’s almost as if they had a testing mule which probably didn’t look anything like an eMac (i.e., no case), but which had an EVT logic board from 2002 kicking around, and they were able to shoehorn in a 1.42GHz CPU with probably some custom-rigged cooling system… and along the way, did all of this when the current OS was still Panther. Like, sometime in 2003 or 2004, when they had a bunch of 1.42GHz chips handy from the making of the MDD 1.42GHz Power Mac G4s and were trying to figure out whether a 1.42GHz variant could be in the eMac’s product future.

Now I’m idly wondering whether they contemplated anything faster and found there wasn’t a good way to dissipate the heat — or whether the PowerPC’s lease on life in Macs simply ran out.

Thanks! although I highly doubt its a 2002 eMac board, im pretty sure its a 2004 1.25Ghz Radeon 9200 board going by the BootROM version


Early eMac's used 7450/7451 CPU's which have a different foot print to later 7445/7447/7447A eMacs (and I can also tell its not a CPU borrowed from an MDD as those where 7455's with 256KB of L2 cache, the CPU in the screenshot shows clearly 512KB of L2 cache so it will be 7447A at those clock speeds)

its still most curious nonetheless

I cant recall exactly where but I do recall seeing some other early 1.42Ghz eMac stuff that mentioned a Radeon 9200 instead of the 9600, I do wonder if the 9600 was a last minute call to give the eMac, Core image so it supported all of Tigers features, because the Radeon 9600 is (more or less) pin compatible with the Radeon 9200, so it would not of been hard for apple to drop one in place, and the eMac has a very robust overbuilt cooling system that can easily handle any extra heat output

so much so that it is possible to overclock a 1.42Ghz eMac to 2.08Ghz! https://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench2/329447

which is why I would quite like to see what a 7448 could do in an eMac

 

[LightBulbFun]

With the MacBookPro4,1, the number of PCIe lanes displayed in Graphics/Displays is a telltale sign of impending GPU failure for the GeForce 8600M GT:

A normally functioning GPU will show x16 lanes. A failing GPU will show reduced lanes (if think, in factors of 2, so x16 falls to x8, then to x4, then to x2, then to x1):

View attachment 1949114

On @LightBulbFun ’s unit, the Graphics/Displays shows “x1” and not the nominal “x16” (as with the above example). So for that MBP, it’s only a matter of time before complete GPU failure occurs — probably sooner than later.

I learnt all this from the giants of graphics and GPUs on here — @dosdude1 and @Amethyst1 — and I am only a tiny person who’s standing on their shoulders.

MacBookPro3,1's are also effected in exactly the same way, its how my MBP3,1 I had many moons ago died (that was a trooper of a MacBook Pro, I got it for about £150 back when they regularly went for £500, so of course it was beat to utter crap even before I got it, and by the time it died on me for the final time, there where only about 3 screws holding the entire machine together LOL, made removing the logic board a doddle mind LOL)

I dont think I have ever seen one drop down to PCIe x2, they generally go 16x 8x 4x 1x Dead LOL, and they can jump around as well

PCIe x2 is a bit of an odd value that not all PCIe devices and hosts actually support, so it may be physically connected at 2x at one point but it will just default to 1x

 

[TheShortTimer]

MacBookPro3,1's are also effected in exactly the same way, its how my MBP3,1 I had many moons ago died (that was a trooper of a MacBook Pro, I got it for about £150 back when they regularly went for £500, so of course it was beat to utter crap even before I got it, and by the time it died on me for the final time, there where only about 3 screws holding the entire machine together LOL, made removing the logic board a doddle mind LOL)

The imagery of its demise conjures up correlations with this iconic scene from one of my favourite films in which another trooper expires after a prolonged session of epic feats.

On the subject of eBay bargains, it seems that the introduction of an automatic addition of 20% VAT purchases from outside of the UK and the abolition of the VAT threshold, has lessened the prospect of finding cheap(er) stuff abroad. Which of course, is the idea…

 

[weckart]

On the subject of eBay bargains, it seems that the introduction of an automatic addition of 20% VAT purchases from outside of the UK and the abolition of the VAT threshold, has lessened the prospect of finding cheap(er) stuff abroad. Which of course, is the idea…

I honestly find it a case of swings and roundabouts. It really only applied to small items from the Far East, which fell below the £15/€22 threshold. The other side was that private sellers from, say the US, never bothered with VAT considerations and so parcels would be intercepted and handling fees charged on top of import tax unless the seller went via the GSP. At least now, since eBay now collects VAT at source, you won't be worrying about seized parcels or praying that yours slips through customs.

 

[TheShortTimer]

At least now, since eBay now collects VAT at source, you won't be worrying about seized parcels or praying that yours slips through customs.

Mine nearly always slipped through because I took steps to ensure that it would happen.

Ah well, I'm still able to do it elsewhere...

 

[MBAir2010]

there is.....was a seller from florida offering used defective MacBooks for $1 starting bid
here is one
the last 3 minutes the price bids go from $11 to under $60 and they had many MacBooks from the early 2010
including airs and pros, with some MacBooks
if anyone is interested
i sometime just watch the bidding wars on these for fun!

 

[weckart]

there is.....was a seller from florida offering used defective MacBooks for $1 starting bid
here is one
the last 3 minutes the priwcebids go from $11 to under $60 and they had many MacBooks from the early 2010
including airs and pros, with some MacBooks
if anyone is interested
i sometime just watch the bidding wars on these for fun!

It's a cheap way to get new screen/case when yours still works but looks the worse for wear, I suppose.

 

[TheShortTimer]

It's a cheap way to get new screen/case when yours still works but looks the worse for wear, I suppose.

I think you're right because I bought one of these for £12 more and it was in much better condition than that machine. Whilst the HDD's SMART warning is a trivial matter because let's face it, you're going to replace a 500 GB drive immediately anyway, the other issues do not merit $104 USD/£78 GBP imho.

People get carried away with bidding wars and lose sight of whether the item is actually still worth it as the price begins to soar.