Ask Slashdot: What To Do With Over 500 Used DIMMs?

PCs for Kids by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 05:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

Find out if there's a compters for kids or pcs for kids program in your area. They make computers available to low income kids at a very affordable price by recycling donated computers. They could definitely use ram donations.

Re:PCs for Kids by Archangel+Michael · 2012-10-29 06:10 · Score: 5, Informative

Donate to http://www.computersforclassrooms.org/
They would end up going to Computers used in classrooms.

--
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Re:PCs for Kids by Kenja · 2012-10-29 06:31 · Score: 5, Funny

Better yet! Give them out as halloween "treats".

--

"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Re:PCs for Kids by Sponge+Bath · 2012-10-29 06:57 · Score: 5, Insightful

Listen to this guy, do not futz around trying to think up uses or store them expecting to have a use in the future. Give it away now and be done with it. Soon it will be obsolete and no use to anyone. (says the man who recently trashed a bag of dusty, obsolete and now useless RAM)
Re:PCs for Kids by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 07:00 · Score: 5, Interesting

IANAA (I am not an accountant), but AFAIK, in the US, as long as the company didn't depreciate the capital on the computer overall, they can write off the full cost of the RAM against their taxes if they donate it to a charitable organization. Added up, it can be a rather sizable chunk of money, and can even offset the cost of the upgrade by a considerable margin. Win-win situation.
Re:PCs for Kids by CubicleZombie · 2012-10-29 07:27 · Score: 3, Funny

I tried to "give back" to my high school years after graduating by donating a bunch of three year old office PCs. They didn't want them. Too old. The computer lab was six Apple II's when I was there in the nineties and now these were too old. Now I'm a homeowner in the county and that explains why my taxes are so high.

--
:wq
Re:PCs for Kids by eyrieowl · 2012-10-29 08:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

So..."I had it rough, the school district should continue to suck and give future generations the shaft"? Were they supposed to chug along with Apple II's until you came riding to the rescue? Also, are they never supposed to buy any new computers? Bear in mind that if they ever do, any older computers someone tries to donate shortly afterward would, likely, be "too old".
Re:PCs for Kids by kenh · 2012-10-29 08:16 · Score: 5, Funny

Dip them in chocolate, wrap them up in a colorful wrapper, and call them something like "Computer Memory dipped in chocolate" (include the quotes - the kids will think it's a joke name, then when they take a bite, the joke's on them!)

--
Ken
Re:PCs for Kids by __aawbkb6799 · 2012-10-29 08:20 · Score: 4, Interesting

This. My first thought was http://freegeek.org/ if there's one near your locale.
Re:PCs for Kids by kenh · 2012-10-29 08:27 · Score: 2, Informative

Let's not forget the very computers your local school rejected were being disposed of by your employer.
If you take a good look at your local school budget you'll likely see that about 70-75% goes towards teacher salaries and benefits (as it should), and as much as 1-2% goes towards technology per year - I seriously doubt that your district's technology policies are causing the taxes to rise.

--
Ken
Re:PCs for Kids by jessecurry · 2012-10-29 08:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

No, but they can reduce their tax burden while gaining some control over where their resources help the community.

--
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
Re:PCs for Kids by es330td · 2012-10-29 09:07 · Score: 1

If this company has a CPA, Controller or CFO worth the money they are being paid the value of this ram was included in equipment expensed long ago.
Re:PCs for Kids by reve_etrange · 2012-10-29 09:16 · Score: 3, Informative

And around the Bay we have the Alameda County Computer Resource Center. They build computers to give away to folks in need, to "narrow the digital divide."

--
.: Semper Absurda :.
Re:PCs for Kids by loganljb · 2012-10-29 09:24 · Score: 5, Funny

Wouldn't that be 'take a byte'? Sorry, couldn't resist.
Re:PCs for Kids by TheGratefulNet · 2012-10-29 09:30 · Score: 1

chocolate covered giggle-bytes!
sounds like a winner to me.
but be sure to mark what voltage they run at. its important, you know.

