Brag about the "good deals" that you've bought!

[fuscob]

I needed a server, so I looked on CraigsList. I found a listing for five Dell PowerEdge 1950s, $500/each, with the only specification listed being that they had 2x73GB hard drives.

I figured that the worst they could possibly be is a single quad-core CPU and 2GB of RAM, but they're highly upgradable, so I e-mailed the seller saying that I'd take three of them pending a listing of the full specifications. Even the lowest-end PowerEdge 1950 is worth more than $500.

They were dual quad-core (that's eight cores) Xeon 2.0GHz CPUs, 4GB of RAM, 2x73GB 15000RPM SAS drives, Dell remote-access card, and four NICs, with the four-hour response time onsite warranty until October 2010. I told him I'd definitely take three of them, for a total of $1500.

I kept one, which I am using now after upgrading to 20 GB RAM and two 1TB hard disks, and it works quite nicely. The other two I sold for $1300 each. That's $1600 profit, which is more than I paid for all three of them in the first place. Not a bad return on investment!

[pianowizard]

I just got my third Dell 2407WFP LCD monitor, for only $115 shipped! I got the first one in Nov 2006 for $581 and the second one in Aug 2008 for $312.50. The 2407WFP is by far my favorite monitor.

I'm using two of these 2407WFP's at work and just took a photo of the setup -- see this thread.

[jronald]

2 T30 batteries with 0 charges for $5.66 each
Is the best I can do

Ron

[doctor bloomquist]

You know those tacky chinese iphone clones doing the rounds? I got this 'KA08' tiny wee beauty on fleabay http://ka08phonereview.com for £40 including shipping from hongkong(around $65 at our appalling exchange rate these days). Lots of lovely extras; Takes 2 sims at the same time, 2gb free memory card, can record your conversations and is the size of a credit card. You take your chances with stuff from China, especially on eBay, but this time I'm well impressed, for the money it's amazing.

[ibmfreak]

You know those tacky chinese iphone clones doing the rounds? I got this 'KA08' tiny wee beauty on fleabay http://ka08phonereview.com for £40 including shipping from hongkong(around $65 at our appalling exchange rate these days). Lots of lovely extras; Takes 2 sims at the same time, 2gb free memory card, can record your conversations and is the size of a credit card. You take your chances with stuff from China, especially on eBay, but this time I'm well impressed, for the money it's amazing.

I would watch out those chinese made mobile phones. I have bought two of them, had to sell them immediate away. They are total crap. (Guaranteed phones will break down in few feeks or months and there is no warranty from chinese ebay sellers)

[doctor bloomquist]

Hmmm. Perhaps I should post on the 1 month anniversary and say whether it's working or not!

[doctor bloomquist]

Well, apologies to anyone who was waiting, it's been more than a month but the phone is still working! Despite being so small and light I routinely drop it out of my pockets

[kosse]

I bought a broken Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook Tablet (T3010) for 10 euros recently. I had time to look at it this evening and found out that someone had spilled coke or some juice in it which apparently caused it to shut down a few seconds from powering up. Well, I took it apart and found juice on the circuit board that is connected to the power plug. Then I found juice also in the cable connecting this circuit board to the motherboard. I cleaned the connector and now I have a working Lifebook T3010. It's only a Pentum M laptop but it will make great little machine for checking mails and browsing the net

[RoxyRose]

First deal: found a P4 desktop on the street, sold it for $150, with that $150 bought a psp, then traded that psp for an X32 and then sold that x32 for $900. Second deal was a Vaio s460 for the price of shipping (had just lost my job- it was a miracle!). Lastly,a T40 for 90 bucks shipped that only needed a few parts running (sold for $275 last year).

[LegendaryKA8]

Some of the more recent ones I've had:

I'm itching for a multi-monitor setup. I was going to shell out the megabucks for three LCD monitors with at least WUXGA resolution, but admittedly I do like the 4:3 format.

I'm in the process of moving my girlfriend out of her mom's house. When opening up her garage, I saw two large-ish CRT monitors and made her mom an offer on the larger. She told me to take it for free. It turned out to be a pretty high-end 19" Sony Trinitron(branded Dell) with max UXGA resolution. There are some scratches on the face which I can't repair, but it makes for a mighty fine secondary monitor. I'll pick up the other one up when I have the time.

Spurred on by this find, I ended up looking at my local used electronic store today and found a ViewSonic P220FB; a 22" CRT with a max of QXGA resolution. With taxes out the door, I spent a little less than $50. It's a huge(nearly 80lb) discontinued CRT, but not a bad deal for a monitor capable of displaying QXGA.

