Recession Pushes IT To Find New Value In Old Gear

buzzardsbay writes "Trying to put a bright spin on a gloomy subject, the folks at eWEEK unearth an emerging trend: There's a booming cottage industry of dealers in refurbished computer and networking gear serving folks on the hunt for 'slightly used' and 'new to you' equipment. The dealers selling the stuff tell eWEEK the equipment is practically new, most of it less than a year old, and that the prices for things like servers and routers are lower than they have been since the post dot-com / Sept. 11 days in 2001. Used gear isn't for everybody, obviously. The story points out that while many of these used IT dealers offer configuration services, they don't do installs, and most are not authorized resellers. They do, however, offer decent warranties, so if you can do some of the work yourself, you'll probably be OK."

Comments

load it up

[Leadmagnet]

just load a clean copy of XP SP3 and OOS - you are good to go.

Sweet

[Jinky]

Anyone want my 386DX? $4000 refurb AS IS.

Re:Sweet

[Dare nMc]

Your going to need some more marketing spin on it.

"I am being forced to sell my Computer to pay rent, paid $6000 new, and have added $2000 in upgrades, I will let go for just $4000 to the first lucky person to bring cash.
Thanks to Vista, this model is very difficult to come by, it comes preloaded with over $1000 worth of software."

Then just load it with linux, openoffice, and all the free games you can find"

Re:Sweet

[JWSmythe]

    Actually, when I have the cash (that's going to plenty of other places) I buy Cisco stuff at auction. I generally go for the bigger equipment. I get some broken stuff and give it to a recycler. The good stuff I test, use for a little while to be sure it's good, then sell at a decent markup. I put a decent markup on it, so I always turn a profit, but it's still a whole lot cheaper for the customer than buying it new elsewhere.

    I'm not the biggest place doing it, but I can keep my prices low, because I'm working out of the house in my spare time.

    For someone with a decent size office (say 100 desks), a Catalyst 5500 for less than $1k customized for them will do them a lot better than a stack of consumer grade hubs and switches.

    I focus on Cisco gear, because I know it really well. I tried to touch the server market, but there is so little profit margin it usually ends up costing me money to sell it.

    The last "big" purchase I did, I bought 1 Cisco Catalyst 5000 (5 slot) 1 Cisco Catalyst 5505 (5 slot), 1 Cisco Catalyst 5500 (13 slot), and 3 servers. By the time I got rid of the 5500, 5505, and 1 server, I had already turned a profit. I sold the other 5000 and 1 other server, and that was just more profit.

    For me, my problem is that I lost my good high pay job about 2 years ago. It took some time to change my cost of living (get rid of the house, one car, etc), so right now I'm in recovery mode and can't buy anything else to move, even though it would always be at a profit.

    Some things are just fun. I bought an oscilloscope for something I was working on. It was cheap because the guy selling didn't even know if it worked. I tested it, bought a couple cheap probes, and then sat on it for a year. I finally decided I wouldn't need it again for a while, so I sold it for double what I had invested. It was a Tektronix, built in the 60's, but it still sold as soon as I made it available.

 

Re:Sweet

[sussex-shores]

You are not the only one selling their equipment to pay the bills. If you've got the cash to buy hardware this is an excellent time to do it.

Re:Sweet

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

The thought of having openoffice on a 386 just makes me sick. Installing Linux on a 386 is no walk in the park either. Way too much work for even $4000. As long as you're being dishonest, just superglue a dvd with ubuntu to the top of the case and be done with it.

Re:Sweet

[blincoln]

Have you run into trouble with customers who find out that they can't get support from Cisco for their secondhand gear? Or worse, threats from Cisco for running unlicensed OS/firmware?
Cisco makes great hardware in most cases, but I stay away from it like the plague myself because of those and other similar support/licensing policies.

Re:Sweet

[Jon_S]

I had a 386 running linux as my home's main file server for a year or two. Worked great. This was a Northgate Elegance that cost >$4000 when new. It seemed like a real classic, so I still have it down in the basement, ready to fire up into an old version of slackware any time.

Re:Sweet

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I know its possible. Just not going to be as easy an install as modern hardware. There are some pieces of hardware that just never got any support in Linux. I have 486's that won't take Linux, even old slackware, due to their old obscure ide controllers and/or the Packard bell label on front.

Re:Sweet

[Hognoxious]

What makes you think a 386DX is worth as much as a house?

Re:Sweet

[_Sprocket_]

Your going to need some more marketing spin on it.

"Vista Ready."

Re:Sweet

[LeftNose]

That's no good.

I've got a running 8088 with 20 MB HD. Plays Frogger and Dig Dug really well.

First $8,000 gets it.

Re:Sweet

[FishAdmin]

I tested it, bought a couple cheap probes, and then sat on it for a year.

Very, very bad visual, that.

Re:Sweet

[davester666]

Don't you mean "Vista Capable"...

Re:Sweet

[King_TJ]

I think you found a profitable "niche" because you happen to have enough knowledge of Cisco gear to confirm that used, high-end equipment of theirs works properly.

(It sounds like you're also saying you take care of the initial setup for your customers too? That would be a huge factor in making a sale to small business, I'd think.)

I'm an I.T. manager of a 75 employee (approx.) company, as well as running my own side business that does consulting and on-site service work -- and despite having about 15 years of experience, I can't say I know much about Cisco gear. I think that's true of a lot of us in the field.

We currently use Sonicwall here as our firewall/VPN solution. There are some things I really dislike about it though, including some instability with their web interface, and no native clients for the Mac or Linux platforms. I'm also not at all fond of their licensing. (Essentially, you can have a 5+ year old, outdated little box that appears to be built with about the same components as a $80 Linksys or Netgear - yet you pay hundreds per year just for the right to download firmware upgrades for the thing.)

Re:Sweet

[Cramer]

Everything he listed is very long past EOL. Cisco WON'T support you, no matter how much money you may be willing to throw at them. Even better... getting used equipment that's still under someone else's support contract. (unless you have an inside man at Cisco, that one rarely gets fixed.)

Cisco *used* to make great hardware. Today, they are quite a bit behind the times and even more expensive -- who uses 100M ethernet gear these days. Factor in their EOL policies that force you to move to new equipment every few years, and it's even worse. I know a lot of places that still use 2500's and are perfectly happy with them.

Re:Sweet

[JWSmythe]

    Ya, I've helped quite a few with their installs, either being on site or by phone or email.. I include the basics with the install.

    For the most part, people who have bought stuff from me already know what they intend to do with it, so they rarely ask anything of me afterwards, unless they want more stuff. :)

    I got lucky with Cisco stuff. Years ago, I was really thrown into it, because no one else knew how to work any of it. At first, I did some really basic stuff with guidance from our ISP's tech support.

    At the second place I was doing this at, I was just starting to get the hang of it, and we ran into a connectivity problem. We had an ancient PIX firewall (the old 4u model) which was between our Cisco 7204 router, and our Cisco 2924 switch. We had a single T3 coming into the site. Mind you, this was state of the art at the time. The provider insisted our firewall was the problem, and walked me through reconfiguring things. A little bit here, a little bit there, and 2 hours later the configuration was completely hosed, as far as getting traffic beyond the router. They did fix a problem on their side, which was the original problem. I was sitting there, in the middle of the night, with a half connected PIX, a router that wouldn't route, and a network that wasn't generating any money. The network would generate about $10k/day, so it was kinda urgent that I brought it back up. That was my worst experience with it. No one to turn to, because no one else knew how to work it. I couldn't even go online to look for information, since we were down. And of course this was before you could just cruise down to Starbucks and get on their wireless. :) I fumbled through it for about an hour, and made it work.

    A couple weeks later, I fumbled through, and made it work better.

    A couple weeks later, I improved it substantially.

    A few years later, I breezed through a CCNA class, and everything I knew when I walked in the door was only from experience and reading. I was a little (a lotta) rough on the Token Ring stuff, but that was expected. :)

    Now, every piece I can get my hands on, I try to learn as much as I can. If I can ever afford it, probably after the economy starts picking back up, I'll renew my CCNA, and take the CCNP, or whatever the current designation is. :) At this point though, I've learned enough to make everything I touch work properly, so the cert is just to prove to the people who need to see certs that I really know what I say I know.

Re:Sweet

[Kooty-Sentinel]

"I am being forced to sell my Computer to pay rent, paid $6000 new, and have added $2000 in upgrades, I will let go for just $4000 to the first lucky person to bring cash. Thanks to Vista, this model is very difficult to come by, it comes preloaded with over $1000 worth of software."

My loss is your gain.

There fixed that for ya!

Re:Sweet

[ElectricTurtle]

I don't remember any off the top of my head, but aren't there distros that specialize in old hardware? Besides, I usually put FreeDOS on anything below 100 Mhz.

Re:Sweet

[jeko]

Agghhhhh! A Juniper Huguenot! BURN HIM!

Re:Sweet

[Cramer]

Hah. No. Cisco and Juniper are both out of touch with reality.

The new Cisco 2851 hanging on the wall with a DS3 run into it is actually slower than the PIX 520 (decades old now) in the rack next to it. Granted, by Cisco's own documentation, it's not rated for a full DS3, but even at a fraction of the speed, it cannot handle the NAT, IPSec, and routing the pix has been doing for years. 2851 is at 70%+ util while the pix peaks at 1%. And the 2851 has hardware crypto support, so don't think the less-than-T1-rate VPN traffic is the cause. If you want an expensive device to copy packets from one interface to another (until the end of time), Cisco's got you covered.

Re:Sweet

[Have Brain Will Rent]

It was a Tektronix, built in the 60's, but it still sold as soon as I made it available.

No doubt - a Tektronix scope made in the 60's will probably still be working after we're all dead. HP stuff used to be like that too.