--

--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Re:PCs for Kids by danomac · 2012-10-29 09:32 · Score: 1

Yep, charities and nonprofits generally don't spend money on computer hardware. You'd help them out a lot. Or pick several nonprofits/charities, spread it around.
Re:PCs for Kids by asdf7890 · 2012-10-29 10:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

I'd have not chucked them unless they were _really_ old, or you only had a few.

I had a small pile of various DIMMs (and SIMMs though I doubt the buyer was really interested in them!) when I last cleared out all my old junk. Single auction on eBay for the whole lot (individually they aren't worth enough for the hassle of listing and dealing with idiots, but together they made a lot worth bothering with) and let someone else deal with finding uses for them (or splitting into smaller lots and reselling).

You'd be surprised how much you might make. Memory of older standards is often useful in printers (sometimes relatively new devices) and such which don't need the high falutin super sonic speeds of newer standards, not just for people looking to extend the life of very old kit on the cheap. And 4Gb DRR3 modules as mentioned here are definitely still worth something, especially in that sort of number. What my company tends to do when getting rid of old stuff like this is drop the money made into the social fund - the furniture sold on after our move to shiny new offices recently has paid for an upgraded Christmas dinner for us all this year!

Or like the guy above says: donate and someone else will deal with finding a use for them. Either way there is far less chance that it'll all just become toxic land-fill. From a company's PoV donating may provide a tax break.
Re:PCs for Kids by Gilmoure · 2012-10-29 10:15 · Score: 5, Funny

So... My 30 pin 16 meg SIMMs are not worth anything anymore? I just don't have a 30 MHz 68030 system anymore.

--
I drank what? -- Socrates
Re:PCs for Kids by hairyfeet · 2012-10-29 11:28 · Score: 2

Hell ask the local PC shops, there are usually guys like me around that refurb systems for the poor folks and we are always looking for spare parts. I tend to focus on the working poor, they are the ones that slip through the cracks the most in my area but I'm sure there is somebody similar in his area, ask the local freecycle or any of the mom&pop shops, they'll know.

--
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:PCs for Kids by Archangel+Michael · 2012-10-29 11:41 · Score: 1

I work for a school system. If they are ECC, I have servers running VMware that I would love to stick them in. Thanks

--
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Re:PCs for Kids by Skynyrd · 2012-10-29 12:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

Long ago I worked for a school district. We accepted computer donations, but it was usually disaster, and more expensive than buying a new one.
Every machine had a slightly different version of the OS, and a different set of applications. There was no consistency between machines, and nobody at the school could do real maintenance on them; it required a person from the district office to drive there (this was long ago, as I said) and fix the machine. Maintaining a hodge-podge of machines was a nightmare.
When we stopped taking random donations, it made everybody's job more efficient. We threw away a *huge* pile of "useful" computers (at least that's what the person dropping off old, useless shit called them).
Seriously, your school district is better off not accepting donations of one or two computers. It doesn't scale. At all.
If it was "a bunch" and they had a legal version of Windows or OSX (Linux if they have a full time Linux guy on staff), and they were identical and they could replace *everything* in an existing computer lab, then it may have been a bad decision.
Re:PCs for Kids by bugs2squash · 2012-10-29 15:46 · Score: 2

No, they depreciated everything else in the case, but it turns out not the RAM.

--
Nullius in verba
Re:PCs for Kids by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 17:29 · Score: 1

Taken together..... would they be DIMM Sum?
Re:PCs for Kids by NonFerrousBueller · 2012-10-29 18:21 · Score: 2

No, I think his point is more "why the hell spend money on cutting edge hardware when that money goes further on traditional materials". To which I fully agree. I think the amount many schools spend on desktop machines is scandalous. You don't need brand new hardware to teach kids computer skills. You need to teach kids the basics of fishing rather than how to catch a trout using the latest carbon-fibre rod and GPS depthfinder. Teach kids how to use Open Office AND how to use the 'net to learn what they don't know. Industry can plop them in front of shiny silicon and the latest M$ "Productivity Suite" and they WILL function. I used some of the very first computers in schools in my county (thanks Mr. Varney!) but I now have a very dim view of computers in education, to the point our daughter is on a waiting list for a primary school that uses NONE.
Re:PCs for Kids by sumdumass · 2012-10-29 18:38 · Score: 1

