Yesterday, I got found another printer, Canon Pixma. Tore it apart as much as possible. Still have some ways to go. Will try more with the smaller screws later on this one. Also, was able to get the power adapter out. There is a small plastic lever to it, press it towards the wall of the printer and the power adapter comes loose. Then to fully free it, unplug the small cable connected to it.

Opening power adapter is not simple, so found this article:
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/h...-an-ac-adapter

Inside a power adapter are a few goodies like capacitors etc., Better to take all these, rather than go to landfill. Learning more with time. Wish I had learned some basic electronics more now.

Most PC screws are a standard #2 phillips. I rarely need a jewelers screwdriver unless I'm dealing with laptops.

As and when one goes to more interior parts in a printer for getting the parts, the smaller screws appear and have to be dealt with.

Those are usually a #1 phillips or a torx.

I have a perfectly good HP all in one at home that we don't use because we upgraded to a laser but I can't even sell it for $20. I'm tempted to scrap it for the parts.

What is a torx ? I have to search and open about how to work with small screws.

some people call them star but they are 6 pointed and there actually are star bits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torx

HP uses torx a lot. I've had one or two power supplies with security torx. Video game controllers will have some posidrive or similar.

Thanks that link has a lot of helpful info.

rvijay, with your energy you're gonna be the "go-to" expert very soon! Keep it up.

Make sure you use the proper screwdriver when working with any screws. There are other flavors besides phillips & torx. When you fly half way across the country to fix someone's machine, you don't want to strip that one screw that you really need to remove. The odds of your customer having an easy-out of the proper size is usually not good :)

And if you're dis-assembling a laptop, often it's very important to put the proper screw back into the correct location. Often with laptops the screw is very "length-sensitive".

Excellent points, agreed. The good tech will handle all these issues smoothly due to experience and skills. So it helps to train for such issues in advance and be prepared to avoid bad surprises.

BTDT. Had to go down and drill out a screw in a printer that the previous tech snapped off.

Today's finds:
1. Dell Dimension 4300 desktop
Beeps a lot on power on, missing one drive bay perhaps it had a DVD burner perhaps
Was very heavy to carry it back home, Very dusty inside from outside obeservation.
Need to figure out how to open it.
[Edited to add:
Figured this one out, needs two people to do this, two buttons to push on top and bottom of the case.
http://www.fixya.com/support/t133993...sion_4300_case
Tried opening this on my own and failed.
Specifications and review of this desktop:
http://www.zdnet.com/product/dell-dimension-4300/
Gives 3 beeps on boot, tried connecting monitor, KB, Mouse, didn't help.
Inserted Linux Live CD into the CD drive to boot, didn't help either.
http://www.computing.net/answers/har...tup/66464.html
As per link above this is due to dust and/or memory problem. There is a lot of dust inside
this PC for sure. Unable to open it, will see, if I can get someone to assist me to open it
and see. May not be immediate.

Saw this video, shows how a single person can open the case, it is tricky and opens only to 45 degrees:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpEjsa0TlOg
There is also something loose inside the PC, will be interesting to find out what that is.

Glad to update that with help from the above video, I was able to open this case, Very little
dust inside, mostly at the bottom, this was wiped with a kimwipe. Ram had come loose, this was reinstalled. Now will try it again and see if it boots and then share the update here. So far this seems to be real cool find. Just as is common with most street found PCs is that the hard drive is missing on this PC. So it will need the Puppy Live CD to boot and later perhaps a USB memory stick to save the settings on a personal file. Will see if it works.

WOWWWWW !!! Glad I tried my best. Installing the loose ram really did the trick. This PC has almost no noise and booted perfectly with Puppy Linux 4.3 live CD. It worked at 1024 resolution 16 bit, I choose the 1280 initially, there were a lot of lines so rebooted PC and choose a safe one for starters. Almost the best free street PC I have had so far. The biggie is the weight, the extra metal in the case really adds to the weight, makes it even three times as heavy as the other cases. The components inside are very few and light. Also, the DVD drive bay is open and needs to be closed to avoid dust going in. This I did on a temporary basis now. Another issue is that there is no option in the BIOS to boot this PC from USB, will be nice if the bios can be updated to add this info. But for these small drawbacks this is an amazing PC to have. One error that I did was to not note the Name, Model # of the Mobo and PSU, will get this later if needed.

The present market value for this desktop is around 15 bucks max. based on you tube videos. Specially without HD it is like 10 bucks or so. No wonder such PCs are being discarded.