Re:Sweet

[Not The Real Me]

You have a valid point on old hardware. I tried to install CentOS 4 on a Pentium I/120 with 32 megs of RAM. CentOS 4 croaked. However, Redhat 6.2 works perfectly fine on that box, and that box is used as a Samba file/print server with 4 printers attached. It seems that the 2.6.x kernels need at least 128mb of RAM to run reliably, while the 2.2.x kernels run happily 24x7x365 with 32mb of RAM.

Re:Sweet

[JWSmythe]

    I know. :) I would have held onto it longer, but I needed the cash, and the wife was being pissy about my toys. That didn't matter much though, she left anyways. Now I have no wife and not as many toys. {sigh}

    Lessons learned. Never let the wife dictate what toys you can keep. Eventually she'll leave. The toys will never leave you. They'll never complain that you're late coming home, or forgot to pick up milk at the store.

Re:Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

a "Vista Ready" computer is like a "Hurricane proof" house. It's nice to know, but you hope to never actually use it.

Re:Sweet

[Jon_S]

That Northgate 386 was running with all it's RAM slots full - a whopping 8 MB!

It came with 4 1-MB sticks installed, and I bought another 386 motherboard from ebay for like $2 from which I was able to canabalize 4 more 1-MB sticks.

I am pretty sure it was a 2.2.x kernel.

It was a fun project and it served files great for a couple of years.

This Just In.

[Gerafix]

This just in, when you're poorer you make due with what is cheap.

Re:This Just In.

[ByOhTek]

Translation: This story needs a 'captainobviousstrikesagain' tag?

Re:This Just In.

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation: This story needs a 'captainobviousstrikesagain' tag?

Where's Ric Romero when you need him?

/ At Fark, obviously
// Hang on, this isn't Fark...
/// Slashy slashy

Re:This Just In.

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashy slashy, dot dot, now I've got my Farker shot. Now get outta here!

Old Gear

[dcw]

Hey! I can fire-up my Amiga 1000, 2000 and 4000!
Damm, I'm cutting edge again!

Re:Old Gear

[MilesAttacca]

My SGI O2 has you beat. :)

Re:Old Gear

[dcw]

Oh yah, TS1000 with the 16K ram pack and I'll throw in the big rubber band!

Re:Old Gear

[ByOhTek]

Fancy new stuff you got there.

Me, I have a Commodore 64!

Re:Old Gear

[aka_zedweb]

See your commodores and raise an Atari 1600, a couple of ZX Spectrum 48k and a Timex :)

Re:Old Gear

[oldspewey]

Yeah, those spontaneous resets (when the expansion pack loses contact with the mainboard) are real killers ... especially if you haven't saved your BASIC program to cassette tape for a while.

Re:Old Gear

[Temkin]

Hah! Desk bound heathens! I still have a working Tandy model 100 laptop. :-)

Re:Old Gear

[moxley]

My customer cluster, composed of 10 TI-99's, 4 TRS-80s, and 4 Apple II's

Re:Old Gear

[dcw]

Well if you to work free of the bonds of the cubicle, I have the Macintosh Portable! (laptopish thingy)

Re:Old Gear

[Hatta]

Have you seen the prices those things fetch on eBay? It's ridiculous. You could easily spend more on an old Amiga than a brand new PC.

Personally, I'm having a lot of fun with my Apple IIGS right now, but I always keep an eye on Craigslist for someone with an Amiga who doesn't know what it's worth.

Re:Old Gear

[TechForensics]

Well *I* have a Commodore VIC-20. You can do things on it you can't do on any other computer!!

Re:Old Gear

[VAXcat]

You're all a bunch of noobs with new gear. I have & use at least once a week, a DEC PDP-11/05...

Re:Old Gear

[MilesAttacca]

What kind of stuff do you use it for? Just novelty poking around, or something practical? I must admit, I only bring up my O2 to play the Tron light-cycle demo game. :P

links to reliable resellers?

[prgrmr]

Does anyone have URLs to resellers with whom you've done business? Being able to compare prices to something other than ebay without having to make a couple dozen phone calls would be extremely helpful.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[dnormant]

I am not affiliated with them in any way but I use anysystem.com. The have Sun, IBM, HP and Cisco hardware (systems and parts). They also offer a 1 year warranty on what they sell.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[pla]

Being able to compare prices to something other than ebay without having to make a couple dozen phone calls would be extremely helpful.

Why did this get modded "Troll"?

Granted, we can normally consider eBay more-or-less the definitive price guide for used stuff, but the parent post has a good point - Online 2nd-hand storefronts tend to have an abysmal record when it comes to keeping prices and product availability up to date.

Offhand, I know of only two reasons for doing that - Either they can't keep track of their own inventory, or they play the classic game of "once someone calls for a price, they'll say yes to almost anything"... And I for one wouldn't recommend buying from someone in either category.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[plopez]

I know you can search pricewatch and pricegrabber for refurbished equipment with ratings etc.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[brentc3114]

This is a shameless plug for a vendor that has treated me very well. I would contact Great Lakes computers, my representative is named Dani Mora and she does give very competitive pricing. I have purchased almost new servers, SAN parts, network gear, SANS-almost anything that you can think of. http://www.glcomp.com/ Brent Campbell, Olympia WA

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[David_Hart]

For network gear I would recommend cxtec.com. My former company did business with them to save money. Failures were few and far between. When a piece of equipment did fail, it was replaced quickly.

The one thing to remember when buying refurbs for enterprise use is to always go n+1 (i.e. have at least one spare on the shelf).

David

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Horrible website. Its not worth my time to dig through it to find any bargains, or even to see what products they had in stock.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.redrabbitt.com

This is the refurbishing arm of the same company that owns MicroCenter. They have depots in Columbus, OH and Reno, NV.

I picked up a couple of Dell Optiplex 280's. Each had 1GB ram, 3GHz Pentium HT, cost was less than $90 incl shipping and had a 60 day warranty (for non-commercial customers). Added a 320GB hd for $45 and used XP Pro install media (used license keys on the machines) for cheap Windows machines. They spec these in bulk, so you get surprises like video cards with dual-DVI output and TV capture cards every once in a while.

Warranty returns were relatively quick and painless. One of the Dells had an overheating problem and it was no trouble to drop the unit off at the depot and get a refund for it. I don't know if they cover return shipping if you are non-local, however.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[Hognoxious]

Gotta love that rotating pyramid. Gotta adore the fsact that it's a flash animation.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[tsstahl]

I've been an Anysystem customer both personally and professionally.

I was happy with my experiences. They even gave me a yellow rubber ducky with one of my orders.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[mabhatter654]

we use them because we have slightly older equipment and don't want to be on the upgrade treadmill simply to add/replace one or two switches and don't want to lose the benefit of using the same model across the network. That's the real benefit of the refurb places, if you're already 3-4 years in and the manufacturer wants to obsolete equipment/software to make you buy new, it's a great place to look.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[DecepticonEazyE]

I've done business with Vibrant Technologies for many years, good company. www.vibrant.com

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Network Hardware Resale when I need to get cheap Cisco. They carry end of life/service stuff all the way up to brand new networking gear. I think they are the biggest stocker of refurb cisco you can find and have 1 year warranty on everything they sell.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[KBlommel]

That's the company mentioned in the article. Looks like that would be a good bet to start with. Thanks!

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[Bishop10101]

Why not just send a blast email to several brokers listed here & get a bunch of prices back? sales@networkhardware.com; sales@trustnsr.com; sales@vibrant.com; sales@anysystem.com; sales@glcomp.com; sales@cxtec.com

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[dbatkins]

Shameless plug alert! www.cypress-tech.com We specialize in HP Unix gear.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[brentc3114]

Why would you care about the website? Who is the heck buys high end network gear without first finding out what the warranty is, where the stuff comes from, if it will be covered by the manufacturer and if said gear will work with what you currently have? When you start getting into stuff that is beyond a basic server you usually need to do some checking before signing the PO.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[prgrmr]

Thanks for the info! I just bought a desktop system from them: half a gig of RAM, 60GB HDD, and a DVD player for $99. I can put Fedora on that and add the 80GB hard drive in my current home system back to Windows now.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[Bishop10101]

I did a little research on Anysystem just now, and they seem like a pretty shady dealer. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-125495220.html Apparently the owner of Anysystem, John R. Butler, stiffed his vendors (like QSGI ), moved money into other assets and then went back into business right after his bankruptcy. I'm personally staying away from them!

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[tsstahl]

Yea, but they gave me a ducky!!

----

Seriously, that is sad to hear. I will think twice if the occasion to use them again presents itself.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you Google refurbished equipment you might find some other vendors. Liquidators and overstock resellers are a good source, with techforless.com having good ratings on resellerratings.com....

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[petermgreen]

Granted, we can normally consider eBay more-or-less the definitive price guide for used stuff,
Stuff they turn over significant quanities of probablly though sometimes even then thier prices can be higher than elsewhere. Lower volume stuff though fluctuates hugely on auction sites like ebay.

BTW if you are searching ebay to get an idea of prices always do a completed items search. A large proportion of bidders snipe so the value of auctions that haven't ended yet is pretty uninteresting.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Because, I'm not the guy that buys high end network gear. I'm the guy that wants to play with used high end network gear on the cheap. But I'm also the Guy that talks to other guys that buy high end network gear. So even if I wasn't going to buy myself, I could provide a sales lead to them if they brought their website usability factor up. Yahoo store fronts are more usable. Plus, if they are going to present themselves as an honest broker of used equipment, it would behoove them to present themselves as a professional operation worthy of my trust and moohla.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[ajlisows]

Don't forget the low end stuff too! Sometimes there is a lot of money a company can save. Example: At the company I work for the PC's in the shop can go through 4 mice/keyboards in the lifetime of a desktop because of poor treatment. I get a mailer (Once Monthly at the most) from a company called gearxs.com At one point we purchased 20 Logitech mice from them for $1.29 each. We have been upgrading everyone to 22" flatscreens and a year ago, when they were still always $230+ we got a handful for $140 each. Their normal prices are not that great but when they send out their sales flier you can pick up some of the every day tech that every company needs are real nice prices.