Think printers. Some that are still serviceable use them and they are hard to find.
Re:PCs for Kids by eyrieowl · 2012-10-29 18:41 · Score: 2

Perhaps the amount is scandalous, I think any particular case is difficult to judge. My point is you can't take a single point in time and make that judgement. Maybe they replaced old Apple IIs with new computers the year before he made his offer, and they'll keep using them for 15 years. Maybe not (sure, probably not). At any rate, everything has to be new at some point, just because someone/district/etc has something new doesn't mean they always have new things.
Re:PCs for Kids by sumdumass · 2012-10-29 18:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

lol.. no one but someone from the district office could "fix them" and you relegate them as "useless shit".
I think the problem is more to the effect of you not knowing what you had and an attitude by someone who didn't want to deal with it. Schools can put their bulk license of any windows version on the computers and send them home as loaners to the less fortunate students and forget to ask for them back. Would do a lot more for "education" then tossing donations into the trash.
Re:PCs for Kids by Auroch · 2012-10-29 22:49 · Score: 1

No, but they can reduce their tax burden while gaining some control over where their resources help the community.
Right, so they can upgrade for a cost far below full price, because they make enough money to have the taxable portion of their income reduced.

Someone making substantially less couldn't do that, since they couldn't deduct from their income tax ... but probably couldn't afford to buy it in the first place.

In other words? I just disproved my initial statement - yes, they CAN upgrade for free, if they didn't depreciate the value of the ram.

--
Quartz Extreme and Core Image. Are there any other real reasons to spend all that money on generic hardware?
Re:PCs for Kids by jessecurry · 2012-10-30 01:50 · Score: 1

It's not going to allow them to upgrade for free, just reduce their taxable income.

For a simplified example assume that someone has $100,000 of taxable income, in the US they'll be taxed roughly 25% paying $25,000.

If this person is able to write off $2,000 of old equipment when they purchase new equipment they will now have a taxable income of $98,000 still taxed at roughly 25% paying $24,500, a $500 savings.

If they are able to replace $2,000 worth of equipment for $500 then they would, in essence, get the upgrade for free; otherwise they are only able to save some money by donating their old equipment to someone in need.

This person couldn't "donate" their old equipment to a friend, it has to be to a registered non-profit.

--
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
Re:PCs for Kids by Skynyrd · 2012-10-30 02:48 · Score: 1

Of course somebody could fix them. But it's expensive and time consuming.
At my district, there were *two* hardware techs. They had a fleet of computers, printers, fax machines, etc to keep running.
There simply wasn't time to deal with a pile of computers. Complain all you want, but when there isn't funding for a project, it can't be done.
Re:PCs for Kids by sumdumass · 2012-10-30 06:30 · Score: 2

Oh, I'm sure there was students who could have done what you couldn't. You could have still gotten some use from them even without funding if you put your mind to it and didn't reject them for not being good enough for you.
Re:PCs for Kids by DirtyLiar · 2012-10-30 19:36 · Score: 1

No, I think his point is more "why the hell spend money on cutting edge hardware when that money goes further on traditional materials".
For the longest time I always built my computers with an eye to upgradability (You know, like the introduction of a separate ZIF socket back in the day, for some as-then unknown CPU upgrade from the 80386) yet I never found it cheaper or better to upgrade my computer rather than buy new equipment.
Similarly I never found it cheaper to buy a used computer and upgrade that, though I scanned the classifieds for years.
What I found was that it was always cheaper and provided longer usability to buy new equipment (I tended to use it for about 4 or 5 years and then move on.). You could upgrade and get decent performance (usually approximating the performance of some then-current low to midrange computer), for about the cost of building a new (low high-end) computer, but the extended (useful) life span the upgrades bought would be extremely shorter than that of the new computer. I'd also always planned to make a big network out of my old computers, but even when using them for single-use application, but the cost of simply running the older, more power hungry (and so less efficient) hardware was in practice, unreasonable.
Keeping older hardware up to current standards is, in my opinion, always a loosing proposition, and almost always costs more while at the same time, providing less punch-per-dollar.
And, though the user experience of Word and Excel might-not change that much from generation to generation, using newer, more state-of-the-art education software usually requires better computers than 'upgrades' to work. Part of the appeal of a computer is that it is a general-purpose machine, and ignoring it's ability to run all sorts of very specific software aimed at very different uses, is to ignore one of the computers greatest strengths.

