[vcf-midatlantic] almost vintage computer free to "good home"

[William Dudley]

I have a Dell Optiplex GX280 that I'd rather not send to the landfill.

It's in a large tower case.  Dates from 2004-ish
Pentium 4 cpu, 3.2GHz, NOT 64 bit capable
No hard drive, but includes ATA DVD drive.
No RAM (takes up to 4 400 or 533 MHz DDR2)
Includes mother board video, also includes some kind of semi-trick
video card  ("PCI Express x16 DVI video card",
according to Dell).

Sometimes the computer won't POST.  Some forum searching
suggested applying pressure to the heat sink, and lo and behold,
this "fixed" the problem.

>From this I infer that there's a dodgy solder joint under the CPU socket.
This can sometimes be fixed by dribbling liquid flux around the edge of
the socket (so it runs underneath) and then heating the socket with
a heat gun for 30 sec to a minute.  I use kitchen aluminum foil to mask off
everything but the socket, so the small SMT parts on the motherboard don't
start wandering about or "tombstoning".

If that's too much like work, you could put a brick on it.  Or a piece of
foam
rubber between the heat sink shroud and the cover.

This computer and I are located in Jackson, NJ.  I can meet you or deliver
to
a "reasonable" radius from here, which radius includes the museum in Wall,
NJ.
It's kinda big to ship, so I'm less interested in shipping, although if you
want it
bad enough, I could pack it up for shipment.

Bill Dudley
Jackson, NJ

This email is free of malware because I run Linux.