I also used ServerSupply.com to get spare parts for HP DL380 Servers to keep them running. Once I ordered 4 147 GB Hot swap SCSI drives and realized I read the part number wrong and ended up with 68 Pin instead of 80. They took the parts back with no restocking fee to us (Even though I had opened two of the boxes)...we just had to pay the shipping. It is not common for a company to eat YOUR mistake.

Just two places that I found gave me some good deals and fast service. Ordered many times from both places and felt like I was walking away with a deal every time.

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[JH GLCOMP]

Brent - Thanks for the kind comments about GLC. I am a sales rep at GLC and work with Dani. Just to let everyone know, we are rolling out our new website next month. You will be able to find tons of product info and specials on current and end-of-life hardware as well as many user-driven enhancements. We understand that our current website is in need of some updating, so please check back near the end of January! - Jared Hoving

Re:links to reliable resellers?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Will do. Sorry, if I'm a bit curmudgeony.

and to think, some people made fun of...

[zappepcs]

the thought that 2009 will be the year of Linux on the desktop. Seriously, I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 on a 700MHz laptop with 256MB RAM and a 20GB hard drive. It works fine given I know that I can't open up 40 apps at once, and it will be a bit slower than my desktop, but it's great for where I use it.

Speaking of desktops, I have several that are nearly 8 years old and running Ubuntu quite well. In fact the 'end users' in my house don't know the difference between the old systems and the new ones.

I'm thinking that the push for re-utilizing older hardware will have Linux on the Desktop very shortly. It's about time.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[berend botje]

Same here. My old laptop with 256 MB takes a few second more to load heavy applications (i.e. OpenOffice) but you don't feel any difference with the modern hardware while using it.

It's not about when Linux will be ready for the desktop. It already is, and has been for at least as long as Ubuntu exists.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[zappepcs]

Well, I like Ubuntu quite a bit, and it presents a good UI to the 'end users' in my house, but I am also using Ubuntu Server edition, CentOS 5.x, RHEL 5x, OpenSolaris, DSL, Puppy, and every now and then attempt OpenBSD/NetBSD on some older MVME hardware I have out in the garage. -- yes, this means I am a junk computer hardware collector :) I like Linux

Just for teh h4x0r cred, I'm trying to stick a small mobo in an old external tape drive unit, cd drive where the tape used to be, laptop hd RAID-1 behind it, and all the normal connectors out the back... but that's just a hobby thing. Linux makes it possible for me to do that. $350+ dollars for a copy of windows for such an adventure would be insanity^2 when I'm putting out all of ... oh... fifty cents for the hardware.

Next project is MythTV or similar in an old VCR case. You guessed it, CD where the old tape drive was etc. 160GB laptop HDs are cheap and plentiful, makes the whole thing easy because of reduced power requirements.

After that, old laptop conversion for under the cabinet waterproof pc in the kitchen for recipes and such. One of the end users here likes to look up recipes online. But that will involve hunting for some hardware to allow the laptop screen and keyboard parts to fold and slide under the cabinet for out of the way storage... but Linux makes such a hobby possible... or at least legally possible.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[berend botje]

Sounds great! You are spot on that Linux and all the other great free software makes it possible to tinker again.

I'm started in the 8-bit era and extending the hard- and software was a normal thing. After the demise of all the great platforms (Amiga, Atari) it was hard to "play" with your computer. Windows isn't open enough, and the hardware was boring also.

Now, once again, it is easy to use a computer for anything you can imagine.

I'm still looking for a cheap, low-power single-board computer for some projects. The Linksys NSLU is a bit low on memory and the Soekris board are a bit too expensive for me. One day... :-)

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[zappepcs]

You might like to see what I've been keeping an eye on then:

This site has kind of a turn-key feel to it for my hobby needs:
http://damnsmalllinux.org/store/motherboards/EPIA_5000

Here is some other mini board news etc.
http://www.mini-itx.com/

and of course, newegg is your friend:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121342

I'm experimenting with the various junk cases I've got in order to do something that is retro, not steampunk, and qualifies as a useful hack. Seeing an old VCR in the entertainment cabinet is cool, better if it is a mythtv system with wireless keyboard/mouse. Small odd looking cases is just some how more aesthetic than standard white box cases that 'look' like computers. I bought a computer credenza recently (used for $20) that needed a leg repaired. I'm thinking about embedding the mobo etc. in the underside of the desk. That won't require small parts etc. just some plexiglass to keep fingers and cats out of the electronics.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[berend botje]

I'll check out those links on the weekend, a quick peek showed a lot of interesting boards!

I've been thinking about building a completely hidden media center (the wife has a problem with computers in the 'nice' room). Hiding it in the television furniture can be done, provided I can keep it under 3 inches in height.

It's a fun project to keep me busy over the holidays... :-)

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[bcrowell]

and to think, some people made fun of the thought that 2009 will be the year of Linux on the desktop. [...] I have several [desktop systems] that are nearly 8 years old and running Ubuntu quite well.

Yep. I have a somewhat different set of circumstances that have led me to the same conclusion. I teach physics at a community college. There are 7 school-provided Windows boxes in the room where I teach lab classes of 10-25 students, so I decided that if I didn't want one member of each lab group making the graphs while the others watched, I needed to buy some cheap Linux boxes. Good Will has tons of perfectly reasonable systems in the $80-90 price range. They work great with Ubuntu, but they're basically useless if you want to run Windows on them, because (a) they're probably full of malware, (b) they don't come with the Windows install disks, drivers, etc., so you can't do a fresh install, and (c) the version of Windows installed on them is obsolete.

The recession clearly makes the case for Linux on used hardware stronger. I'm in California, which is in a massive budget meltdown due to the credit crisis, low tax revenues, and inability to sell its bonds. If I request a new machine for classroom use, it's likely to be at least five years until it happens, and maybe not even then. The school hasn't been buying new machines for years now, and that means that even older machines aren't available to be transferred from department X to department Y when X upgrades. The problem is that IT is focused on buying high-quality, new machines, because that's what makes their lives easier. Okay, I can kind of see that considering that they have a low ratio of IT staff to boxes, but there's some point at which you have to ask how it can make sense to insist on paying $1000 for a new machine when you could get a used one at literally one tenth of that price.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[Al Al Cool J]

Ditto. I have Xubuntu on a 800 MHz notebook and UbuntuLite on a Celeron 350 MHz Notebook with 192MB RAM. The latter is surprisingly zippy, and while I use it mostly for CLI purposes (mobile webserver, network troubleshooting) it's nice having a functional desktop when needed.

Both notebooks were give-aways from my brother-in-law. When his current notebook becomes too slow under Windows, and the techs tell him he needs to upgrade, he buys a new one, keeps the old one as a backup, and gives me his previous backup. He's amazed I can do anything with them.

Toshibas BTW. Decent machines.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[zappepcs]

Oddly, that is exactly how I came to have the two IBM laptops that I have :) and several desktops. This source of second hand hardware is never ending thanks to Microsoft :) I can truly say this is the feature of Microsoft Windows that I most appreciate ROFLMAO

That 700MHz laptop has become the console for my music entertainment center, and functions perfectly well for that. I'm listening to Internet radio on it as I type this now. It's awesome!

What's even better is these laptops are upgradeable and parts are cheap now for them.. well, kind of. I think that when a user comes to the conclusion that hardware is CHEAP and they can have several systems that don't have to do absolutely EVERYTHING, the options that you and I are familiar with become very inviting.

Several times, I've shown people how to setup VPN and access all their work apps and data and suddenly it dawns on them: Wow, you really don't need a 2800 dollar laptop to do this stuff. That's when they start to wonder just how much they need MS at all. BTW, I do get repeat calls, and referrals for my efforts.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[ckaminski]

Look into maybe getting a touchscreen adapter, or an older tabletPC, and simply mounting it undercabinet. I'm thinking of doing something similar myself, sort of the "Audrey on steroids".

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[ckaminski]

get one of the HTPC computer cases. Some are fairly cheap, $99-150, and look really smart next to the rest of your AV gear.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[zappepcs]

That's a possibility, but I looked at the new search screens at Barnes and Nobles and even with the touch screen, it's just still necessary to have a keyboard. I might go with a wireless keyboard w/trackball to keep it tidy and remove some of the bulk of the problem to a point that it can be put in a drawer etc.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[Wrath0fb0b]

$350 for a copy of Windows is insanity. Fortunately, a copy of XP will set you back less than $100. About 30 seconds on froogle got me to http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116511&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Software+-+Operating+Systems-_-Microsoft-_-32116511.

I've been using the same two copies of XP that I got when it came out (one MSDN from a friend, one retail). Of course, I don't feel the need to have a million different computers running at the same time -- one laptop and one desktop is plenty.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[Alpha830RulZ]

Fortunately, a copy of XP will set you back less than $100

Not any more. I'm searching for one currently, and $130-150 seems to be the cheapest, and those are from sketchy sources. Love to know if you have a cheaper line.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[makapuf]

The BeagleBoard would maybe be interesting to consider : linux, everything in small low power ARM board. And it seems MUCH easier to power than these mini itx boards where you need a special PSU.

I haven't used it myself (yet) however.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[WuphonsReach]

Not any more. I'm searching for one currently, and $130-150 seems to be the cheapest, and those are from sketchy sources. Love to know if you have a cheaper line.

