What Do You Do With Old Computer Parts?

yoyoma writes "I am planning to rebuild our desktop computers. What do other slashdotters do with old computer parts? I would prefer to donate them. These are some old parts that I will end up with: two GA-686LX motherboards with PII 233, greater than 224 MB RAM (the new computers will take DDR), some video cards (Matrox) and possibly two ATX cases with 300 watts powersupplies (looking for quieter, smaller cases). Decent enough, but they will have no hard drives, floppy drives, or CD drives. TecsChange, and this other place accept donation of parts. Has anyone done this? What about the receipts for tax purposes?"

Comments

Call your local school

[disenfranchised]

Your local school district would probably be happy to receive the parts. Anything older than that probably wouldn't be useful, but these sound similar to a number of systems (200+) that we donated to the San Francisco Public Schools after our last round of upgrades.

I don't know for a fact that the schools can give you receipts for tax purposes, but knowing my employer it seems a good bet.

Computer Renassaince (sp?)

[FortKnox]

There is a store (in Cincinnati, at least) called "Computer Renassance" (bad spelling, I know) that buys old computer parts. It isn't hundreds of dollars for the old stuff, but its cash.

Plus, its nice to buy some old stuff (like 200Mhz motherboard/chip) for linux boxen from the store for cheap...

Re:Computer Renassaince (sp?)

[Lxy]

You're kidding, right? Computer Renassaince is the worst place to buy or sell stuff. They have nice low end PII systems that cost MORE than an E-machine with 17" monitor. They don't give you decent cash for hardware and they sell it for rediculous prices. My local CR has a nice area I call the "legacy scrap heap", a place where you can buy REALLY old hardware at the price it's worth. 486 CPUs for 99 cents, 30 pin SIMMS, etc. Otherwise if it's on the shelf you're paying too much. Used floppy drives: $30. 210 MB hard drive: $40. It's rediculous.

Re:Computer Renassaince (sp?)

[dEEbEE]

Once upon a time before acquiring Real Employment[tm], I worked for the Computer Renaissance in Paradise Valley, AZ, so I can speak based on my experiences there.

The CR stores are a franchise that gives each store owner pretty much free reign over what they will/won't buy and what prices they'll offer. At the one I worked for, the owner is a strong believer in blind margin points and the PC Hardware Bluebook. He'd generally offer slightly less than bluebook, assuming he was even interested, and he'd only take things of PII class or higher....so no really old parts-for-pennies there. Then, he'd go by what the bluebook said the item was worth and put some insane margin of 20-50 _points_ above that. Suffice it to say that the used hardware in that store has a _lot_ of price stickers that have browned with age from idling on the shelf for months/years. There are still items that I took in years ago that are still out there, and still with the same pricetag placed on them at the time.

At least in my (now dated) experience, the Paradise Valley store does put together a decent low-end ~$500 PC and provide good "for beginners" support in getting it setup for those who are new to owning a PC, I'll give them that. But for buying/selling old parts, there is no way I could fathom recommending them.

Power supplies = blower fans

[RollingThunder]

I cannibalize like mad. Power supply fans are often good for supplemental case ventilation... provided the reason the PSU is dead is something OTHER than the fan was crap and it overheated.

For complete systems, though, I generally send them to places that ship them off to disadvantaged areas (like Cuba). You don't run up against snooty "What? A PII is way too slow" from there, that's for certain.

WTF? Get Thee to Ebay...........

[fataugie]

Sell 'em! Good God man, tax deduction? Much more problems that it's worth. Keep in mind that you can only write off a percentage of the total value. Hardly worth the effort if you ask me. IF you feel benevolent, then just give them to the local charity or whatever.

Otherwise, sell them to some geek on Ebay, charge a fair price and people will pay you to ship to them.

This is one old part I couldn't do without

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Over 10 years, I've saved 2 Hercules video cards and 3 MDA monitors (amber and white) for my various desktop boxes, first to have a console to use the SoftICE debugger and be able to debug graphical VGA programs, and then to have a second console thanks to the mdacon driver in Linux (I use it mainly to tail /var/log/message on the second screen). It even has a virtual framebuffer that works great provided my ATI is never in text mode (i.e. in framebuffer mode too). Additionally, Hercules cards provide an additional parallel port. How cool is that ? :-)

I dread the day motherboard manufacturers will finally kill ISA slots though ...

You could spend a little extra...