[dr_st]

Spurred on by this find, I ended up looking at my local used electronic store today and found a ViewSonic P220FB; a 22" CRT with a max of QXGA resolution. With taxes out the door, I spent a little less than $50. It's a huge(nearly 80lb) discontinued CRT, but not a bad deal for a monitor capable of displaying QXGA.

Any half-decent CRT of 19" and larger (probably also most 17") is capable of displaying QXGA, but doing so at a reasonable refresh rate (>60Hz) and with readable fonts is a prerogative of a few select ones. Sounds like a good monitor indeed.

[LegendaryKA8]

Any half-decent CRT of 19" and larger (probably also most 17") is capable of displaying QXGA, but doing so at a reasonable refresh rate (>60Hz) and with readable fonts is a prerogative of a few select ones. Sounds like a good monitor indeed.

Absolutely... however unfortunately I can't get this particular monitor to display anything over UXGA with my T60p, at least without everything looking strange. Color accuracy isn't as great as the Flexview panel I'm used to, but I'm finding reading text is very comfortable and really sharp(the user manual states that UXGA is the most optimum resolution for it). I only had a few minutes to play with it, so I might be able to tinker around with it a little later.

[pianowizard]

I can't get this particular monitor to display anything over UXGA with my T60p, at least without everything looking strange.

What do you mean by "strange"? I once had a 20.8" QXGA LCD monitor with VGA input and all of the Thinkpads I tested (ranging from T42 to T60) could properly display only up to UXGA. When I set the res to QXGA, the screen still showed only UXGA and I needed to scroll down and to the right to see the rest of the QXGA. My 9-year-old Compaq desktop didn't have this problem, so there was nothing wrong with the monitor. I was surprised by this, because all these Thinkpads are supposed to support QXGA via VGA according to IBM/Lenovo's publications.

LegendaryKA8, I think you should test your CRT monitor with a desktop computer.

[LegendaryKA8]

Well, part of the 'strangeness' was the background not stretching, but I ended up fixing that. I've poked around with both my T60p and X61s; I haven't had a working desktop for years so unfortunately I can't test with one.

The T60p will drive my new display at a max res of 1920x1440.

The X61s will drive it at a max res of 1920x1200.

I haven't tried it with my T60p, but with the X61s I can select QXGA on my 19" Dell. However, as I've heard that monitor drives UXGA maximum I don't want to push it; I blew a cheaper CRT years ago trying to get it to push QXGA.

[paul*robertson]

Well, apologies to anyone who was waiting, it's been more than a month but the phone is still working! Despite being so small and light I routinely drop it out of my pockets

Is it still working. I like to have a spare phone in my car for emergencies and was looking at one of these.

[LegendaryKA8]

A little bit of an update. That 22" ViewSonic CRT decided to wonk out so I ended up taking it back to the shop I bought it from. I did a straight trade for a 17" Sony flatscreen CRT that looks like it's in great condition, and... an IBM Model M keyboard. Looking at the Clickykeyboards.com website, my particular model is quite rare(black IBM logo on silver backing and no caps/num/scroll lock LED indicators) and is possibly one of the first Model M's produced... date of 20 January 1986. The guy at the shop even threw in a DIN to PS/2 adapter for free, so all I need is a USB converter/adapter and I'm all set. Looking at the corp. asset label on the bottom it belonged to a local company that specializes in software development for the banking industry. The whole unit is in great condition, except for needing a right Alt keycap and a bit of cleaning up. My dream 'desktop' setup is starting to become a reality, it seems.

[jronald]

What I purchased was an OEM T30 panel, for an OK price on SleezeBay.
What I got was an SXGA T30 LCD for $32 shipped!
Ron

[amw_drizz]

A couple of weeks ago I hit my local computer warehouse, and picked up a Dell Power Edge 2650 for $190 + tax ($205 out the door) with 3x36gb hd's, 1 Intel Xeon 3.06 ghz, 4gb DDR ECC/Buffered Ram, 2 onboard 10/100/1000 nic's + 1 remote access NIC @ 10/100.

Now I want to get 2 dual / quad core xeons for it. Local prices lists the server in its current config (with only 1gb of ram) at about $500.00

[j-dawg]

Just bought a 12" G4 Powerbook off a classmate for $20 (1.5GHz, 512mb, Bluetooth, DVD burner). It needs a new screen but that was $30. I am pretty pumped to install it when it arrives. For a laptop that's usually $250-400, that's not bad.

[pianowizard]

I just picked up an NEC MultiSync LCD2070NX monitor for $40, through Craigslist. 20" 1600x1200 with USB ports, in excellent condition. This LCD panel is either IPS or MVA.

