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eBay trend...

JAXVintagePC said:
My experience with AliExpress was not good. I bought two OEM 450W Lenovo ThinkCentre PSUs (54Y8876). I received one and the other one was a generic knock-off. It took forever to get my $ back and I had to return the generic PSU. Bizarre experience. IMPO AliExpress is not worth the risk. eBay has much better buyer protection. The flip side is that selling on eBay can be a nightmare.
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But thats just one experience. Thats like saying you bought something on ebay from one buyer and it was a bad experience.. Well so what thats one buyer we all had that experience. It doesnt make ebay bad (lots of factors together make eBay bad :LOL:). Sure I have had the same thing happen a few times. And in the past year or two aliexpress has made changes so opening a claim is more of a hassle now. But in general its still pretty seamless for most purchases.

Ebays better protection is at the expense of the seller. And let me tell you as a seller ebay is a fucking crook! Not all sellers are bad, but ebay punishes all sellers.. even though ALL of thier profits come from sellers fees.

Moral to the story. No system is perfect, they all have thier flaws, and one bad experience does not sully a selling platform.
 
Never buy anything on aliexpress and expect it to be name brand. The whole reason we go there is specifically because it's all cheap knockoffs.
 
NeXT said:
Never buy anything on aliexpress and expect it to be name brand. The whole reason we go there is specifically because it's all cheap knockoffs.
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Yeah basically. But who really cares about "name brand" does that even mean anything in 2023?

But seriously, if you want to actually BUILD something as a proof of concept how can you go wrong with aliexpress? Tell me where else I can find a decent LCD display and controller for practically nothing? Im going to pay 3 times as much for the EXACT same thing because its on AMAZON? Who gives Amazon that much credit, they are just as big of crooks as the other guys.
 
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I am not into (DIY) build/repair. I go with known brands and specifically Lenovo for that reason. I value dependability. So my use case is vastly different from that of other people. To each their own.

I agree that eBay is atrocious for sellers but amazing for buyers.
 
JAXVintagePC said:
I value dependability.
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Ill be honest I dont think "name brands" equate dependability anymore and haven't in quite some time. I see Home depot (or any other big box store you choose) selling "name brand items" that are literally the bare minimum.. nay beneath that... super floor budget models which are really just licenced or contracted other manufacturers items with a big name re-branding.

And why? They are doing to to lure people like you who think the name brand still means something.. Good sales tactic I suppose.
 
Interesting device. Can it show heat sources (like people) through walls or floors? If so, any way to block that sort of thing? Does it really only work with toy sell phones rather than a nice laptop?

Anyway, inflated eBeh prices are nothing new, but at least with eBeh sometimes one can find a used item for a fraction of the standard price.
 
Hey by the way here is an experiment. I have wanted an infrared camera for a while. But I have no actual major need besides repairs and fooling around to spend real money for an IR gun/camera. So I just bought this 5 minutes ago: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256...st_main.5.767418025OHh4g&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa


$59.65 shipped. Will it work? Is it junk..? Cummon gang lets wait and find out!

By the way here is the EXACT same item on ebay marked up to $76.74 out the door, thats over 128.7% markup https://www.ebay.com/itm/314871370449

Amazon is far worse at $93.18 out the door at a 156.2% markup https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BR85GFYQ/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=AHTAS6VWZ1OLW&psc=1

Hurray your all being screwed!

And instead of arresting the bloated oligarch for launching his own privatized rockets (lets call them missiles) for non sanctioned or licensed operation we will make him a celebrity... you know because he pays people off in order to not pay taxes.. yeah. That makes perfect sense.
 
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SomeGuy said:
Interesting device. Can it show heat sources (like people) through walls or floors? If so, any way to block that sort of thing? Does it really only work with toy sell phones rather than a nice laptop?

Anyway, inflated eBeh prices are nothing new, but at least with eBeh sometimes one can find a used item for a fraction of the standard price.
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its USB C so It should work on a laptop, however the program I am sure is a mobile one so who knows.
Absolutely I do like buying used items on ebay. I just bought a used wiring harness for my tractor mower for a fraction of the cost of a new one.
 
SomeGuy said:
Interesting device. Can it show heat sources (like people) through walls or floors? If so, any way to block that sort of thing? Does it really only work with toy sell phones rather than a nice laptop?
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The thermopile on those cannot see through surfaces. It can only measure the temperature of said surface, or a reflection of a surface off a highly reflective object.
Aliexpress has handheld versions that are quite literally a module, a display and a microcontroller strapped to a board and looking like a narrow ping-pong paddle. I ended up buying one locally for a lot more than these units online but that was because it came with a really nice enclosure and software kit.
 
VERAULT said:
Hey by the way here is an experiment. I have wanted an infrared camera for a while. But I have no actual major need besides repairs and fooling around to spend real money for an IR gun/camera. So I just bought this 5 minutes ago: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256...st_main.5.767418025OHh4g&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa


$59.65 shipped. Will it work? Is it junk..? Cummon gang lets wait and find out!

By the way here is the EXACT same item on ebay marked up to $76.74 out the door, thats over 128.7% markup https://www.ebay.com/itm/314871370449

Amazon is far worse at $93.18 out the door at a 156.2% markup https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BR85GFYQ/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=AHTAS6VWZ1OLW&psc=1

Hurray your all being screwed!

