What happens to old hardware?

[Neos]

Just wondered if others have the same problem I do. That is hanging onto old parts and systems (or partial systems). Does anyone actually sell any of this used stuff and make some extra cash?

I told my wife that it was just part of being a nerd. Anyone want to back me up?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Well, I got alot of old stuff hanging around... couple old Socket 478 Mobos 9Albatron PX845PEV Pro, Abit BD7-II, Asus P4P800) tons of misc cables and screws and small parts. Couple old video cards 9800Pro, 6800GT. Couple old P4 CPUs. a 2.26 and a 2.6. Junk like that I have around and I don't think I'll ever use it.

 

[Lord Evermore]

It's part of being a packrat. Even nerds should throw out or sell useless junk.

I'm a packrat (or "collector" as I prefer). I have piles of old CPUs, some of which I pulled out of systems for other people and just brought home, or were being thrown out at work. Some I even just bought or traded for knowing I wouldn't use them. I have an Alpha mainboard and 21064 166MHz CPU that I bought just because it was cool to have an Alpha processor around. I have 6 or 7 mainboards sitting in a box, SuperSocket7, Socket370, SocketA. I have 30- and 72-pin SIMMs, some of which I brought home from work because they were going to be thrown out (this is less than 3 years ago). I have bits of cases I don't have anymore. Piles and piles of screws and cables. Fans, sound cards, video cards. I think I have an ISA modem somewhere. ISA and PCI serial and parallel port adapter cards. Pentium heatsinks. I've even got 3 unused monitors, a 17 and 2 19 inch. I have demo discs from PC Gamer magazine from over a decade ago. I have drivers on CD from my first 486 PC.

Only a very small portion of this could be considered being kept for "testing purposes". Of course most of it has zero resale value.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Yeah that's the problem...most stuff I have probably won't sell for much if anything. I'm not even sure if half of it works to be honest.

 

[Jeff7]

Amandi, formerly Envirocycle and apparently Nxtcycle. $25 gets you a prepaid UPS label. Get yourself a big box, and fill it with up to 69lbs of electronic junk you want to get rid of in an environmentally responsible way.

 

[TommyD]

I just recently built 3 old P3 and 2 AMD XP machines with like 10gb HD's (from old Xbox's) each out of my old parts and donated them to nursing homes. There are lots of places you can donate to, I know that some people have been even donating them to military bases overseas so our troops could communicate with their families.

 

[Bradtechonline]

I am a network admin for a school. I had a building with nothing but old computers, monitors, mice, etc. I found a company that recycles old computers. There are some companies out there who will take your stuff off your hands for you.

 

[Neos]

I am sure there are many ways to get rid of stuff. It is just that I am so addicted that I do not want to throw it out. I even find that given a chance to take someone elses really old stuff, I am tempted - heck ..I even like older 386 machines. When I go into the thrift store, even the old allin one Mac beckons me - "Take me home, piddle with me, see if I will run...I still have value".
Help, Doctor!

 

[Neos]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
It's part of being a packrat. Even nerds should throw out or sell useless junk.

I'm a packrat (or "collector" as I prefer). I have piles of old CPUs, some of which I pulled out of systems for other people and just brought home, or were being thrown out at work. Some I even just bought or traded for knowing I wouldn't use them. I have an Alpha mainboard and 21064 166MHz CPU that I bought just because it was cool to have an Alpha processor around. I have 6 or 7 mainboards sitting in a box, SuperSocket7, Socket370, SocketA. I have 30- and 72-pin SIMMs, some of which I brought home from work because they were going to be thrown out (this is less than 3 years ago). I have bits of cases I don't have anymore. Piles and piles of screws and cables. Fans, sound cards, video cards. I think I have an ISA modem somewhere. ISA and PCI serial and parallel port adapter cards. Pentium heatsinks. I've even got 3 unused monitors, a 17 and 2 19 inch. I have demo discs from PC Gamer magazine from over a decade ago. I have drivers on CD from my first 486 PC.

Only a very small portion of this could be considered being kept for "testing purposes". Of course most of it has zero resale value.

You, my friend - are worse than me. Married? Happily? Must have a secluded spot for all that STUFF and a very loving, understanding wife.