[n1nj4Lo]

Just got a Fujitsu Lifebook T4215 (1st gen Core2Dou Tablet) for 125.00 bucks on eBay... Only had a 40Gb hard drive in it, went to microcenter and got yet another good deal a 500Gb SATA II Laptop hard drive for the Fujitsu for 54 bucks and then lastly 4Gb's of ram (2x2) off eBay for 30 bucks. It came with 2Gb's originally.

Latest ThinkPad Find was a T30 at a thrift store for 20 something bucks, all that was needed was a new hard drive since the original was password locked in bios.

[doctor bloomquist]

doctor bloomquist wrote:
Well, apologies to anyone who was waiting, it's been more than a month but the phone is still working! Despite being so small and light I routinely drop it out of my pockets


Is it still working. I like to have a spare phone in my car for emergencies and was looking at one of these.

Still going strong, cleaned it up recently http://flounders-mindthots.blogspot.com ... creen.html

[n1nj4Lo]

Ohh phones too? I guess anything electronic! LoL

I bought (Around December) off some regular phone forum I post at a lot a mint condition HTC Touch Pro2 Sprint World Phone for 110 bucks from another member, came with everything that it did when sold through retail turned it on through Boost mobile for 20 bucks then 50 bucks unlimited everything monthly. Now my bill has since then dropped down to 40 a month and in 6 more months my bill will drop down to 35 and stay there for as long as I'm a customer and I'll still get unlimited everything... The longer you stay, the less you pay plan.

I've since then upgraded my Sandisk 16Gb microSD Class 2 to a Adata 32Gb Class 4 that I bought off some knock off small personally owned mom and pop electronics store for 65 bucks and won off eBay (Through a personal seller) a 4500mAh Mugen Power battery for the phone for 50 bucks last week that usually retails everywhere even on eBay for 96 to 100 bucks.

All thats left for me to do now with it is unlock the sim card slot and maybe flash a better rom to the phone... I've already got it dual booting Android Gingerbread off the microSD Card.

[pianowizard]

Ohh phones too? I guess anything electronic! LoL

Sure! Why not?

I bought (Around December) off some regular phone forum I post at a lot a mint condition HTC Touch Pro2 Sprint World Phone for 110 bucks from another member

I too have an HTC Touch Pro2 and love it! Sprint had it on sale for $200 in April 2010, and so I decided to upgrade to it from my beat-up Palm Centro. Since Nov 2007, my phone/data plan has been Sprint's SERO, i.e. $30/month for phone + unlimited internet + unlimited texting. I got a 32GB microSD card for this HTC for $56.69 straight from Sandisk when it was on sale last November.

[rossmosis]

I bought a big ol' stack of five Thinkpads a few months back for $40, an Apple Ibook for ten, Thinkcentre m55 (missing hard drive) for $13, PowerMac G4 Qucksilver 2002 with 15" Apple LCD for $30, and today I found an unopened IBM Preferred keyboard from 1998 for a dollar at a thrift store, just makes me think of how much has changed since that keyboard was last in daylight in the factory.

[doctor bloomquist]

just makes me think of how much has changed since that keyboard was last in daylight in the factory.

And not all for the better, but can you imagine affording a 'stack' of thinkpads in 98

[rossmosis]

Haha very true! I could have bought a used car instead! Every time I buy a computer ridiculously cheap I look up its original price of it to guarantee that I wont get buyer's remorse, ten bucks for a $2000 computer is always a good deal, I don't care how long ago it was made

[LegendaryKA8]

I had some real good luck about a month ago. A guy on the local Craigslist was selling a 1.8", 256GB SSD because the 1.8" to 2.5" adapter would only work on Lenovo computers. It turned out to be the nice Samsung FDE SSD. I managed to get it for only $100. Works perfectly.

[roguetrooper]

from eBay in the last few weeks

3 x T41 basic models without WLAN/BT, with PSU, very clean examples £35 = $55 each including postage

R51 described as dead no HDD, booted fine when received, Intel GPU XGA model with WLAN/BT/1394, very clean $90.

A31 yet to arrive also $55, looks clean from pictures, has no HDD, otherwise state unknown but it does boot to BIOS, may be an A31p, possibly has a PSU included.

[hiram]

I bought this:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... 0576712939
for $1.25. Reinstalled the operating system and resold it for $38.

I bought this:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... 0716465451
for what I thought was an OK price. But I didn't pay enough attention to the picture and did not see it had a UK power plug. So I went on ebay and got this:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... 0851755807
for 1 pence, free postage! I still cannot understand how that works.

Just recently bought these:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... 0552982774
for 99 cents. Do not really have a use for them, just could not bear to see the auction end with no bid.

All are local pickup or free postage.