Today's find

That is the problem with trying to name a price, they'll say yours is too high, you'll think theirs is too low. When listed properly on Ebay, the "market" will decide, and shipping there will be a "secondary" consideration, instead of a primary one. Rare and less seen items are best listed in a ten day format, beginning Friday afternoon, and running through 2 consecutive weekends and one full week, that's about the best shot you can give it.

On your top photo there, in the lower left, on the main board is an imbedded ALR with what appears to be a label beside it. All I can see is a B-C, possibly a board revision number, and a M/B, possibly the mainboards number? Did you use that (or those) numbers in your search?

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Originally Posted by sixteenacrewood

Thanks again Bear
yes I did searches on several of the board part numbers, no info
same with company google searches

the cpu is of interest to me because of the logo printed in white large letters, most photos I find say I486DX

this one is just I486...why, is it an early model? and yes I saw the DX in the smaller print

I need the money, so I'll hunt down vacumn cleaners and carve some more bowls, maybe save this one for a while

if you were to sell this one off for someone else to scrap, what would you ask for? Don't consider shipping

would anyone venture a value

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Most of the weight to those older servers is just the steel case and heavy duty power supply, not much money there.

The 486dx/25 was the first mainstream 486 with FPU sold, and they went for a pretty penny new. ALR was a decent company before being purchased by Gateway who in turn got purchased by Emachines. What makes that system interesting is it is EISA, a brand collectors might like, the early proprietary oddball way they stuck RAM and CPU on upgradable cards. As far as value, everyone here can tell you what a LB of motherboard is worth but collector value is whatever somebody feels like spending at any given time and doesn't have any logic to it. Ebay will not have a value because these systems were never made in major quantities so they rarely go up for sale and most have been recycled (rarity doesn't always mean it is worth much either).

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Originally Posted by unknownk

Ebay will not have a value

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Ebay has the market, and listed properly, that's where you'll get the best price for it

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Originally Posted by Bear

That is the problem with trying to name a price, they'll say yours is too high, you'll think theirs is too low.

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I don't get why somebody who is just going to recycle something isn't happy getting 2-3x scrap value for an item he doesn't have to do anything with besides stick it in a box and mail it (or if local just hand it over). Collectors need to get a feel for what the scrap value of the stuff is worth and bid accordingly and scrappers need to quit thinking if something is wanted or collectable it must be worth its weight in gold.

I had a good thing going with a local recycling place where I would walk in every Friday and they would just let me go poking around looking for whatever I wanted and paid the 2-3x scrap value for it (as-is no warrenty). I got some cool things for little money and the owner got cash to go out to eat. Sure once in a while I would find something worth a few hundred bucks (after I cleaned and tested it) just like scrappers can find something that just needs a fuse or minor repair to sell (HDTV for instance), but without the knowledge and experience it is all just ewaste.

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Originally Posted by Bear

Ebay has the market, and listed properly, that's where you'll get the best price for it

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I meant ebay will probably not have any sold in the past 30 days to look up a value point, and even if they did values for the same piece of equipment vary a ton every time they infrequently go for sale.

Ebay isn't allways the best place for selling collectables anyway (but you do get the most eyeballs at ebay). Case in point an Apple 1 motherboard that hit $30K on ebay sells for 10x that amount at Sothebys auction house.

2-3X scrap value? The ones I've allowed to name their price wanted the free price, not 2-3X scrap. One I even offered for free, and said just send me a stamped padded envelope and it's yours. I never heard from him again.
That's why I recommend just letting the market name the price, currently known as ebay auctions, since they're the only place with the volume of traffic it takes to do that, and why i recommend the ten days on less offered items, to give as many as possible the chance to find or run across it. I also highly recommend using the pre-listed feature, or whatever it's called. That gives your listing a big head start over just listing it and waiting until it finally shows up there. It used to cost a dime, and that was the best dime you could spend on ebay

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Originally Posted by unknownk

I don't get why somebody who is just going to recycle something isn't happy getting 2-3x scrap value for an item he doesn't have to do anything with besides stick it in a box and mail it (or if local just hand it over). Collectors need to get a feel for what the scrap value of the stuff is worth and bid accordingly and scrappers need to quit thinking if something is wanted or collectable it must be worth its weight in gold.