I was advised to upgrade the Ram, video card and add a hard drive to this PC. Perhaps I will use this as a dedicated PC for just test and audio tasks. I can even downgrade the Ram for this purpose to 133 Mb or so.
The CD Burner will also be very useful to burn New OSes and files. Still need to test the floppy drive on this PC to see if it works. This PC is too heavy to move around, open and use it as a test machine for hardware. However, it is excellent to use for old software testing. Was also advised that perhaps the OS is too new and hence the AGP card is not working well with it. Perhaps trying a different older OS may resolve this issue.
This is certainly worth a try.

One of my contacts asked me, at this rate what will I do if I get 100 more such PCs theoretically ? Guess will have to salvage what I can and give away the rest. Better to look at PC as a big unwanted metal box, rather than as a useful, wonderful PC. Also, see it as a 5 dollar items that is taking up a lot of precious space. This will make it easier to get rid of it, should it come to that.]

2.PC headphones with microphone
3. USB mouse
4. IBM Laptop Power Adapter
5. Turntable, works when the stick on it is turned towards the table. Have no records for it.
Not sure if the stylus is still there, heard it is expensive.
6. Torn apart LG monitor. This is a blessing. Can learn about opening a monitor and checking its parts etc.,
Removed all the screws on this monitor and was able to fully remove the monitor circuit board altho with force. Few screws close to VGA port I couldn`t remove, they needed a special headed screw driver that I couldn't find
immediately. Saved all the cables, screws and the circuit board. These can be useful in future. The circuit board has good capacitors. So really glad I got this discarded monitor.

Other finds
7. Lots of clothes, a mini empty cooler and some shoes. All these were donated to local charity that helps the needy.
8. Saw one computer speaker, the other one was cut off. Decided not to get this one.
9. Books: San Francisco, Vinegar uses, Numerology and a French Cook Book
10. Nice big storage box
11. 355 Paper Napkins in one pack.
12. Pack of half empty sesame seed disk shaped snaps

Did quite a lot today, decided I can't do another street that had lots to explore.
Had a very nice chat with another diver, he mostly collects cans and travels long due to his bicycle.
He has Masters in French Literature, writes books on his free time. He gave me a good advice, he finds
computers sometimes and even laptops. Laptops can be deep down in the dumpster, as they are fairly heavy
so one has to really look all the way to the bottom of the dumpster. There is no other way of knowing
what is in there. He has sold desktops and laptops to pawn shops for 20 bucks or lesser, they buy it
for the parts. He doesn't need the net personally. He lives a very basic and content life.
This is a very good suggestion, if one needs a part badly for an older PC or laptop, it will help
to check the local pawn shop also.

Need to learn about auctions, estate sales, garage sales, used shops, online buying, pawn shops and other avenues to get an older PC. Having a spare PC is great for parts. Wow, I thought I was again done with older PCs
but every new PC is a new experience. I must get and try to setup atleast 10 more of these with time. Same with
laptops also, this will give good experience.

I wondered how some folks are so comfortable with retro PCs such as Amiga, Atari, Floppy Linux, Console Linux etc., Most have worked with such PCs in the past, they almost grew up with them. Plus they likely have good IT education and experience. All this makes it second nature for them to use such a PC. I was mostly of the Pentium era, specially P4 more recently, so am quite comfortable with using these, it is normal for me. Even C2D is a bit advanced for me but can manage with it.

Whenever one finds a power chord sticking out of a dumpster, it is vital to investigate what is at the other end of it. Never fail to do this, there might be an excellent surprise at the other end. The hardest part of dumpster diving is when one comes across multiple items that are heavy. Hard choices have to be made regarding what to take first. Yesterday I got very lucky and so was able to grab all I wanted. Usually it is not so lucky. Take desirable items and keep them in close by less exposed places. Then retrieve soon at convenience.

Look up how to discharge the tube on a monitor before handling it.

Dell is very good at keeping manuals, etc. online. The computer should have a "service tag", usually on a white sticker on the rear of the chassis with 6-7 alphanumeric characters (in caps). Or, if you can get into the bios setup, the service tag should be displayed there.

Then visit www.dell.com, go to the support area, and there should be a place to identify the computer you're interested in by entering the service tag number. If you do, and all goes well, the site will show you links to the manuals and device drivers applicable to that machine. The Dell support site is one reason I have primarily used and recommended Dell computers since about 2000.

I still have quite a collection of Dell computers & servers of that vintage, I'm kinda waiting to see if I stick around long enough that they become "classic vintage" computers and get some value back :)

Yes, must learn this for sure for future. Good point. Tx for sharing.

Unless it becomes a very special, rare collectors item, such a PC might get just 100 bucks or so. Still such PCs are being discarded in big numbers, coming out of basement in homes and garage sales etc., This is just my view on this.