Wasn't sure if this belonged in Systems, or Interests & Hobbies. Kinda both? But, flipped a coin, and put it here.
Went with my son to the local township municipal building, as they have the electronics recycling there - and it's basically a metal trailer. We go to drop off some remains of machines, one dead, the other questionable and raided for parts.
Usually I poke around to see if anything interesting, PC-wise, was left, and I've had the occasional interesting find. Today, I find a Dell XPS, case looks exactly like the XPS 8700 I once had, and is virtually spotless. Additionally, another Dell, probably an XPS 8910, 8920, or 8930, judging by the case, though the side panel is missing. But, the front protective film has never been peeled off, though some of the edges of it are, unsurprisingly, ragged. The have PSUs, RAM, CPUs, and optical drives, and, obviously, the Windows 10 Home licenses tied to the motherboard.
I figure, what the heck, maybe I can get them working.
Stupidly, I forgot to check deeper in the big, and sparsely populated, dumping box to see if the side panel for the latter machine is there. Will take a quick run back tomorrow, hoping a ton of stuff hasn't been piled on by then.
So, with the 8700, the PSU was unscrewed, but still in place, but the screws holding the power connector were removed, as were the screws holding the LED and test button on it, and two of the rear fan screws. A small ziploc bad of screws, and the PCI retaining bracket, were in the case.
With the 89x0, the power cable was in there, and, it looked like the PSU was unscrewed, some clear flexible inner plastic shielding now sitting outside the outer shell, the shell crookedly and sloppily put back on, and screwed down crookedly.
Unscrewing and lifting the outer shell gave me enough room to slip the plastic back in place, and then I was able to put the outer shell on properly. One screw missing, but of no consequence. And, lo and behold, not only does it work, but it's an 8930 with an i7-9700, and 16GB (2x8GB) of DDR4 2666. Plus, an SK Hynix 512 GB NVMe SSD, which I had missed when I was playing with the PSU. It booted to Windows with someone's account, password protected. Didn't matter to me, as I subsequently did a quick install of Windows 10, and everything so far looks fine.
It also has a GTX 1050 Ti. Kinda neat to have.
Likewise with the 8700 - pulled off the outer shell of the PSU so I could hold the power-inlet and the LED/test button brackets in place, and the screws for them were in the ziploc bag, as were the screws for the rear fan, and to hold the PSU to the case. Like its younger brother, the 8700 seems to work fine, though I haven't done an OS install. It's got an i7-8700, and 16GB (4x4GB) of DDR3, presumably 1600MHz.
It had in additon a GT 745, rather than the GT 730 which I think was usually what came with these... at least if my old XPS 8700 was typical.
Absolutely perfectly functional so far. I suspect that both were dropped off by the same person, since both had the PSUs tampered with, but I can't for the life of me figure out what the heck that person was trying to accomplish. Were they deliberately sabotaging themselves or something? It's just nuts.
Went with my son to the local township municipal building, as they have the electronics recycling there - and it's basically a metal trailer. We go to drop off some remains of machines, one dead, the other questionable and raided for parts.
Usually I poke around to see if anything interesting, PC-wise, was left, and I've had the occasional interesting find. Today, I find a Dell XPS, case looks exactly like the XPS 8700 I once had, and is virtually spotless. Additionally, another Dell, probably an XPS 8910, 8920, or 8930, judging by the case, though the side panel is missing. But, the front protective film has never been peeled off, though some of the edges of it are, unsurprisingly, ragged. The have PSUs, RAM, CPUs, and optical drives, and, obviously, the Windows 10 Home licenses tied to the motherboard.
I figure, what the heck, maybe I can get them working.
Stupidly, I forgot to check deeper in the big, and sparsely populated, dumping box to see if the side panel for the latter machine is there. Will take a quick run back tomorrow, hoping a ton of stuff hasn't been piled on by then.
So, with the 8700, the PSU was unscrewed, but still in place, but the screws holding the power connector were removed, as were the screws holding the LED and test button on it, and two of the rear fan screws. A small ziploc bad of screws, and the PCI retaining bracket, were in the case.
With the 89x0, the power cable was in there, and, it looked like the PSU was unscrewed, some clear flexible inner plastic shielding now sitting outside the outer shell, the shell crookedly and sloppily put back on, and screwed down crookedly.
Unscrewing and lifting the outer shell gave me enough room to slip the plastic back in place, and then I was able to put the outer shell on properly. One screw missing, but of no consequence. And, lo and behold, not only does it work, but it's an 8930 with an i7-9700, and 16GB (2x8GB) of DDR4 2666. Plus, an SK Hynix 512 GB NVMe SSD, which I had missed when I was playing with the PSU. It booted to Windows with someone's account, password protected. Didn't matter to me, as I subsequently did a quick install of Windows 10, and everything so far looks fine.
It also has a GTX 1050 Ti. Kinda neat to have.
Likewise with the 8700 - pulled off the outer shell of the PSU so I could hold the power-inlet and the LED/test button brackets in place, and the screws for them were in the ziploc bag, as were the screws for the rear fan, and to hold the PSU to the case. Like its younger brother, the 8700 seems to work fine, though I haven't done an OS install. It's got an i7-8700, and 16GB (4x4GB) of DDR3, presumably 1600MHz.
It had in additon a GT 745, rather than the GT 730 which I think was usually what came with these... at least if my old XPS 8700 was typical.
Absolutely perfectly functional so far. I suspect that both were dropped off by the same person, since both had the PSUs tampered with, but I can't for the life of me figure out what the heck that person was trying to accomplish. Were they deliberately sabotaging themselves or something? It's just nuts.
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