The only way to get XP legally now is either to sign a license agreement with Microsoft (you'll probably have to buy in quantities of 5?) or buy Vista Ultimate OEM and pester Microsoft for a downgrade key.

(Vista Ultimate is the only OEM version that has downgrade rights.)

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[zappepcs]

Just a side note: MS has fucked itself IMO. When I wanted to move my Windows install from one Desktop to another I backed up my data, installed Linux on the old machine, and then tried to install my LEGAL copy of Windows on the new machine (built from parts by me - not OEM) the license expired in 45 days. MS then told me I had to buy a new license.... FUCK THAT. I'll drive my car on any road I want to and I damned well better be able to install my legally purchased OS software on any computer I own.

I like Linux but it's not so much that I like it better than Windows, it's that I hate Microsoft's business practices so much that I'd prefer to use anything but their products if at all possible. If Windows was the only OS available for my use, I'd get a new hobby and vocation. You tell me that Windows is not that expensive but you steal from MS to get your copy. Nice job! Does it rain on your planet? Yes, the MSDN version will install on anything-ish, but you 'got it from a friend' as you say. Hmmmm I'm betting your friend didn't charge you a cent for the CD copy of his MSDN version, if it was even your friend's MSDN disk and not one belonging to his place of work.

I'll also bet that if you HAD TO PAY for your OS and software, you'd switch to Linux and F/OSS too.

Re:and to think, some people made fun of...

[Wrath0fb0b]

Newegg is the most reputable store in the internet and they are selling Windows XP Home for $90.

FP...

[ghee22]

^fRom my s%%%lightl.y us5ed PC!$

Re:FP...

[khellendros1984]

I don't think that's off topic. Parent was try to demonstrate a half-dead keyboard on a laptop....when the lines get broken, they send out all sorts of crap that becomes some very interesting output on the other end...

Missing from the fucking article:

[Samschnooks]

Linux, Linux, ..., ad infinitum.

I found the ???!

[6Yankee]

How to make money when times are hard:

1. Buy oodles of cheap hardware
2. Search it for confidential info
3. Blackmail
4. Profit!

Re:I found the ???!

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I think steps two and three are really the ???. Lets try it for underwear gnomes first.

1) steal Underpants
2) Search for personal info
3) Blackmail
4) Profit

Ok that seems to work.
How about web 2.0?

1) Use Ajax + Social networking
2) Get Personal Info
3) BlackMail
4) Profit

It seems to work for most. Good Job.

Re:I found the ???!

[Hognoxious]

That's totally unfair. What's so special about today?

Re:I found the ???!

[Anonymous Coward]

3. Blackmail

Blackmail's such an ugly word. I prefer extortion. The "X" makes it sound cool. /Bender

Re:I found the ???!

[Kooty-Sentinel]

You racist bastard. Africanamerican-mail you insensitive clod!

Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[jellomizer]

For the most part Used hardware is a good deal. Getting new stuff is often more emotional then rational. Oh you need to expand your 100Mbit network. You don't need the giga bit network so why not pay say 50% less for network gear that is a good fit for your infrastructure. A lot of this equipment are real work horses and will run fine for decades. Even PC's a 2 year old High End PC is now a mid range PC today. and if you can get a used MidRange PC at 25% off new then why not.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[Lumpy]

Not only is getting new stuff more emotional than rational, but the same goes for the OS upgrades.

I have ran my business on a antiquated dual P-III dell server with a raid 5 in it running server 2000 for a while now. it does the job GREAT, it's a file server and domain server for only 20 people. and it will run just fine for another 5 years.

I would upgrade it to Linux and Samba but the adaptec raid card has no stable drivers for Linux. so I either downgrade to software raid or stick with what is working.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[Sycraft-fu]

Probably partially depends on where the gear came from. You wouldn't want used gear from my work, for example. I work for a university and we do sell all our used systems at auction. However people buy them for scrap for the most part. Why? Well we keep them until they are run in to the ground. The highest end hardware we are getting rid of currently are Pentium 3 systems. Same deal with our network. We did recently do a network upgrade, took the core of the network to gigabit. The switches that were there got moved further out to replace older switches and so on. Net result sent to surplus? About 8 10mbit hubs, 3 10mbit switches and an old 10/100 switch that didn't work well.

Stuff just kinda gets handed down the chain until it is finally broken or just too old to be useful. Only then is it sent to surplus and sold.

So I could see it being useful if you are buying from a company that has the "Always gotta have the latest, greatest," mentality. However some places, like us, keep our gear for a loooooong time before we get rid of it. A 10 year old car is fine, a 10 year old hub is probably not a good idea.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh you need to expand your 100Mbit network. You don't need the giga bit network so why not pay say 50% less for network gear that is a good fit for your infrastructure.

The price difference between fast ethernet and gigabit ethernet is negligible. A lot of things will max out a 100 megabit connection these days.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[JWSmythe]

    You're exactly right about the networking gear.

    One place I worked for, they had consumer grade "switches" in 4 suites, with a mismatch of technology connecting the suites (all in the same complex). I spent $300 on 6 Cisco Catalyst 2924's with 4 port 100baseFX fiber cards. I spent another $150 on enough fiber to interconnect them all.

    I did the upgrades very carefully so as to not break anything during working hours. One suite per day to change them from their cheap switch to the 2924. I spent 3 days on ladders running fiber between the suites. On the last night, I switched their cross connects from the old ways to the fiber. That next morning, people were amazed how fast everything was working.

    The VoIP guy was laughing the whole time. I put an office of about 30 desks on "enterprise" equipment. Well, it's old, but when it was new, sure it was "enterprise" equipment. For $450, I couldn't have done anything better. :)

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[oldspewey]

depends on where the gear came from

I've learned from experience that you don't want used computer gear that's been exposed to heavy cigarette smoke for several years.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[eln]

I have ran my business on a antiquated dual P-III dell server with a raid 5 in it running server 2000 for a while now. it does the job GREAT, it's a file server and domain server for only 20 people. and it will run just fine for another 5 years.

The amazing part is it can do all that while sending out thousands of pieces of spam every day!

Seriously though, while it's true that most people don't need to upgrade as often as they do, software does eventually get EOLed by the vendor and needs to be replaced if you want any support for it. In the case of a Win2k box, it will probably serve just fine for another 1 or 2 years, but I think 5 years is pushing it.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[jimicus]

software does eventually get EOLed by the vendor and needs to be replaced if you want any support for it.

The number of systems still running software that was EOL'd some time ago should give you some clue as to how important vendor support is for many people.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[Analog_Manner]

Agreed. I bought a $700 Pentium D early in 2006, and it still runs Crysis is pretty good with a 9800 gtx I got used for $130. DDR2 667 is still pretty fast too. Couldn't find a reason to upgrade to Core 2 Duo or Core i7.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[blincoln]

it will run just fine for another 5 years.

Except that much sooner, MS is dropping support for Windows 2000, so you'll potentially be vulnerable to exploits.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[Dynedain]

That's the problem we're in. We have several P3 Xeons in the 300-500 MHz range that run absolutely great for our needs as AD controllers. But lack of support and difficulty with integrating newer XP 64bit, OSX (and in the future, Vista) workstations means that we'll have to replace the machine relatively soon even though they are sufficient for their taks.

EOL on software forces hardware obsolescence.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[jellomizer]

How is that different from XP or Vista?

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

it should run 15 years fine if you replace disks and fans often enough.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[1s44c]

I would upgrade it to Linux and Samba but the adaptec raid card has no stable drivers for Linux. so I either downgrade to software raid or stick with what is working.

Software RAID isn't a bad thing. If your hardware RAID card blows up tomorrow can you replace it?

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[MBGMorden]

Depending on the network it's running on and what it's doing, security updates drop in importance. Don't get me wrong you still want them when available, but realistically a server with a good software firewall, connected to the LAN with no Internet-accessible IP (ie, NAT'd), and that is not used to browse the web, is generally pretty safe regardless of age.

With that in mind, barring hardware failures they might just get 5 years out of it. Hell we're running some old COBOL programs that have been in use since the late 70's/early 80's. The interfaces on them are clunky to say the least, but they get the job done.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG!!! So it will instantly explode when they drop it!

OMG! OMG!

only for really undereducated admins would a W2K server be vunerable. If you have your network designed right, You can run a NT4 server with no admin password safely.

Only a complete dipshit connects a Windows server to the internet. you use a magical item called a firewall.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[bill_mcgonigle]

ealistically a server with a good software firewall, connected to the LAN with no Internet-accessible IP (ie, NAT'd), and that is not used to browse the web, is generally pretty safe regardless of age.

Most of the security problems I've dealt with have been caused by people bringing outside machines inside the firewall.

e.g. Remote unauthenticated buffer overflows against Windows file sharing or IIS.

If you firewall everything, you're probably quite safe. :)

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[Cramer]

I would upgrade it to Linux and Samba but the adaptec raid card has no stable drivers for Linux.

dpt_i2o? I've used one for a long time. Yes, I had to fix the driver DPT published (a SCO driver hammered into Linux and FreeBSD) -- this was before Adaptec took over and put A person incharge of the driver.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[Cramer]

And what was their cheap gear you replaced that was so much slower than the slow cisco 2924's? I'll go out on a limb and guess you replaced HUBs with SWITCHES; that's an improvement no matter how cheap the switch. For $450 you could go gigE these days. (with NEW gear even.)

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[Linker3000]

Yep,

We've just moved into 'new' offices and the network infrastructure includes, courtesy of ebay:

3com 4500 26-port switch = 35GBP
3com 4500 26-port POE switch = 249GBP
2 x 42U comms cabinets = 100GBP
9U comms cabinet including 24-port gigabit switch = 100GBP
Dell PowerEdge 3250 dual Xeon server = 50GBP
4 x Snom 360 phones = 45GBP each
Compaq rackmount LCD monitor = 60UKP
Mitel 522x VoIP phones at around 40GBP each

My boss used to think I was mad buying second hand off ebay until I gave him the 'as new' price for the above kit.

