I thought people made this stuff up!
So apparently this really does happen. An ebayer listed a motherboard bundle as Spare PC Parts or something completely vague like it. The listing was in the Campervan and camper section, believe it or not. Condition was faulty not working and there was zero description as to what the parts were, other than the photos.
So with all that in mind, it’s not surprising I was the sole bidder and won the auction for £2.99 with £5 postage.
CPU yanked from the socket.
I was disappointed when I removed the bubblewrap from the motherboard and saw there was no CPU in the socket. When I opened the bubblewrap surrounding the cooler, I was surprised, happy and shocked all at the same time.
It defies logic, why do this? Just leave everything in place, where it is safe.
With a firm but gentle twist, the CPU was carefully released from the grip of the cooler.
Reinstalling the CPU
With my heart pounding I gently lowered the CPU into the socket. It would not go in. A bit of wiggling, blowing on the socket, waggling the socket lever and more wiggling, it eventually found it’s home, on the K8T8AS Jetway motherboard.
AGP Goodness
This is what attracted me to the auction, the asking price on this card is ridiculous. I don’t know if they sell, but you never know, it’s worth a shot anyway.
Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64Mb 631 5058605
Also included in the bundle was a PCI Soundblaster card, PCI Firewire, PCI TV tuner and PCI network adapter.
Firing it up.
Despite the sellers attempt to damage the CPU pins with stupidity and lack of common sense, it did boot to bios.
What a good result. This will be a nice little retro gaming PC for anyone who’s looking for an older system. IDE and SATA are both supported, so you can mix older and new drives with ease.
I’ve listed the GPU on ebay for a silly high price, to see if someone will take it. Failing that, I can list the whole bundle for a 99p start and take my chances on it earning more than the £8 I paid for it.
A nice find.