 

[andyandyandy]

I have sooo many old hardrives, like 200 mb ones. Good for getting magnets

 

[Zebo]

I have a six month rule. Anything I don't use for six months I toss.. big time clutter and junk preventer. I'v thown away video cards, fishing poles, suits, stereos etc. I just threw away two sktA motherboards last friday... too bad this rule deosn't apply to my wife Shes got half a garage full of porcelin dolls and xmas ornimants!!! 3/4 of which havnt seen light in 10 years.. I'd love to rent a dumpster or two and get busy.

 

[Neos]

Originally posted by: Zebo
I have a six month rule. Anything I don't use for six months I toss.. big time clutter and junk preventer. I'v thown away video cards, fishing poles, suits, stereos etc. I just threw away two sktA motherboards last friday... too bad this rule deosn't apply to my wife Shes got half a garage full of porcelin dolls and xmas ornimants!!! 3/4 of which havnt seen light in 10 years.. I'd love to rent a dumpster or two and get busy.

I am inspired.
I think it is time for discipline - time to impose a rule like that.

Would someone remind me in 6 months?

 

[Zebo]

You don't need to be reminded. Simple. GO over to anything in your house right now and ask yourself "Have I used this in the last six months?"

Yes = Keeper
No = Garbage

 

[imported_jon1003]

Originally posted by: Zebo
I have a six month rule. Anything I don't use for six months I toss.. big time clutter and junk preventer. I'v thown away video cards, fishing poles, suits, stereos etc. I just threw away two sktA motherboards last friday... too bad this rule deosn't apply to my wife Shes got half a garage full of porcelin dolls and xmas ornimants!!! 3/4 of which havnt seen light in 10 years.. I'd love to rent a dumpster or two and get busy.

Why not put it up in the for sale forum? I, and many others would have paid $$ + shipping for socket a mobos and cpus. Some people can still use this stuff. Use the FS forum!!!

 

[Trey22]

There's also the Freebies thread in the FS/FT section of the forums.

I always take older hardware, build machines and donate them locally... I've done at least 10 so far in the past couple of years. I give them to everyone from senior citizens to kids who just need a homework machine.

 

[Tsuwamono]

I basicly put all the old crap together and make a server for my house. Holds all my music files and such so i dont have to load my other PCs up with it.

 

[bigstrickler]

I'm currently Interning for waste management and we have monthly e-waste collection days, usually available at your local landfill. Its free too, just drop your junk off and we dispose of it. Or send your extra 1gig of PC3200 to me cuz i'm lookin for an extra gig lol

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: jon1003

Originally posted by: Zebo
I have a six month rule. Anything I don't use for six months I toss.. big time clutter and junk preventer. I'v thown away video cards, fishing poles, suits, stereos etc. I just threw away two sktA motherboards last friday... too bad this rule deosn't apply to my wife Shes got half a garage full of porcelin dolls and xmas ornimants!!! 3/4 of which havnt seen light in 10 years.. I'd love to rent a dumpster or two and get busy.

Why not put it up in the for sale forum? I, and many others would have paid $$ + shipping for socket a mobos and cpus. Some people can still use this stuff. Use the FS forum!!!

Before you take your parts to the FS/T forum, PM me with a list of your goods. :thumbsup:

 

[imported_jon1003]

Originally posted by: Blain
Before you take your parts to the FS/T forum, PM me with a list of your goods. :thumbsup:

*cough* me too *cough*:beer:

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: jon1003

Originally posted by: Zebo
I have a six month rule. Anything I don't use for six months I toss.. big time clutter and junk preventer. I'v thown away video cards, fishing poles, suits, stereos etc. I just threw away two sktA motherboards last friday... too bad this rule deosn't apply to my wife Shes got half a garage full of porcelin dolls and xmas ornimants!!! 3/4 of which havnt seen light in 10 years.. I'd love to rent a dumpster or two and get busy.

Why not put it up in the for sale forum? I, and many others would have paid $$ + shipping for socket a mobos and cpus. Some people can still use this stuff. Use the FS forum!!!

I have to advertise it, box it an drive to the post office.. that's work I don't need. I have sold things I have heat.. but I find it's never worth it.. much better to toss it.

 

[polypterus]

Originally posted by: Zebo

Originally posted by: jon1003

Originally posted by: Zebo
I have a six month rule. Anything I don't use for six months I toss.. big time clutter and junk preventer. I'v thown away video cards, fishing poles, suits, stereos etc. I just threw away two sktA motherboards last friday... too bad this rule deosn't apply to my wife Shes got half a garage full of porcelin dolls and xmas ornimants!!! 3/4 of which havnt seen light in 10 years.. I'd love to rent a dumpster or two and get busy.