I had a good thing going with a local recycling place where I would walk in every Friday and they would just let me go poking around looking for whatever I wanted and paid the 2-3x scrap value for it (as-is no warrenty). I got some cool things for little money and the owner got cash to go out to eat. Sure once in a while I would find something worth a few hundred bucks (after I cleaned and tested it) just like scrappers can find something that just needs a fuse or minor repair to sell (HDTV for instance), but without the knowledge and experience it is all just ewaste.

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That is a very lopsided perspective there Unknownk, one sided as well. You think nobody had to work for what they got? Or study it and check it out? Just plop it in a box huh? drop it in the mail?! I knew where you were coming from when you said "how much?", in the way that you said it, I knew anything over 15 cents was going to garner a frown from you. Not that I hadn't already searched for, found, gone and collected, sorted, and studied, every piece of it, and offered to give you the part you wanted for free, certainly not that I owed it to ya(not to mention offering a portion of another item for free as well, but, seeing as how it was also going to be free, you wanted it all, not just a portion). Then the cost of a padded envelope ($1.50 or so at the post office), plus the trip there, 16 miles(another $4 in gas alone) plus postage (another couple of bucks). SO, I stopped, and thought, and said, just send me a padded stamped envelope and it'll be on it's way. BUT, that was too much for you to have to do huh? Yet you expected me to do it FOR you.

Now on to point 2.
"Collectors need to get a feel for what the scrap value of the stuff is worth and bid accordingly and scrappers need to quit thinking if something is wanted or collectable it must be worth its weight in gold"
You're saying collectors of hard to find items should always pay only scrap value for anything? And people who work in cleaning up scrap should never expect anything more than scrap price for anything they have dug out of the pile, recognizing it as something of value, cleaning it up, sorting it out, studying it in detail, and in many cases even fixing it for resale at better than scrap?
You stated you did the same thing,
" Sure once in a while I would find something worth a few hundred bucks (after I cleaned and tested it) just like scrappers can find something that just needs a fuse or minor repair to sell (HDTV for instance), but without the knowledge and experience it is all just ewaste"

SO, scrappers are only good for a fuse? but you are the whole Enchilada? " knowledge and experience"

yeah, we clean stuff up, and test things too, and are not always limited to a fuse, but you have really tested mine here

My sincerest apologies to the OP, SAW, for the detour, it certainly wasn't my wishes. If you'll put that CPU card back into the slot it came from, hook the tower up with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, you will be able to see what the unit itself, and the memory sticks actually are

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Originally Posted by Bear

Now on to point 2.
"Collectors need to get a feel for what the scrap value of the stuff is worth and bid accordingly and scrappers need to quit thinking if something is wanted or collectable it must be worth its weight in gold"
You're saying collectors of hard to find items should always pay only scrap value for anything? And people who work in cleaning up scrap should never expect anything more than scrap price for anything they have dug out of the pile, recognizing it as something of value, cleaning it up, sorting it out, studying it in detail, and in many cases even fixing it for resale at better than scrap?
You stated you did the same thing,
" Sure once in a while I would find something worth a few hundred bucks (after I cleaned and tested it) just like scrappers can find something that just needs a fuse or minor repair to sell (HDTV for instance), but without the knowledge and experience it is all just ewaste"

SO, scrappers are only good for a fuse? but you are the whole Enchilada? " knowledge and experience"

yeah, we clean stuff up, and test things too, and are not always limited to a fuse, but you have really tested mine here

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I think you read way too much into what I posted. Where did I say anything about only paying scrap value for collectables? Ebay is flooded with ewaste people who fix up equipment and resell it (and I have purchased from them myself). All I said was a collector needs to get a feel for what something is worth to a scrapper as scrap value. if I want a Gateway 6 way PPro server I have to know each PPro chip is worth $17 a pop so I have a clue what the base value for that system is just for recycle. I just used the fuse example to show how some stuff can be easily repaird and sold as a working unit (didn't feel like typing how much electronics ended up in dumpsters because of the initial switch from lead to lead free solder and bad solder joints that are easy to fix). There are tons of people around me and on this forum who snag items they know they can fix ( or can research how to fix) and resale, its easy money (thats just added value taking something that is broken or needs work and fixing it, you get paid for the work and knowledge not just for scrap). I have pointed out a few times in this forum items that are worth more then ewaste to collectors when I see them just to keep them from getting scrapped and the owners can make a few more bucks (of which I don't get a dime for my efforts).

