Long time computer hobbyists- what do i do with my tub of cables?

[clamum]

Ignore all the hoarders who say to keep the whole bin for a rainy day--the odds are ridiculously small that you'll need a parallel printer cable or an S-video cable ever again.

Weed through it and find the stuff you might actually need...it will be a very small percentage of what's in the bin. Keep that stuff. Get rid of the rest.

This. Have you used anything from the bin in the past... say, 6 months? Year? Throw that fuckin crap out.

 

[kag]

I recently dumped all the computer crap I had accumulated over the years. My rule was if it was worth $20 or less and it had not beed used in a couple of years, it was going to the dump. It felt great to get rid of those old ATA cables, networks cards, video cards, and so on.

 

[DrPizza]

I used to have so many cables, etc., that I didn't have room in the house for all the crap. I had 4 or 5 big bins completely stuffed with the stuff out in the barn. One day, I sorted through them; the transformers I saved for physics class - I figured they might come in handy as a non-variable low voltage power source some day. The cables - I kept one or two of any cable that had any chance of still being useful. Serial printer cables? Anyone still use those? To the landfill (electronics recycling container) they went. In the end, I had a very small box of wires, and at least 4 heaped over bins that I got rid of (over the course of a few trips; I never quite had the enthusiasm to clean them all out at once.)

 

[cronos]

I have two of the giant tubs and three smaller ones worth of those. At one point I actually spent half a day to sort and organize the stuff and put the same/similar things in their own plastic/ziploc-type bags and then put them back in the tubs.

That was about two years ago, and now it looks like I need to do it again. I swear these things are multiplying on their own!

 

[CountZero]

My rule when I cleaned house on my cables was any cable type I hadn't used since I moved (four years) was tossed. Any cable type that isn't used by any system I currently am using was limited to one or two. Any cable that is used by my current systems were kept, if they were bulky might keep only a couple (like dvi cables). Tossed all AC adapters that had no matching item. Trimmed down to just one backup keyboard and one backup mouse. The rule worked pretty well for me.

I might trim again though. Anything I haven't used in a year that would cost less than $10 to replace might just go. But I rent and paying for space just to hold things I don't use is starting to feel like a huge waste of money.

 

[AdamK47]

My wife got sick of my collection and threw it out one day while I was at work. Of course the next week I needed something that was in that pile.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Maybe get rid of a few of the things you have lots of? If you have 70 power cables, get rid of 50 of them? etc ...

Otherwise, you can do what I do. I keep my misc Computer cables in a similar tub, on a shelf in my utility room. I keep my misc AV cables in a tub next to that, and then I keep my misc "other" cables and AC Adapters in a third tub in the shelf below the other two.