[dberger]

FWIW: I've done this sort of thing several times (each time I do a major upgrade on a machine) - and in almost every case, I hit the local parts swap, pick up the missing parts (in this case probably to the tune of $50 or so - small IDE drive, basic CDROM, and floppy) and donate a working machine rather than a collection of parts. The tax writeoff is nice, of course, but the knowledge that I've given someone a working machine is better.

As for destinations - I give local schools and libraries first shot at them.

Just my .02

Ask Google

[Twid]

Why do people ask slashdot when five minutes in Google yields productive results:

Typing "computer recycling" in google led me on the FIRST LINK to:

The national directory of computer recycling programs

A State, National and International Directory of agencies
that facilitate donations of used computer hardware
for schools and community groups.

Scrolling down, I found the second link:

The computer recycling center

Computer Recycling Center accepts for Donation drop-off, ALL computer equipment of ANY age and ANY condition, working or non-working. We charge a small REUSE FEE for older items.
Our Mission is to promote the highest and best re-use of computer equipment, and recycle the unusable items to keep them out of our landfills.

You can take it from there....

Save your RAM modules

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I've made good money selling 32 pin SIMMs I had from the days I was working at a computer assembler : I had a bagfull of 256K and 4M SIMMs and up until about 2 years ago, they sold at crazy prices. Same for EDO DIMM modules. So if you do nothing else, put those 224M RAM of yours in an antistatic bag and enjoy the return on investment in 2 or 3 years. It's not that RAM gets more expensive, it's just that standards get deprecated, therefore more rare, therefore more expensive.

Local Community College

[standards]

My local community college offers a course for building computers. It helps people understand computer hardware, AND it helps people obtain a useful, low-cost machine.

Components like the ones described by the poster are in demand - reasonably modern equipment, and with a few extra pieces (like drives), the builder can save hundreds of dollars and have a useful and potentially upgradable home PC for the kids.

Other options include the local school district or the local place of worship - whatever floats your boat. Or give it to the neighbor kid who is interested in such things.

The only thing I ask you not to do is to let it rot - by storing it in a closet until it's useless, or by putting it out with the garbage.

Steps to take if you donate

[johnjones]

right if you want to donate a machine

put manuals in plastic bag along with driver disk and phyically attach it to hardware
(those plastic ties are nice )
this is to prevent it getting lost if they seperate the box from board

FORMAT HARD DISK
(do it with a linux distro for a laugh and root pass =password)

HOW Many machines Have I boot to find letters to tax man porn and such is quite unbeliveable

those 2 steps are really nice

my advice is walk into a primary school with a linux box and X up and running with a edu game on it and the teachers love you (-;

regards

john jones

Salvation Army

[Asic Eng]

Their Thrift Stores take old computers and give you a receipt. Not sure about parts, but old complete systems are fine. (Just donatated one recently.)

Donate to FREE GEEK

[casa_azul]

Portland, Oregon - FREE GEEK is a non-profit that takes older equipment and makes simple end user Linux boxes (FREEK BOXes) that are given to needy individuals for a few hours of community service recycling computers. The computers come with a class on how to use it and everything. (we've given out a couple a hundred in the last year). http://www.freegeek.org

no, don't

[pezpunk]

schools, at least where i live, won't take surplus computers. and if you think about it for a sec, you'll realize that this is a smart move. first of all, every new computer (or computer part) is a fountain of potential problems. what's on the hard drive (porn / unlicensed software / viruses / etc etc etc)? who owns the licenses? is this hardware about to crap out? where are the drivers? is it compatible with this other part over here? anybody around here know how to install it? can it support software x? plus, of course, whoever's in charge would have to re-train everyone else on each new system, not to mention spending countless hours trying to get it functionable in the first place.

no, don't curse your schools with surplus hardware!

Re:no, don't

[Tim Doran]

Shame - if I taught highschool, I'd love to run a skunkworks computer lab. Have students pursue donations of parts from around town and see what they can do with them. Have them research the various parts, choose the best configurations and, of course, build Linux/BSD boxen from them. Wouldn't take long to build a lab - imagine, a *nix lab in a highschool maintained by student volunteers who learn something new every time they crack open a case.

This reflects my experience with accumulated cast-off parts and could be the most useful computer training they receive (short of actual programming classes).

you'd have the best IT dept anywhere

[CrudPuppy]

if more people would do this, we would have an
abundant supply of capable PC techs in the IT
industry instead of the morons that are now the
majority.

people need to learn to be flexible, and throwing
10 different systems at someone and telling them
to try to install (insert your OS here) on them
will force them to become flexible and creatively
resourceful.

ordering 100 Dells and handing them to students
could never inspire the same sort of learning
experience...

Bravo!!