There's a lot of good second hand stuff out there at the moment.

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[petermgreen]

A fileservers job is to have the filesharing port open to it's clients.

So if you have a good firewall and can keep all infected machines out things are fine. But how many buisnesses really manage to do a perfect job of keeping infected machines off thier network (both stopping desktops inside getting infected and stopping people bringing in machines)?

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[JWSmythe]

    I could buy 6 GigE switches with fiber connections and the fiber on them for $450? Wow, I've been shopping at the wrong places. Care to share where?

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[Cramer]

You don't need 6 nor do you need fiber. 24 port gig switches aren't that expensive these days. (Netgear, HP, Linksys/Cisco... it's all the same broadcom crap under the hood.)

You still didn't answer the question... what exact did you replace? 10m hubs running on 10base-2?

Re:Refurbish um... "Experienced" Hardware.

[JWSmythe]

    Well, it's good to know that someone on here can do network design psychically. Remind me to have you send of the design specs for the next network I work on. I'll pay you, of course. You should have them done already though, since you're so good.

    Like I said, there were multiple suites in the same complex. It required 6 switches. I could have run them all back to one central switch, but that would mean running bundles of Cat5/6 along the roof of the building (the only wiring route there), an half of them to a central switch over a road. The total run on quite a few would be greater than 400'. Oh, and I should add, in a very lightning prone area. The city claims to be the "Lightning capital of the world". I don't know about that, but even NOAA marks the state as being the most lightning prone area in the country, and the city lands smack in one of the two big red blobs shown on NOAA's lightning map. That's enough for me to justify running fiber between suites.

    And, the old switches were Netgear 10/100 switches of various models. Some suites were linked via a wireless bridge. That part was fine, except when a truck would park in between them (happened about twice a day).

Doing the work yourself...

[xpuppykickerx]

They do, however, offer decent warranties, so if you can do some of the work yourself, you'll probably be OK. Damn! I was hoping for a Plug and Play server.

Old stuff never stopped working

[logicassasin]

...Which is why I still have much of my old stuff in use today.

Granted, newer OS'es have gotten much more resource intensive (including Linux), but by and large a lot can still be done on old hardware.

P2's and P3's can still be used as web servers, desktops, and thin clients. Old-school Pentium/Pentium MMX machines are great as simple x terminals. Take an old Compaq Proliant quad Xeon 450 server, throw a copy of linux on it and run a bunch of "classic" Pentium machines as xterminals and there's your new call center's environment for only a few thousand dollars. There's a number of scenarios where investing tens of thousands of dollars in shiny new hardware doesn't make a lot of sense. Does the accounting dept really need PC's with 4GB of ram and two dual core procs? Can't they do their work on Athlons or P4's loaded with a decent amount of RAM? Does the secretary pool really need PC's with enough power to do nuclear simulations on? Didn't our corporate domain controllers used run P3 Xeons?

I still have a Thinkpad 570/333MHz/192MB that sees daily use with Win2000 installed. I have an IBM 300GL p2-333MHz machine that I use as the desktop companion to the laptop, again I get real work done on these machines along with the P3-550 and my primary Athlon XP 2500 machine.

Old hardware didn't stop working, we just stopped using it.

Re:Old stuff never stopped working

[kyrio]

Why not upgrade to XP and possibly just get it up to 512MB RAM.

P2s run XP beautifully with more than 256MB RAM (more RAM the better), pretty much any P3 as well (like the P3 500/640MB sitting beside me).

Re:Old stuff never stopped working

[GaryOlson]

Does the accounting dept really need PC's with 4GB of ram and two dual core procs? Can't they do their work on Athlons or P4's loaded with a decent amount of RAM?

No and no. But the Security Dept can force load enough software to make any but the latest dual-core processor/SATA drive PC worthless to use. Ever seen a Windows box with a 1.8Ghz P4 and 512MB of RAM try to load McAfee Enterprise on boot? Especially after about 18 months of all Windows updates have been forced onto the system?

I expect we will all require multicore personal systems in the future. One core for internal system security, one core for network (external security), one core for user applications, and one spare core for peak load assistance to the other cores.

Re:Old stuff never stopped working

[Hoi Polloi]

Just make sure to clean those intake filters and clean the dust out of that old gear. It is pretty scary how much builds up in an air cooled box.

I also like to take a little copper polish to the motherboard every now and then but that is just me.

Re:Old stuff never stopped working

[cparker15]

Let's see... BlackICE, Disknet, Symantec Enterprise, Credant Mobile Guardian Shield, Spysweeper, wmiprvse (for monitoring users' installed applications, as everyone is set up as Administrator (I kid you not)). Top all that off with Lotus Notes and then whatever else you need to do actual work, and a ThinkPad T43 is practically useless.

My T43's lease recently expired and I was upgraded to a ThinkPad T400. The T400 is actually usable with all this crapware! I really think I would have thrown the T43 out the window if I had to put up with it for much longer. (I wonder how long it will take for our security department to screw this up, too.)

Re:Old stuff never stopped working

[hurfy]

This is the problem i have at our office too. IF it wasn't for security it could run on 486's....

Our main accounting system uses a terminal emulator for access. Anything less than a 2GHz HT processor is noticeably slow with just basic firewall/AV running. The programs we use would be fine with anything capable of loading Win98 or higher.

The 'server' is still P3 tho :) Just a place to put some files and a convenient print server.

Re:Old stuff never stopped working

[nxtw]

Sometimes, we stop using old hardware for a reason. With modern virtualization software, using old PCs for servers doesn't make a whole lot of sense. One could use ten P3 systems @ 700 W avg. use total or two Core 2 systems running virtualization software at 300 W. avg. The Core 2 systems would be faster, more reliable, easier to manage, more capable... and possibly cheaper.

Re:Old stuff never stopped working

[spazimodo]

Conversely, virtualization allows you to keep older server hardware on-line longer and less expensively - you can avoid renewing service contracts and just run servers till they die since you can just vmotion the VMs to another physical server when the time comes. The only downside is per-CPU licensing for VMWare which may be way cheaper per app/VM on newer hardware. (More VMs per CPU license)

Re:Old stuff never stopped working

[Anonymous Coward]

If all those accountants use is said terminal emulator and some office applications, I presume it would run just fine on any decent Linux distro out there. What is it with Windows firewalls? If I turn on the firewall on any Linux box, there's no real difference in performance for typical desktop uses, and the memory impact is negligible as well... Even virus scanning can be made pretty much unintrusive on a Linux desktop (or server)...

Hooray for the landfills!

[plopez]

If this keeps some gear out of the landfills it's a good thing. The computer and electronics industry are filthy industries. We don't need more heavy metals leaching out of the landfills. Or getting dumped in the 3rd world.

Re:Hooray for the landfills!

[frehe]

The computer and electronics industry are filthy industries.

Yes, for example, I've heard that it's more and more common for automatic garbage collectors, in languages with that functionality, to take all the dirty memory that is no longer used, and smuggle it to third world countries, where the data ends up in large heaps in the countryside, polluting the precious bodily fluids of the local people.

Re:Hooray for the landfills!

[Teresita]

The computer and electronics industry are filthy industries.

Yeah, God hates pr0n. Ironically they are pushing everyone to replace their incandescent bulbs with fluorescent ones to save the Carbon. If you break one it's a major HAZMAT incident on the level of a radiological "dirty bomb" going off. Lord forbid you should try to dispose of a dead one.

Re:Hooray for the landfills!

[Anonymous Coward]

If this keeps some gear out of the landfills it's a good thing. The computer and electronics industry are filthy industries. We don't need more heavy metals leaching out of the landfills. Or getting dumped in the 3rd world.

here here

It's about time

[JBG667]

IT Managers have been spending like drunken sailors. It's quite appalling that policies and strategy of most corporate IT shops are dictated by hardware and software vendors who cozy up to the management and staff through gifts, golf games and lunches.

Old hardware is thrown out instead of re-used, and nine times out of ten more powerful (and expensive) hardware/solution is chosen. It's time for IT to tighten the belt and re-direct some of the money lining vendors' pockets to some old fashioned internal R & D.

Re:It's about time

[ducomputergeek]

I worked in a video production/editing shop for a couple years. They replaced 1/3 of their systems every year. Now granted, they're work is time critical. And faster is always better. But the old systems saw reuse in the front office or were demoted to the render farm.

Things that had been there for 5 years were then finally taken off the line with employees and friends getting first dibs. That's how I ended up with a Quad 500Mhz DEC Alpha machine with a whopping 2GB of Ram for $650. Complete with NT4 for Alpha and Lightwave 5.6!

Re:It's about time

[BulletMagnet]

IT Managers have been spending like drunken sailors. It's quite appalling that policies and strategy of most corporate IT shops are dictated by hardware and software vendors who cozy up to the management and staff through gifts, golf games and lunches.

As an IT Manager, I have to ask...Do you even work in IT? I've been working in enterprise IT for roughly 15 years and never once has any vendor attempted to dictate terms to what we used or didn't use, nor does anyone I know in IT fall under your rather incorrect profile of IT as a whole. Maybe where you are/were employed has a corrupt group of politico-IT tyrants but that's just where you work, and very far from the norm. Those of us with these things called ethics (you may have heard of them) don't need to play empire building games and those that do, those who buddy up with vendors stop putting the people who sign the paychecks first, and then the become easy to spot, and in tough times, easy to get rid of.