Why not put it up in the for sale forum? I, and many others would have paid $$ + shipping for socket a mobos and cpus. Some people can still use this stuff. Use the FS forum!!!

I have to advertise it, box it an drive to the post office.. that's work I don't need. I have sold things I have heat.. but I find it's never worth it.. much better to toss it.

Wow, what a selfish waste.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Originally posted by: Trey22
There's also the Freebies thread in the FS/FT section of the forums.

I always take older hardware, build machines and donate them locally... I've done at least 10 so far in the past couple of years. I give them to everyone from senior citizens to kids who just need a homework machine.

I'm socially inept as well as just plain being afraid of talking to people, so finding places that want stuff isn't easy for me. But I'd certainly love to build machines and give them to people that need them. I'd be afraid of somebody rejecting it though (yes I have issues).

What do you do about the operating systems and software? I'm not about to build machines that don't have an OS, nor give people pirated systems, but I'm also unable to do much with Linux and wouldn't really expect an old folk's home to know what to do with it even if I got it set up. And do those places not care about support issues, or do they have ways of support they just don't have the hardware?

Of course for me, building entire systems would cost me some more money, since I don't have lots of cases laying around. Only one spare at the moment.

I wouldn't necessarily mind just giving the stuff away, except that I'm not paying somebody to take it off my hands, even if recycling it is good for the environment and all that, this crap isn't sold to us with an understanding that one day it'll need to be recycled and that'll cost us money (yes I'm a lazy, self-centered American; getting us to consider it normal that we ought to go pay to recycle things when the people who recycle it will then be selling the stuff is going to take a while). And if I'm giving stuff away, I'm not paying for shipping, and really I'd begrudge the effort of packing it and taking it to to the post office.

90% of this stuff is so old that it's not even worth somebody buying, unless they simply have to have as much stuff as they can get, or needed a really specific item even though it'd cost them more than new and faster parts.

Then of course even if I could sell or give away parts, I'd have to spend a lot of time testing this stuff, because none of it was specifically protected against damage all these years. I wouldn't mind that if I was building a system of course.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Originally posted by: Neos
You, my friend - are worse than me. Married? Happily? Must have a secluded spot for all that STUFF and a very loving, understanding wife.

No, not married or in a relationship. The one live-in girlfriend didn't mind the collections much, but we had plenty of space (and her mother had an entire ROOM that she didn't even go in, it just collected stuff, and the basement was the same, so she was used to it).

My bedroom closet is mostly full of this stuff, and I've got a few boxes in the living room, and a few rows on an industrial type shelf. And some other struff strewn at random.

I didn't even mention the set of speakers, and the cheap home theatre set sitting in a closet because I don't need the stuff right now. Or the 400+ comic books in a box (of course that might reasonably have some value). And the 400+ books on the shelves. And the 150ish music CDs in a box.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: FrizQuadrata

Originally posted by: Zebo

Originally posted by: jon1003

Originally posted by: Zebo
I have a six month rule. Anything I don't use for six months I toss.. big time clutter and junk preventer. I'v thown away video cards, fishing poles, suits, stereos etc. I just threw away two sktA motherboards last friday... too bad this rule deosn't apply to my wife Shes got half a garage full of porcelin dolls and xmas ornimants!!! 3/4 of which havnt seen light in 10 years.. I'd love to rent a dumpster or two and get busy.

Why not put it up in the for sale forum? I, and many others would have paid $$ + shipping for socket a mobos and cpus. Some people can still use this stuff. Use the FS forum!!!

I have to advertise it, box it an drive to the post office.. that's work I don't need. I have sold things I have heat.. but I find it's never worth it.. much better to toss it.

Wow, what a selfish waste.

I built stuff for plenty of people for free so don't call me selfish it's not true - given stuff to people here....but OTOH I'm not a glutton for punsihment either.. I dread selling hardware and live in the sticks so it's even more of a waste - the drive, the gas, the time. that's all. And I've never been a collector of anything like my borthers who had baseball cards comics all sorts of crap I'm certainly not going to collect obsolete hardware

 

[Slammy1]

Heh, just went to my work bench and looked. I really don't have much, and what I have is mostly broken stuff. I just sell to friends cheap when I upgrade, always someone with an older something or other. This thread did inspire me to toss my old 2.4C processor I burned out o/c'ing.