What is your favorite site or store for computer parts? When I was inventorying the various computers and laptops around the house I realized that I don’t own anything newer than eight years ago and most are well over ten. I started shopping for parts to upgrade my main workstation (Intel core2 dual with 8Gb – woohoo!) but quickly realized that there aren’t any parts stores in town anymore except Best Buy. Online, I know most people default to Amazon but I’m loathe to give Bezos any more of my money than I absolutely have to. NewEgg also torques me off by showing a good price but then saying they won’t ship it to foreign countries like Hawaii and Alaska. Most of the sites I used to use have gone out of business. I’m hesitant to get serious new hardware from eBay so that just leaves B&H Photo as about the only online store I’d trust.

Who do you turn to when you need a new motherboard, CPU, SSD, etc?

I buy these trash at eBay... Got a few Dell Optiplex 7010 motherboards, mod it (add a few jumpers, it can be used as a normal ATX board)., mod bios, add nvme support.

These boards are cheap. About $12 shipped for a motherboard to US lower 48 states.

You can use Dell OEM Windows 7 Pro and it will activate automatically. And then you can install Windows 10 Pro.

And with proper CPU (LGA 1155 CPU with 4000 video card, eg, i5-3475s, i7-3770 etc) you can install MacOS catalina / mojave / HS / Sierra easily.

For just a few dollars, you can have USB 3.0, Giga ethernet, etc. Windows, Linux & Mac OS compatible. What else can you ask for?

daviddyer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I buy these trash at eBay... Got a few Dell
> Optiplex 7010 motherboards, mod it (add a few
> jumpers, it can be used as a normal ATX board).,
> mod bios, add nvme support.
>
> These boards are cheap. About $12 shipped for a
> motherboard to US lower 48 states.
>
> You can use Dell OEM Windows 7 Pro and it will
> activate automatically. And then you can install
> Windows 10 Pro.
>
> And with proper CPU (LGA 1155 CPU with 4000 video
> card, eg, i5-3475s, i7-3770 etc) you can install
> MacOS catalina / mojave / HS / Sierra easily.
>
> For just a few dollars, you can have USB 3.0, Giga
> ethernet, etc. Windows, Linux & Mac OS compatible.
> What else can you ask for?

I can vouch for part of Optiplex with at least this avoidable caveat:
The 1) power supplies with the Optiplex' I know of are in the low 200 watt range and I think 8 pin power supply necessitating a 3rd party adapter if you don't want your CPU starved sometimes and 2) there can be USB trouble if you don't use a 3rd party front panel header if you are installing this in a non-Dell case.

I bought a renewed Optiplex 7040 from Amazon - I too won't give Bezos any penny I don't have to; I still do free Prime trials 9 times a year and cancel LOL - but back to that computer, it's fantastic, has i7, 32 GB RAM and can go 64GB, was in the high $260s around Halloween and went up $40 4 days later! Probably right exactly the next couple weeks and then mid August are the best times to buy, according to the 15 years I was broke one time LOL

This little Libre Renegade is a blast too, even runs Reaper for Linux aarch64!

Before i get out of your hair, I think one strategy for low-output power supplies like mine is use USB 3 powered hubs to get some strain off it. I bought an adapter for $19 so I could use my 600 watt power supply but haven's tried it yet and there's no convenient place to sit a power supply like that with the fan underneath so that sucks.

=========
-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2023 01:38PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

I frequently get items from MicroCenter, but they have a location near me. Not sure what their shipping policy is, but you may want to see if it works for you. I've been using them for more than 25 years.

dougdeep Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> (Intel core2 dual with 8Gb – woohoo!) but

Both my main computers were 14 years old and now replaced; (the AMD Phenom 2) was finally recycled before the Goodwill guy got busted for some kiddie porn site and now they're shuttered. ADD, sorry..

Anyway that beautiful Intel, did you know the dime-a-dozen Intel 6600 CPU (from around that time) has a trick where a tiny bit of metal (foil or paintable if I remember right) underneath and it's boosted way up safely? Worth DuckDuckgo'ing.

=========
-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2023 09:55PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

> NewEgg also torques me off by
> showing a good price but then saying they won’t
> ship it to foreign countries like Hawaii and
> Alaska.

LOL.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

For me, it's Newegg (90% of the time), Monoprice, Microcenter and Best Buy, in that order. Only once have had an issue and that was with a Monoprice product. They immediately shipped a replacement and told me to keep the original product.

Thank you for the suggestions. I normally cruise eBay looking for used HP ProBooks and ProDesks for friends. Those that are just “off lease” typically mean that they’re business computers and not likely to be too abused. My daily driver is a HP Compaq Pro 6305 running Ubuntu LTS and now 11 years old. Works great but I know one day that weirdo semi-proprietary power supply will pack it in.

The Intel workstation I’m trying to upgrade is needed to run an Autodesk suite (Autocad, Revit, and others). Autodesk products work well but they’re storage and resource pigs. The 2023 version of everything is sucking up half the 500 gig SSD all by itself so I’m trying to get ahead of things before the 2024 version is released. That’s when I began to notice the dearth of available new hardware suppliers. I remember everyone whining about supply chains a year ago and I’d expect inflation to raise prices now but I’m surprised that there just isn’t a lot of retail selection out there.

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:

>
> I can vouch for part of Optiplex with at least
> this avoidable caveat:
> The 1) power supplies with the Optiplex' I know of
> are in the low 200 watt range and I think 8 pin
> power supply necessitating a 3rd party adapter if
> you don't want your CPU starved sometimes and 2)
> there can be USB trouble if you don't use a 3rd
> party front panel header if you are installing
> this in a non-Dell case.

Some of the Optiplex 7010 motherboards (such as GY6Y8, WR7PY) use standard atx power supply.

There is a standard usb 3.0 connector on the MB (Can connect two USB 3.0 ports).

And the MB has four usb 2.0 ports and two usb 3.0 ports in the back.


>
> I bought a renewed Optiplex 7040 from Amazon - I
> too won't give Bezos any penny I don't have to; I
> still do free Prime trials 9 times a year and
> cancel LOL - but back to that computer, it's
> fantastic, has i7, 32 GB RAM and can go 64GB, was
> in the high $260s around Halloween and went up $40
> 4 days later! Probably right exactly the next
> couple weeks and then mid August are the best
> times to buy, according to the 15 years I was
> broke one time LOL
>
> This little
> Libre
> Renegade is a blast too, even runs
> Reaper for Linux
> aarch64!
>
> Before i get out of your hair, I think one
> strategy for low-output power supplies like mine
> is use USB 3 powered hubs to get some strain off
> it. I bought an adapter for $19 so I could use my
> 600 watt power supply but haven's tried it yet and
> there's no convenient place to sit a power supply
> like that with the fan underneath so that sucks.