--
THINK! It's patriotic

eBay... by kevin_j_morse · 2012-10-29 05:57 · Score: 5, Insightful

Why not just sell them? Slashdot always has to find creative things to do with old stuff. Just sell it and use the money for something else.

Re:eBay... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 06:12 · Score: 5, Interesting

First: Hold onto them until they're actually worth something. Sometime in the middle of the DDR4 lifecycle, it will become nearly impossible to find new 4GB DDR3 sticks, so people will have to turn to used sticks if they want to upgrade their machines from 8GB (4x2GB or 2x4GB) to 16 GB (4x4GB).
History tells us that they will be valued at at least twice the original market rate. So sell now and get ~$7.5k, or wait 2-3 years and likely get $15-20k. I'd wait.
Re:eBay... by ByOhTek · 2012-10-29 06:16 · Score: 1

Usually that requires some overhead and isn't cheap/easy. Donations are often easier, and less hassle, with tax deductions.

--
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Re:eBay... by mobby_6kl · 2012-10-29 06:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

First: Hold onto them until they're actually worth something. Sometime in the middle of the DDR4 lifecycle, it will become nearly impossible to find new 4GB DDR3 sticks, so people will have to turn to used sticks if they want to upgrade their machines from 8GB (4x2GB or 2x4GB) to 16 GB (4x4GB).
History tells us that they will be valued at at least twice the original market rate. So sell now and get ~$7.5k, or wait 2-3 years and likely get $15-20k. I'd wait.
That's a good point. I just had to RMA a module of extended-warranty DDR2 RAM. Ignoring for a moment the fact that they asked me to send the whole kit instead of just the faulty module, more importantly instead of replacing it, they refunded me the money instead. Which is just slightly less money than what new (and slower!) DDR2 memory costs. Oops.
In the end I managed to find the last few identical kits in some weird online store, but another year or two and I'd be completely fucked.
Re:eBay... by caffiend666 · 2012-10-29 06:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

Just because something is worth a certain amount, does not mean it can be sold for that amount or that it is worth the time to sell something or warehouse it for years. Grandpa still has his tubes from his tv repair days. They are doubtlessly worth thousands. But, no one will pay fair value for them in bulk and it would take hundreds if not thousands of hours to sell them individually on ebay. It would have been better for him to sell them when he retired, even at a loss, and invest the money.

--
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
Re:eBay... by lightknight · 2012-10-29 06:40 · Score: 1

Hmm. Perhaps we need a part swapper website. "Offering 2 sticks of Corsair DDR2 4 GB RAM, looking for a Nvidia / ATI PCIe video card."

--
I am John Hurt.
Re:eBay... by rot26 · 2012-10-29 06:44 · Score: 5, Funny

And yet putting them on eBay costs next to nothing and you'll never know until you try.

At one point after a project failed to get off the ground I had about 100 new-in-box Supermicro ATX motherboards each with a couple of ISA slots. Turns out that after the death of ISA, those motherboards started gaining value until they were worth more than they cost new. So I sold them all and made thousands of dollars**.

**This is a partially a lie, I was lazy and just threw them away.

--

To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
Re:eBay... by slartibartfastatp · 2012-10-29 06:45 · Score: 3, Interesting

Capitalistically thinking, if nobody would pay thousands for it, then it's not worth thousands. The market is not really into fair pricing.

--
-- --
Re:eBay... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 06:47 · Score: 1

500 DIMMS and it can't be re-purposed to new servers?
Buy some of these when you can find a shipment.
128GB per server should be enough to do *something*.
500 DIMMS is almost enough to populate a whole rack of 2U servers built around these boards.
That maxes out at approx 1000 cores with 2TB of RAM.
Pair it with a SAN and you could be the next cloud provider.
Re:eBay... by ArsonSmith · 2012-10-29 06:53 · Score: 2

fair market value is where the owner of something and someone who desires that something meat on a price point. the "worth" is just a guesstimate of what that number could/should be. If you can't sell something for what you think it's "worth" or what some expert told you it was "worth" then it is not worth that much your or the expert were wrong.