Old hardware is thrown out instead of re-used, and nine times out of ten more powerful (and expensive) hardware/solution is chosen. It's time for IT to tighten the belt and re-direct some of the money lining vendors' pockets to some old fashioned internal R & D.

Time is money. If you're on a 3 or 4 year hardware refresh, and your per desktop budget is 1K, what you buy in 2009 for that thousand dollars is going to be much faster then it was in 2006. If I make all of our expensive people more productive, then we're better off. Our old hardware no longer fit for mainstream corporate use is donated to employees, or clients less fortunate (my organization was lead by rather well-known philanthropist before his death, and we've followed his vision) or whoever can still benefit for it, so everone wins. Maybe you need to experience others outside your world....

Re:It's about time

[JBG667]

Yes, I am in IT and you/your company may be an exception (kudos).

Does your company have clear ethical guidelines and a procurement department which manages the vendor selection process?

Do you accept lunches/gifts from vendors? Have these ever affected your decision? How can you be certain?

Help..

[Finallyjoined!!!]

XP won't install on the Cat 7000 I just bought from a firesale. OMG what should I do????

{:-)

Re:Help..

[genner]

XP won't install on the Cat 7000 I just bought from a firesale. OMG what should I do???? {:-)

You should be using Vista obviously.

Re:Help..

[Finallyjoined!!!]

You should be using Vista obviously.

Vista won't install on the Cat 7000 I just bought from a firesale. OMG what should I do???? {:-)

Re:Help..

[genner]

You should be using Vista obviously.

Vista won't install on the Cat 7000 I just bought from a firesale. OMG what should I do???? {:-)

You cheaped out and got the basic version of Vista. I think Vista Ultimate runs on the Cat.

Re:Help..

[Finallyjoined!!!]

Aaah, that explains it. It was thrown in free, but you'd think that spending $40,000 on the Catalyst would have got me Ultimate not basic. Bloody cheapskates eh?.

D'ya think I should try that new-fangled Linux wotsit?

Re:Help..

[Anonymous Coward]

> XP won't install on the Cat 7000

The fucking WHAT?!?!

Re:Help..

[Yvan256]

Nah, better stick with MS-DOS.

Re:Help..

[Tubal-Cain]

XP won't install on the Cat 7000 I just bought from a firesale. OMG what should I do????

You should have gotten the Dead Badger Mk I. I don't know about XP, but Linux runs on it.

Oh, I don't know..

[Fished]

I just picked up 10 10/100 Mbps dual-speed 24port 3com hubs for $10 off ebay, as well as a 12 port 3com 100mbps hub for another $5. Shipping cost another $10, and I used them to network my friends computers shop by putting one on each desk. Granted, switches would have been nicer, but I would rather have a quality hub than a questionable (read "consumer grade") switch. In any case, a consumer grade switch would have cost me several times as much, and likely not performed as well.

In any case, this network is easily capable of keeping up with my friend's (limited) needs, and unlike the old network (a mix of antique 10mbps hubs) it doesn't get collisions all the time. So, even though everything involved is at least 10 years old, it seems to be a pretty good deal for $30.

Re:Oh, I don't know..

[Sycraft-fu]

No, switches would perform much better. Sorry, but hubs suck. Consumer grade switches of today blow away hubs. The big problems hubs have is contention. Their total bandwidth is shared among all ports and everything is in one collision domain. So as the number of users goes up, more and more collisions happen and total throughput goes DOWN in fact. This is one reason token ring used to be popular. Despite much higher latency, it scaled better. You could have 100 computers and not have contention problems. Also things slow down if you have something like a server that needs to be talking both direction continuously. Hubs are half duplex so send and receive are mutually exclusive. Thus you get even more collisions and reduced performance if something is trying to do a large amount of sending and receiving at the same time.

Switches don't have that problem, of course. They break up the collision domain. You can get full bandwidth to every port in both directions, provided the backplane can handle it (and they can these days). You don't run in to scaling issues until you are actually saturating a link, and bandwidth doesn't go down as numbers go up.

Now I'm not saying that hubs can't work, that they can't get traffic from point a to point b but don't confuse yourself in to thinking that the hubs will perform better than a switch. They won't.

Re:Oh, I don't know..

[powerlord]

A switch would be much better than a hub. Go look up CSMACD.

"Old" 10MB ethernet could have packet collide and you would hit a quick drop off in bandwidth once you had more than a certain percentage of utilization happening.
Switches created isolated segments for each connection, limiting the collision domain so you could talk two different destinations could talk without interfering with each other.

100MB connections and up had send and receive on different lines so it was impossible to really collide.

One good use for an old 10MB hub though, connect it up between your external router and Internet "source" (Cable Modem, DSL Modem, etc), and use it as a "poor man's tap" so you plug your computer into the line and sniff the network traffic (http://www.wireshark.org/). It can be amazing fun to watch the trash that might wash up against your external connection.

Note: Make sure the interface you plug in for monitoring won't take an IP address. You don't need one to monitor traffic, if might confuse the Cable/DSL modem, and it will open up that machine to possible external connections, which are happening without the benefit of your usual router between you and the internet. :)

Re:Oh, I don't know..

[evilviper]

Consumer grade switches of today blow away hubs.

Consumer grade switches of 1997 blow away hubs, too. I'm still using mine... never had ONE problem with it. Still working like new, except of course for some yellowing of the plastic case due to a previous location near a window.

The OP may be thinking of combo NAT-routers/switches like Linksys and D-Link... cheap junk that just BARELY works when its like new, and on a good day.

Thrifty

[Anonymous Coward]

How's this for being resourceful. Turning an old iPod Classic in to an external drive by partitioning it and putting Linux on it. It still runs and plays music too.

Yeah, I can't afford an external drive.

New value in old gear?

[erroneus]

I don't see it. While I see the value in old gear personally, I do not see the value in old gear professionally. Part of what IT does is manage disasters. If you are using old gear, you'd better have some OTHER old gear standing by in case the old-gear-in-use fails. With new gear, part of the value is warranty and service. I have somewhere to turn in case of problem. All of my servers are under next-business-day service warranty. All of my workstations and laptops are too. To me, that is where I see value.

Re:New value in old gear?

[blincoln]

With new gear, part of the value is warranty and service. I have somewhere to turn in case of problem.

Yeah, exactly. I hate getting rid of working gear, but the cost of maintaining our own supply of replacement parts is huge.

Re:New value in old gear?

[KBlommel]

You can get maintenance contracts on hardware no matter if it's new, used, or old. As long as you're paying HP/IBM/Dell/Sun/Cisco/whoever, they could care less if it's new or not.

Re:New value in old gear?

[eth1]

On the other hand, brand new equipment is much more likely to fail than middle-aged equipment at the bottom of the bathtub curve.

Re:New value in old gear?

[blhack]

Part of what IT does is manage disasters. If you are using old gear, you'd better have some OTHER old gear standing by in case the old-gear-in-use fails.

If you're not ALSO doing this with your new gear, then you're doing something seriously wrong.

Re:New value in old gear?

[King_TJ]

All depends though....

For example, I'm hanging onto a lot of out of warranty desktop PCs here. Sure, the users occasionally complain that they're "slow" ... but they get the job done just fine. They're all Pentium 4 class systems with at least 512MB of RAM in them, running most application over the network amd using Windows XP Pro as their OS.

If I bought new systems now, I'd likely wind up with Vista, meaning I'd need about double the system to keep apps running as "fast" as they do now. I'd have a fresh 3 year warranty, most likely, too. BUT, I'm saving a lot more money right now by limping along with these systems for another year! So far, my maintenance cost to keep them going out of warranty has included such things as a couple new CPU fans ($15 each or so?), a bad memory stick in one, and 2 or 3 replacement SATA drives. Even factoring in my TIME to do the repair work myself, that's not a big deal.

By the time they *really* get old and start having more failures, Windows 7 will be the standard OS of choice, I suspect, and we'll have managed to skip Vista completely.

Re:New value in old gear?

[WuphonsReach]

Eh, we just got done (mostly) with a 3 year upgrade cycle. I was hoping to go faster, but a lot of it depended on how much cash flow we had at the time.

We started back in 2005(?) right about the time that dual-core CPUs were still $300, but AMD was about to drop the prices on the X2s to below $150. At that point in time, 1/2 to 3/4 of our desktops were still running Win98 (and were from 1998-2000 purchases). The rest were running WinXP. A lot of machines were P3s with 300-800MHz CPUs, and the WinXP boxes were from 2001-2003 with a single-CPU (1.8GHz) and 512MB to 1GB of RAM.

We're now up to 95%+, WinXP Pro, Office Pro 2003, AMD Athlon64 X2 (45W versions where possible), 2GB of RAM, and (2) 250GB+ HDs in RAID1. The motherboards are all AM2 socketed. Average cost per box was about $1150, including $430 for Office Pro and XP Pro. We cut corners where it made sense, but didn't low-ball the units.

We have a few copies of WinXP Pro socked away in a drawer for new builds. We can get Office 2003 via a volume license with Microsoft (we're actually buying Office 2007 in packs of 5, and getting downgrade keys). Worst case, we buy Vista Ultimate OEM and get downgrade rights to WinXP Pro.

Expected lifespan for these units is at least 5-8 years. So the units that we put into place in 2006 will be starting to get long in the tooth comes 2011-2013. At that point, we can either decide to swap out the CPUs for quad-cores, or drop another gigabyte of RAM in. Because we bought dual-core systems, we expect them to age very well and not seem "slow" like single-core units usually do after 2 years. So we might even get an easy 10 years out of them, assuming no component deaths (such as capacitors leaking/bursting).

Starting in 2010, I expect to be evaluating Windows 7 (we're skipping Vista). Those desktops will probably end up being quad-core, 4GB or 8GB RAM, RAID1, and will probably still end up costing us around $1100 per seat (including licenses). But we won't be upgrading in bulk again until around 2012 or later.