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Originally Posted by unknownk

Collectors need to get a feel for what the scrap value of the stuff is worth and bid accordingly

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here maybe ?

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Originally Posted by unknownk

just like scrappers can find something that just needs a fuse or minor repair to sell

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Your first comment was beneficial to us all, other than it's opening statement, even those old power supplies can be hard to find, and they don't much make those anymore(and it certainly deserves checking out). After that you took it to hell in a wheelcart. Why? Doesn't he deserve to find the best placement for his labors? Wouldn't you want to? Would you want someone coming into your thread, telling you how worthless it all was? Why? That's all I can say now, is why?

Id classify it that as a regular desktop and pay $5 for it.

You guys are clearly trying to pull a con here

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Originally Posted by Bear

Your first comment was beneficial to us all, other than it's opening statement, even those old power supplies can be hard to find, and they don't much make those anymore(and it certainly deserves checking out). After that you took it to hell in a wheelcart. Why? Doesn't he deserve to find the best placement for his labors? Wouldn't you want to? Would you want someone coming into your thread, telling you how worthless it all was? Why? That's all I can say now, is why?

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I never said it was worthless, in fact I PM the guy a while ago telling him not to scrap it because it was interesting in a number of ways (custom CPU+ RAM modules, ALR used to be a good brand, and it is an EISA system). If he was going to scrap it I offered to buy it, and I told him if he was looking for the best bang for the buck it was ebay. Don't believe me ASK him.

Anybody who scraps an EISA 486 system board must have never heard of ebay (those brown slots that look like ISA slots but are deeper and have more pins), those boards are worth much more then scrap.

I saw your motive unknownk, when you first broadsided this thread with your derogatory statements

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Originally Posted by unknownk

Most of the weight to those older servers is just the steel case and heavy duty power supply, not much money there.

As far as value, everyone here can tell you what a LB of motherboard is worth but collector value is whatever somebody feels like spending at any given time and doesn't have any logic to it. Ebay will not have a value because these systems were never made in major quantities so they rarely go up for sale and most have been recycled (rarity doesn't always mean it is worth much either).

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Originally Posted by Bear

On your top photo there, in the lower left, on the main board is an imbedded ALR with what appears to be a label beside it. All I can see is a B-C, possibly a board revision number, and a M/B, possibly the mainboard number? Did you use that (or those) numbers in your search?

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Hey saw, did you ever check out that number?

Hey congrats on your goodies there, I would seperate them, pri the cpu off.. You could of just used a small flat screwdriver to get them off, and also.. the board is high grade a step above regualr p3 boards, so keep this seperate from your other mobo, and the ram well Ewasted would be your best for that.. again Congrats...

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Originally Posted by bnbsfsd

Hey congrats on your goodies there, I would seperate them, pri the cpu off.. You could of just used a small flat screwdriver to get them off, and also.. the board is high grade a step above regualr p3 boards, so keep this seperate from your other mobo, and the ram well Ewasted would be your best for that.. again Congrats...

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Outside of an open auction, this is probably as good of an option you have, because nobody will "offer" you a fair market value or wish to cover shipping, as I mentioned at the very top of this page. If you can't go the Ebay route, save your CPU board, scrap the rest, and save yourself the headache.
Back to one of your earlier questions about the CPU, there is a cpu forum somewhere, I see it referenced on here occasionally, maybe someone could point you in that direction. It is probably a good place to look for information on your specific chip

Thanks for all the input. I have a tough work schedule thurs-sat, so I have not had time to respond for a few days. I decided to put this one back together and set it aside while I do some more research. Not sure if I will sell whole or part it out, sell some parts, scrap other parts. I have a number of other questions I'll post over the next few days, and a lot of woodwork to catch up on so this will give me time to decide what to do with this computer. I'll also get around to looking up the part numbers on the cpu card and mobo.
Thanks again

one thing I might do is to break it down in parts, see what they would sell for first by weight as scrap, then as a group to a collector, without the case shipping would be more affordable. Then scrap the case.