Well, the Charlotte Hamfest was a lot smaller this year, but it's not such a bad thing. The main difference is all the computer dealers have pulled out. Long ago there weren't many hobbies that would have had a bunch of technically minded people...so that was a good bet. Now computer are mainstream and there are dedicated computer shows every month.

Anyway, onto the haul...
I picked up 6 Socket A motherboards in hopes that at least two would work (more on that shortly), 256meg of plain SDRAM (probably the last plain SDRAM I'll ever buy), 128meg of RAMBUS memory for my work PC (Sucks running XP with "only" 256meg when the college has all that SHIT installed on the PC sucking resources), a cheap MicroATX case, and a PCI video card with a tolerable amount of RAM (16meg) on it (hey, they're handy sometimes).

Now back to the motherboards. One I purchased separately for $5 from it's previous owner. An Asus A7V600. Nice board...might actually use it in my HTPC. Has onboard SATA/PATA, plenty of USB ports and other useful stuff.

...and everything else SEEMED dead at first. However, after a nap I got down to the real testing. One board (a pull from an old Compaq) seems to have been fine, but with Compaq's damn logo displayed you can't see shit. Now that I know it's F10 to get into the bios it SEEMS that it's ok. Has onboard video and is MicroATX, so I'm set...I have my two boards.

Another board, an Elitegroup (PCChips) board...had one part removed from the board and a few bulging/leaky capacitors. I reinstalled a CMOS battery (had some pulled off old boards from a while back) and replaced the caps (with some from a board that was OBVIOUSLY dead) and now it SEEMS to work fine. Fingers crossed and all, but hey...it's not like I need it. So PROBABLY the total is 3 working boards...for $10 :)

Yet another board...a nice, small, gigabyte board...has a bunch of bulging caps...Might try replacing them just for the heck of it...although I suppose I should check for recall information too. Then there's one final board (an Emachine pull) that shows SOME signs of life but probably doesn't work. Anywho...I fairly confident that I have my 2 board requirement so I'm good.