We've still got a few single-core XP machines. They're used by our less-demanding users, but I have no compunction about replacing them with dual-core boxes once they wear out.

Basically, we jumped on dual-core as soon as the CPUs dropped below $300. The advent of multi-core CPUs means that systems should have very long useful lifespans compared to the single-core CPUs of yesteryear.

Re:New value in old gear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, especially if you can get a cache of replacement parts in a $500 lot off eBay. </sarcasm>

I've equipped an office for 15 people with *everything* off eBay: Zultys 4x4 IP phones (each runs Linux and has a built-in managed 4 port 100mbit switch w/VLAN support), two 24-port HP PoE switches, a Dell server, a heavy-duty rack to house the server/switches, APC rackmount UPSes ($30ea in a lot of 6 on a pallet in "unknown" condition), KVM stuff (switch and keyboard/LCD tray), Dell PCs and monitors, heck, even wireless mice! I've found a LJ 8100 DN for $300 locally, with tray 4 which takes a box of paper (2500 sheets) at once. Even the cat 6 cable and keystone jacks/wallplates came off eBay.

About $10k for everything -- comes to ~$750 per person. That'd be a price of just a PC w/monitor if I bought current stuff. People don't really complain of having to "cope" with PIV XP machines having a gig of RAM each. The developers (me and another guy) have dedicated equipment just so that compiles take less time.

I have a couple spare phones, a spare PC, and the two servers are really overkill and I could switch everything to just one in no time, had one fail. I have used up the one spare UPS already, after the batteries in the on-line one have vented, corroding everything (it was a bad batch of batteries w/counterfeit UL component recognition marks). I don't keep a spare switch around just because not only are those current HP products (ProCurve 2524 IIRC), but I expect them to be the last thing to ever fail. Heck, if one fails I'll just buy two more off eBay like usual.

I recently got a managed HP access point (current product) in as-new condition for $120, about 1/4 of the new price. This was locally, too. And this is all in mid-Ohio.

As for Cisco gear: I find it's cheaper on eBay than say HP gear of comparable specs, but the main reason is that you're buying an unsupported piece of junk, and you're exposing your client to possible litigation from Cisco. I can still download firmware and manuals for reasonably recent HP stuff.

Cheers, Kuba

My Computer goes to 11

[Anonymous Coward]

After learning the guitar, I've learned better marketing.

It's not 'slightly used', it's 'vintage'.

Pre-CBS linux has the best tone.

Re:My Computer goes to 11

[Hordeking]

In the antique business, it's not "used". It's "Previously enjoyed!"

Most of laptops on New Egg are refurb

[gelfling]

Seriously. So are half the laptops on Tigerdirect.

It's not the hardware costs

[bugs2squash]

By and large board level execs would prefer to spend $5000 on equipment than $2000 on support staff.

Perhaps there is a point to this, after all - it may be easier to place an upper bound on equipment costs whereas support costs for an older set of equipment could be harder to determine.

Also, you enjoy the new equipment and can look forward to it being longer before it needs replacing.

Finally - who stands by you for sox, HIPAA, PCI compliance if the vendors have stopped supporting equipment with bug fixes etc.

As sensible as it seems, old equipment just does not work for many organizations and it has nothing to do with the basic health of the equipment.

Re:It's not the hardware costs

[cetialphav]

By and large board level execs would prefer to spend $5000 on equipment than $2000 on support staff.

Perhaps there is a point to this, after all - it may be easier to place an upper bound on equipment costs whereas support costs for an older set of equipment could be harder to determine.

There is more to it than that. The old equipment is generally usable for several years, so the $5000 capital outlay gets amortized over several years. So while you spend $5000 to buy the equipment, it is not a $5000 expense on the corporate balance sheet (because the total value of the assets of the company has stayed the same). You incur a small expense monthly (as depreciation) to pay for the equipment. And at the end of the equipment's lifetime, you may be able to recover some of the cost by reselling it.

On the other hand, spending $2000 on support staff is just money gone. You didn't get an asset for it. It is also a recurring cost because you probably have to spend $2000 per year maintaining the old equipment. Spending $2000 instead of $5000 can help with short term cash flow, but the $5000 expenditure is probably more profitable over the longer term.

You are right, though, about the benefits of establishing an upper bound on the total cost. When you are trying to run a business, precisely knowing what your costs are allows you to use pricing to compete more effectively. I.e., you know exactly how low you can go on a price and still be profitable.

Re:It's not the hardware costs

[Anonymous Coward]

you may be able to recover some of the cost by reselling it.

Not if everyone was as "rational" as these companies who refuse to buy used.

Re:It's not the hardware costs

[makapuf]

except than generally you'll need to setup the new equipment (including migration costs for running services), whereas the older one is still functioning.
And this new equipment will need servicing also, (OS upgrades, software configs), so it's maybe $5000 new equipment + $1000 setup + $1500 maintenance over "the long term" vs $2000 maintenance.

Truth!

[jornak]

We just got in a crapload of refurbs with fairly decent specs, in the last week we've sold about 75 out of about 100 of them. They come with no OS, so the people are free to choose whether they want us to install an OS (read: Windows XP) or just give them the box with no OS... It's so sad though. We've had customers come in requesting us to put various distros of Linux on the refurbs, but our sales reps have apparently been told by the higher-ups that we're not allowed to - that's probably because I'm the only one here in this damned company that knows *anything* about Linux - although if someone request a FreeBSD install, I'm going to tell them to blow it out their ass. ^_^

New value? How about longevity extending value?

[PrimeWaveZ]

Like many of the posters here, I've kept around good hardware that works because it works and it's already paid for (please ignore my credit card balances for now...)

My primary archiving box and storage server is a Mirror Drive Door Power Mac G4 tower, which is awesome because it holds 2 DVD drives and 4 hard disks, which is better than most other Apple towers (with the exception of the Mac Pros.) It serves up what I need with OS X 10.5 and whenever I end up needing more storage, I'll throw a SATA card in there to use newer, faster, larger drives.

Sure it's unsupported hardware, but it's solid, it's relatively compact (compared with G5 towers and Mac Pros) and doesn't gobble that much power (survives w/ a ~ 300W power supply.) It gets the job done, and gets no complaints from me or the wife about its performance. Yay for old hardware that works!

Craigslist

[swabeui]

It's a lifesaver when money gets tight. I just had a router go for my T1 last week and don't really have the cash to pick up a new one. $75 on Craigslist and I'm running again with a Cisco 2600 /w WIC.

How to save on licensing

[plymtuxet]

Buy refurb P4 or Athlon64 HP desktop machines from Tiger Direct for $140 bucks. That's the price of the XP Pro license it comes with. Throw in another gig of RAM, load OO and voila, you have a machine that will satisfy 80% of my corporate users for practically nothing. And it is domain-ready.

Re:How to save on licensing

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could just deploy Ubuntu desktops on existing old hardware that you already have lying around and save all costs.

Linux CAN join ActiveDirectory, if you must.

Linux CAN access windows shares, if you must.

Linux CAN access most web applications and if you need IE, you can coax it to run inside WINE, if you must.

Not my observation

[securitytech]

For the past decade, I've been a buyer of lightly used servers like IBM 44P, Dell PowerEdge, etc purchasing these mainly as redundant hardware for existing servers.

In the last year, I have solicited quotes for used equivalents and the price gap has narrowed to the point where new is as cheap as used.

My last purchase of PowerEdge 2900's was actually cheaper through Dell (brand new, 3 yr warranty, etc) than a stripped down 2900 from refurbished vendors.

It seems it's followed car parts in that in the 70's and 80's you could save a lot buying from a salvage yard, but now days you save little or none vs buying from new car part dealers.

I get quotes from multiple vendors so it's not just one company inflating prices.

Just wanted to add that, in my experience, the trend is the opposite of what the article is suggesting.

Re:Not my observation

[ndrw]

So what you're saying is that as demand for used systems has increased, the supply has been reduced and the price of the newly scarce commodity has gone up? IANAE, but that seems pretty normal.

Re:Not my observation

[securitytech]

No, it's actually the opposite.

New server hardware is getting cheaper while refurbished has remained relatively steady by comparison.

This is one of the few articles I feel comfortable commenting on since I've had the good fortune to be able to buy server hardware (reasonably equivalent for the era) every few years for the last 14 years.

It used to be buying refurbished/used would save you more than enough to justify the lack of warranty/inherent risk. For example, you could buy 2-3 used for the price of 1 new, but that is no longer the case in my experience.

For the first time ever, I got more server for less $ buying a NEW PE 2900 just a few months ago. Dell was running a special (buy over 4 grand, get 1200 off - per order) but I noticed this trend in previous years purchases.

My refurb vendors came in close (on similarly configured server), but why pay slightly more for used when you can get brand new w/manufacturer warranty for less?

I even got a "free" 17" LCD monitor that was not included in the refurb vendor quotes. But the price and 3 year warranty are the major factors (vs 30-90 days used).

These aren't top of the line nor are they bare bones, but my purchases/price comparisons have always been on similarly configured hardware.

Re:Not my observation

[Anonymous Coward]

My last purchase of PowerEdge 2900's was actually cheaper through Dell (brand new, 3 yr warranty, etc) than a stripped down 2900 from refurbished vendors.

It seems it's followed car parts in that in the 70's and 80's you could save a lot buying from a salvage yard, but now days you save little or none vs buying from new car part dealers.

You're not witnessing a rise in cost of refurbed computer parts as much as Dell digging its own grave with horrible margins on low end servers.

Re:Not my observation

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.