And instead of arresting the bloated oligarch for launching his own privatized rockets (lets call them missiles) for non sanctioned or licensed operation we will make him a celebrity... you know because he pays people off in order to not pay taxes.. yeah. That makes perfect sense.
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I have to question your math. Markup is base price+addition. So eBay is selling at a 28% markup. A 100% markup would double the price.
 
Who even uses eBay as a pricing medium/guide?

Muppets?

I picked up a working NEC PowerMate 286 Plus which cost me 100 NZ Pesos...Plus petrol money for my automotorbicycle.
 
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Anyone who's been alive more then 2 weeks knows about chineseum. Things aren't necessarily what they seem. I really don't want to play the guessing game. I bought an HP calculator on aliexpress maybe 2 years ago. A comment left by anotber purchaser said "it didn't look fake". And no it did not. But I still felt kind of sick in my stomach.

A while later I bought 4 chinese Machinist motherboards on ePlop. Dirt cheap! Not even $20 each with shipping. X99 lga2011 (single). Tiny and rather adorable. How could I possivly go wrong? Then I started perusing youtube etc. 1 guy did an entire expose and he learned these have single channel ram banks, screwed up usb 3 ports. LTT did a video on the earlier x79 equivalents. They had used chips, but when he talked to their sales rep IN PERSON was told they got the chipsets direct from Intel. A call to Intel revealed it was bull.

These were brown box (sealed) versions of an early Machinist (there are many variants with that designation). 1 had a busted ram lock. For about $18 per is there really a reason to complain? No not really. But if I had paid full price ($100+/-) when they were all the talk, I'd be just a little po even at the suggestion the chips were scavenged from old motherboards.

The HP 39G+ I bought may not even be fake. It did not come with the box and manual though, as the photos showed (and the box was clearly for the Chinese market, probably the manual also). Would not have been a problem, in fact would have given me some faith in the product. About $25 shipped. A big loss? Well this is different. If I'm told I'm getting HP, I WANT HP. A cheap no name knockoff mobo for $20 is 1 thing. A possibly? fake name brand calculator is quite another.

I bought a WEN chainsaw for umder $60 2 years ago. Took down a fairly large tree (for NJ), didn't give me a problem at all, until I hit the chain link fence. Chain came off, I reassembled it, something broke inside, a peotruding plastic thingamajig. I just kept goinf and finished the last 35%.of the job. Bought a new chain in case I have to use it again. So what would aliexpress have done for me? Don't tell me it's made in China anyway. The Chinese have advanced jet fighters and icbms. Yup got it. But there's is still tons of fake or crap to be had nonetheless.
 
I expect brand name items out of China to have some basic level of QC. Then you have factory seconds or just off hour production with a different label slapped on it with little to no QC. Finally, you have a different factory making stolen designs with no QC and every corner cut junk.
 
I snagged a machinist LGA 1155 motherboard off an ebay seller recently sold as broken (tab on a ram slot was broken but still have enough to hold RAM in). Works fine for a grand total of $14 shipped. They probably do use repurposed intel chipsets and single channel RAM but they did stick a NVME slot in it (SATA only) making it useful for me, plus the bezel was included.
 
Oh Harbor Fright ay. Do not get me started please. They charge as much for their hand tools as any other name brand. Sorry not buying it. I did buy an old allegedly nos Sensual Machinery lathe (sounds like the name for a chinese sexbot) from a guy a while back. For $400. It has an odd 8.5" swing, 18" between centers. It gets sort of good reviews, for what it is. It's kind of bulky for it's size. I think it's a more or less clone of the Prazi SD-500 or the old Prazimat whatever. There were deals to be had at Horror Freight years ago. They blew out lathes like this and newer nicer ones yeats ago for about what I paid. That store has little or no interest to me these days.
 
Unknown_K said:
I snagged a machinist LGA 1155 motherboard off an ebay seller recently sold as broken (tab on a ram slot was broken but still have enough to hold RAM in). Works fine for a grand total of $14 shipped. They probably do use repurposed intel chipsets and single channel RAM but they did stick a NVME slot in it (SATA only) making it useful for me, plus the bezel was included.
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It's like I said, under $20 for a mobo and I'm mostly ok. But 100+? I bought 3 Asus lga 1200 mobos in past year, 1 Rog strix, the other 2 tuf gaming equivalents, for c notes from Newegg. Asus has been in the news lately for it's high end lga 1700 boards and (probably umcommon) cataclysmic failures. But it's still Asus. Not chineseum. I don't buy high end anyway. I learned my lesson years ago.
 
I haven't tried any of that yet, but some of those mobos can benefit from a different boards firmware. You have to research your specific board. You could also brick it. No reason to cry for very long at least.
 
High end boards are a must for overclocking and that's about it. I tend to buy used and older boards because the CPUs are dirt cheap. I have a bunch of X79 and X99 brand name gaming boards with XEON or I7 6C/12T or 8C/16T cpus for dirt cheap.
 
It's just an awful stain on their company name. Their stuff is still often so nicely made. I don't swear by Lenovo anymore. That z590 rog strix mobo has more aluminum on it then my alternator. It is heavy. I buy this stuff when I have extra cash and there's a crazy discount. I wind up assembling pc's and by the time I'm ready to unload them I'll have to take severe beatings. No one gets excited about lga 1200 these days, but they're not obsolete. All the best components, all also heavily discounted. I'll bu lucky if I get anymore then half the money I have in each.

Just be careful of your cpu choice. Much over 100w tdp is probably pushing it.
 
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