What do you do with old hardware?

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Crism

Senior member
Mar 15, 2003
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I'm sure everyone's got different uses. I just tossed a 9800Pro and faster CD burner in the mom's Athlon 1800 machine and tossed the rest of the stuff out.

I hate to see parts go to waste like that but who's going to want to buy this stuff?
 
crucibelle

crucibelle

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Feb 21, 2005
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Crism - Actually, people do want to buy the stuff. I've sold a ton of old hardware on Ebay. I even had some old hardware (motherboard) that was dead (and of course, I made that clear on my product description) and it STILL sold.
 
Zap

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
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You can also post it in the free section of Craigslist. There are people out there who cater to the less affluent, and will happily recycle your old hardware so that it doesn't end up in the landfill, and some kid out there has a computer to use who's parents can't afford a new one.
 
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concreteDonkey

Member
Jan 27, 2002
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A friend of mine told me he'd buy all my "old crap" off me as he just loves messing around with pc bits.

Offered to sell him an old Athlon/Sempron with about 1GB ram and a 9800pro in a case and already up and running with a clean XP pro install for £50.

He declined, saying he could get all that on ebay for cheaper. Kept the machine and it's now my 'lab' computer for uni work.

Find a good cause and donate it :)
 
crucibelle

crucibelle

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Feb 21, 2005
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Zap said:
You can also post it in the free section of Craigslist. There are people out there who cater to the less affluent, and will happily recycle your old hardware so that it doesn't end up in the landfill, and some kid out there has a computer to use who's parents can't afford a new one.
Click to expand...

Zap, you just reminded me of another site... freecycle, I think it's called. I gave away an LCD monitor through that site... it was actually very convenient.

link: http://www.freecycle.org/
 
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sco0001

Junior Member
Jul 28, 2010
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Good tips!

I just retired an ADM Athlon XP 3200+ CPU system with ASUS motherboard, ASUS video card and few hard drives & harware.

Ebay is my first choice. Ebay just started a promotion, which will run from Sept 28, through Jan 2011 - you won't have to pay for any listing and u can list at any price. Just pay 9% if your item sold (man they make good money!)

Never used craig's before, but will visit.
 
corkyg

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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My first choice is to my sons and grandkids. Next, I have a friend who teaches high school in Ohio, and can always use parts. If there are no other needs, I put them in my monthly charity box for Vietnam Vets pickup. I never sell - I give. :)
 
Murloc

Murloc

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2008
5,382
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you could do:
1. if it's still useable, give to younger people, donate or sell for cheap.
2. if it's unuseable (so old that only win98 will run on it), sell on ebay for 10$. Someone might need it and actually buy it.
 
RebateMonger

RebateMonger

Elite Member
Dec 24, 2005
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I don't recall ever throwing away a functional piece of hardware. I sell the, give them away, or store them for future use.

Edit:
Actually, I do recall throwing away some older motherboards when I found that Win98 required a math coprocessor. That made my 386 and 486sx motherboards kinda' useless, so I tossed most of them.
 
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RalphTheCow

Senior member
Sep 14, 2000
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I keep them and put Linux on them! Right now my primary machine is a year 2000 Dell Pentium III.
 
V

velillen

Platinum Member
Jul 12, 2006
2,120
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Usually just store the stuff. Either sell it or it just takes up space. Eventually will usually either donate it or recycle it at a place like staples. I wont just toss it in the garbage.
 
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sco0001

Junior Member
Jul 28, 2010
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RalphTheCow said:
I keep them and put Linux on them! Right now my primary machine is a year 2000 Dell Pentium III.
Click to expand...

That's actually a very good idea, why haven't I thought of it!

Just a few months ago, I gave away a P3 (which I bought online from Quantex in 1999 for almost $2k) to my x-co worker, who still uses dot matrix printer!

I do keep small parts, like the ones I can recycle, as adapters, small fans, etc.

But experimenting with LINUX on old machines is really a good way to learn, get experienced and use the almost unusuable machine! (that is not to say LINUX is not powerfull at all, it is a great OS, just some versions uses less resources).

I HAVE NO INTENSION OF GETTING HIGN ON "burn to release the magic smoke and gain duper powers." heehee.
 
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pukemon

Senior member
Jun 16, 2000
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If it's no longer useful to me, and I probably couldn't sell it, I give old computer stuff to:
1) immediate family
2) extended family
3) close friends
4) not so close friends / Facebook status update: "anyone want xyz?"
5) donate to non-profit organization
6) computer recycling facility

These days it's harder to get rid of stuff that isn't that bad. My old 17" LCD made to step 4, but an old power sucking full tower dual Pentium III server went all the way to step 6.
 
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Eeqmcsq

Senior member
Jan 6, 2009
407
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If the computer as a whole still functions, I keep it and find a use for it. For example, I still have my Celeron 366 which I installed xubuntu on and run as a p2p downloading machine. It's kinda geeky cool to be able to draw functionality and "value" out of a 12 year old machine with a modern OS. If I wanted to dump my Pentium 4 machine, I COULD give it to my sister's work place. Their machines are from the same era and work just fine for their uses.

As for parts, I keep some old working parts as backup, like a couple of 120GB IDE HDs. Otherwise, I give them to a recycling center. I suppose I COULD sell my working parts, but I'm not set up to sell anything online, and I feel it would just be too much of a hassle to have to wait for buyers and then pack the parts up and ship them.

I have a USB zip drive with a couple of 100MB zip disks in my collection, and ironically, I can't figure out what to do with them. USB flash drives and gigabit LANs have made them pretty useless to me.
 
bruceb

bruceb

Diamond Member
Aug 20, 2004
8,874
111
106
I still have old junk laying around. Don't like to get rid of it.
Still have a Northstar Horizon Z-80 based computer. Hasn't been
turned on in about 10 years.
 
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sco0001

Junior Member
Jul 28, 2010
19
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0
Eeqmcsq said:
...
I have a USB zip drive with a couple of 100MB zip disks in my collection, and ironically, I can't figure out what to do with them. USB flash drives and gigabit LANs have made them pretty useless to me.
Click to expand...

Funny, just last month I took out my 13 years old Zip drive (with 10/12 lightly used zip discs) only to remember that my newest PC doesn't have a parallel port. Went on ebay and bough a USB to Parallel IEEE 1284 DB25 Adapter for $2.34 + downloaded driver from Iomega website, and walla, it works!

Again, small parts like that from ebay became useful for me!
 
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