The other factor is virtualisation. I can do with a lot fewer servers and can buy many of a very generic consistent configuration - commodity stuff. I want that hardware to be rock solid and therefore new but well burnt in for production use. I want warranty also but will have enough spares on the shelf, well, powered up in the rack actually see "burned in" comment above, to look after my own redundancy needs lest the vendor lets me down. It's all very easy these days and to choose to have a hotch potch of second hand stuff doesn't make sense for either efficiency or sanity.

dead pixels?

[dbc001]

I'd love to find a place to get LCD panels with dead pixels on the cheap - perfect for a server-in-the-closet...

Re:dead pixels?

[vux984]

I'd love to find a place to get LCD panels with dead pixels on the cheap - perfect for a server-in-the-closet...

ebay / craigslist / retail "openbox" deals

Re:dead pixels?

[PitaBred]

buy.com sells refurb monitors very cheaply sometimes. I think I saw a 24" 1900x1600 or something like that for just over $200 today. Smaller ones are even less expensive.

recycling fun...

[800DeadCCs]

My place has been testing older servers we've had sitting around for power usage, computation power, throughput...
What fits the curves stays, what doesn't gets nuke-wiped and sold off.
Seriously... MRI machines are fun.
Clears up storage and re-purposes still viable servers, usually with vmware.

So now we have Franken-rack, Bride of Franken-rack (thin cabinet, no side space), and Son of Franken-rack (half-height cabinet).

hey, don't forget the ti-99

[Anonymous Coward]

complete with 20lb expansion box...and then there's the geneve 9908-on-a-card, now with myarc dos!

how about....

[curtix7]

can you imagine a beowulf cluster of these old machines?

Special about today!?!

[Dareth]

Today is my birthday you insensitive clod!

Oh sure, that figures...

[Chris Burke]

When the economy is in the shitter, it's called a "bright spin on a gloomy subject". When the economy is roaring, my booming cottage industry is called "felony destruction of property".

Maybe the difference has something to do with getting the cottage owner's permission before making them go boom... I dunno, wasn't really paying attention to the judge.

Pong Console

[FishAdmin]

Hey! I can fire-up my Amiga 1000, 2000 and 4000! Damm, I'm cutting edge again!

I've got you beat! I can sit here playing my original Pong home console: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong. Still works like a champ, too!

Dodgy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it makes sense to refurbish hardware. I've hardly ever thrown away an old computer, only the broken parts. But why would I want to buy someone else's "slightly used" equipment? If they're selling it after almost not using it, there must be something wrong with it.

Other way around?

[Sybert42]

Keeping old stuff is ofter more emotional than rational.

It's ass-covering...

[msimm]

If you can afford it along with the unnecessary extended support your boss would probably consider you crazy to suggest doing otherwise (and certainly hold you accountable if/when things went wrong). Of course when we're looking at survival we end up somewhere between desperation, fantasy and reality and make decisions accordingly.

And in some ways it's basic risk management: Would you rather roll out a new production system on shiny gear backed by expensive warranties and on-site support or purchase the best gear you can find at a fair price, second-hand with more basic support and traditional warranties?

And lets not forget, both have costs associated with them above and beyond the sticker price which will impact different businesses in different ways.

Equipment is EOL'd too soon

[jollyreaper]

3 year usage life for a desktop? Hardly. You should be able to hit eight easy.

Re:Equipment is EOL'd too soon

[rantingkitten]

Sure, when dozens of sales and marketing and other non-technical types start whining that their computers are "slow" because they've been loaded with unholy amounts of crapware and have seventy-two useless things starting at boot, management will often scrap the old machines and get everyone new ones. Then the cycle begins again.

The overwhelming majority of most corporate workforces could get by fine with P4 machines if they were kept clean -- this can be done through a number of means, such as policy enforcement, revoking Administrator rights on local Windows machines, applications such as Deep Freeze, or any number of other solutions working in tandem. But far too many places just hand out desktops and laptops like penny candy to their employees, let them run amok, and don't bat an eye when the employees come back six months later complaining that their nearly-new dual-core ultracomputer is "really slow" and "crashing a lot".

For the majority of people, more system resources just means more resources for the malware to consume. :P The end-user is still just running a browser (or five, sigh), Outlook, maybe Word or Powerpoint, and one or two other applications. All of which can be done very well with lower-end machines.. if they're clean.

Service the machines yourself

[logicassasin]

Seriously... What tech can't replace a hard drive or RAM???

Say you have a bunch of P3-1GHz machines you wish to deploy for some lowly department. Outfit every machine with Kingston SDRAM and keep a few sticks in reserve. Why? in the event of failure, you can swap it out in the same day. At the same time, Kingston also has a LIFETIME warranty on their RAM. I've received two sticks not long ago, a PC133 stick I bought many years ago failed over the summer and a PC2700 1GB stick of DDR that died in my old Athlon 2000+ machine. Both were replaced, free of charge.

You can still buy ATA hard drives and CDROM drives brand new, even at Wal-Mart! ATX power supplies are plentiful and those machines will work just fine with USB keyboards and mice (no need to keep PS/2 stuff around). Processors are being sold off in large lots on ebay, stock up on 'em if really you think you need to. No need for a service contract at all for old hardware.

Re:Service the machines yourself

[petermgreen]

One thing to bear in mind is that on systems over a certain age USB keyboards can't be used to access the bios setup. I know this is the case on my 800mhz duron system and it wouldn't surprise me if it was the case on many 1GHz P3 system.

aptosolutions.com

[Anonymous Coward]

I am currently a contractor for one of these companies, if you want to get some great buys on sun, intel, cisco, dell - etc etc etc.

www.aptosolutions.com

Smoker or None Smoker?

[coryking]

Nobody likes working on computers who are used in houses with chain smokers. Make sure to plug the "non-smoking owner" too.

Then just load it with all the shareware games you can find

Fixed.

Well

[coryking]

Since you asked,

Your mom is so poor, a 386DX *is* worth more then her house.

She is also so dumb, the 386DX has more transistors then she has brain cells.

She is also so fat, you can throw a 386DX at her and it will float around her in orbit.

(ps: booya)

I've found this to be flawed

[coryking]

I've found that most of the time, working with old hardware sucks. The money you save on the hardware is lost when you factor in the time you need to find ancient drivers, deal with shitty issues that PC manufacturers have long since solved. Dealing with bugs and annoyances in the old OS's. Plus most of that old hardware is flaky as hell compared to the new stuff.

It just isn't worth it. You think you are saving money, but you aren't. You are pissing your time away instead.

At least for most things :-)

Re:I've found this to be flawed

[toddestan]

One thing about older hardware, is that there is so much of it available that you can pretty much pick from the cream of the crop. All my older hardware I have running are either Dell Optiplexes or HP Vectras. Other than possibly IBM stuff, I wouldn't use anything else other than for spare parts. Considering that these were enterprise-class machines back in the day, I find they are well supported by both Linux and Microsoft, generally have easy to work with cases, are well built, quiet, and still very reliable. And sadly, as much as I liked the K6's and early Athlons back in the day, dealing with the driver headaches and general flakiness of the AMD-based motherboards means I won't touch them now.

Re:New value? How about longevity extending value?

[Anonymous Coward]

You still have a mirror door? AT the surplus I work at the mirror door failure rate is over 80%. Power supply failures and burned procs.

We have now become Cuba

[revbob]

Considering what these guys are doing to the auto industry, we may be literally like Cuba, driving 1950s Buicks and swapping chickens for car parts.

Re:New value? How about longevity extending value?

[Anonymous Coward]

...(please ignore my credit card balances for now...)

Well I did have it opened on the other tab, but I suppose I'll leave it alone.
Merry Xmas
(Your bank has nice interest rates)

My ex-wife goes unsold.

[Ostracus]

In the antique business, it's not "used". It's "Previously enjoyed!"

That's what I said about my last wife.

Lifetime Warranty ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

I find that the HP Procurve series if Layer2 and 3 switches work well. They have a lifetime warranty. So you can get one in questionable shape for cheap, and then call hp and they will ship you a replacement overnight at no charge. Or you can just buy a new one for cheap as well..;-) I have several 4000M and 4100 series, they are workhorses.

Mod Parent Up!

[Acer500]

she was very enjoyable

I co-wrote their "Equal2New" enterprisewide system

[Anonymous Coward]

"for network gear I would recommend cxtec.com" - by David_Hart (1184661) on Thursday December 18, @01:21PM (#26162723)

I co-wrote their "Equal2New" enterprisewide system, for managing the very program you mention: Equal2New, their used parts inventory & processing control + testing system... &, yes, it works, AND they end up with great used parts...!

"ONE MAN'S GARBAGE = ANOTHER MAN'S TREASURE" as the saying goes.

Yes, they are a decent company (even though I was let go when that project in my subject-line was written & finished (to the tune of 1 million or so lines iirc back in 1999))

It was a cross-platform Visual Basic 6.0 software built for Windows 2000 OS based desktop client system to Windows Terminal Servers (to go multicampus to a diff. location in the city they are in, Syracuse N.Y.) &, eventually via SQL over the TS & internet connections? Right to Oracle 8.x on Sun OS...

And, again - It was written so that folks could not only order from stock ready to go in warehouses, but also on the line itself (during testing of used equipment) if nothing was in the warehouse/bought completely out.

Believe it or not, that actually helped them satisfy folks' orders, because by the time the product in testing reached (iirc) the 7th stage of tests (a heat booth), it would generally be considered SOLID & ready-to-go/saleable.

It was a decent innovation that helped get folks the parts they wanted, & mostly the best part? At a GREAT price!

Mr. Frank Kobuszewski is a hell of a nice guy, & he runs that dept. in fact, Equal2New, & if you want to "Drop a Name" there? He IS "the man" (other than the owner, Mr. Bill Pomeroy, a former IBM employee).

APK