--
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Re:eBay... by DigiShaman · 2012-10-29 06:58 · Score: 1

Fuck eBay. It I've learned anything, it's not worth selling anything under $100. Time = Money. When you factor in shipping, and both eBay and Paypal skimming off the top, you're left with little to no profit margin. If anything, it will cost you more money than if you just simply dropped them in the trash bin.
If you're serious about getting rid of 500 DIMMS, just sell them at your local flee market, or donate to the Goodwill and make it a tax write-off.

--
Life is not for the lazy.
Re:eBay... by ArcadeNut · 2012-10-29 06:59 · Score: 5, Funny

So the next /. story would be "Hey, I just bought 500 DIMMS on eBay, what should I do with them?"

--
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
Re:eBay... by sl4shd0rk · 2012-10-29 07:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

Sometime in the middle of the DDR4 lifecycle machines using DDR3 will be about as popular as ones using SDRAM right now.
Donate it to the kids projects mentioned above. Besides, if you sell it, your going to be fielding support calls from people with crappy systems who think your "bad used ram" is to blame.

--
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Re:eBay... by NJRoadfan · 2012-10-29 07:02 · Score: 1

The vintage computer guys already do that. 30pin SIMMs are getting expensive. DDR still fetches a good penny too, alot of P4 and Athlon machines still in service.
Re:eBay... by Type44Q · 2012-10-29 07:05 · Score: 1

By then people looking to upgrade aging hardware will most likely be wanting to replace 4GB modules with 8GB modules.
Re:eBay... by thorbsd · 2012-10-29 07:08 · Score: 4, Interesting

Assuming you could get $20 per DIMM, you're looking at $10,000. Not to make it sound that isn't a lot of money, but when you consider that a company has 500 4GB sticks of RAM they can't use, you have to assume that this is (likely) a pretty big company, and $10,000 is probably not all that much in their total IT budget. Even if you forget about the potential benefit a donation like this could bring to the community that they currently operate in, think about how much more value they could get from the PR of donating to a good cause.
Re:eBay... by Sponge+Bath · 2012-10-29 07:17 · Score: 1

Fuck eBay. It I've learned anything, it's not worth selling anything under $100.
It's (sellers and eBay) not trustworthy enough to buy anything over $100. Moral of the story, do not use eBay.
Re:eBay... by synapse7 · 2012-10-29 07:26 · Score: 3, Funny

Or, campus/company computer labs missing all RAM modules.
Re:eBay... by tibit · 2012-10-29 07:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

Thousands of hours to sell those tubes? That's crazy talk. Even eBay itself offers a bulk listing service, where you can easily list hundreds of items. It'd be trivial to sell the tubes, and they may be worth a good chunk of money as the audiophools value some of them dearly. Their stupidity, your gain.

--
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Re:eBay... by SydShamino · 2012-10-29 07:33 · Score: 1

I presume he meant selling them over the course of a few years in smaller lots, so as to not flood the market. If he thinks they have an inherent "worth" then he would want people to bid on them, as opposed to just listing them all for sale at an opening bid a.k.a. fixed price and waiting for them to slowly sell.

--
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Re:eBay... by Lumpy · 2012-10-29 07:35 · Score: 1

Or bothered by retards that only send one email.... "do you still have the _____ for sale?"
I get about 900 of those for every listing, some I get within seconds of posting the item.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:eBay... by DarkOx · 2012-10-29 07:39 · Score: 2

Not exactly. The market value of something is the price point at which a supplier is willing to supply it, and buyer is willing to pay for it.
It may be that there is not price great enough to make anyone willing to supply, but low enough there is any demand to buy. In that case there is not market for that good or service.
I would suggest to the owner of the tubes he would be wise to list them on an auction site like ebay or something. Unless he is finding some joy in having a collection of tubes or has a great deal of equipment himself that he needs them to service he has attached an in appropriate value to them.
They may have *cost* thousands adjusted for inflation or not but if nobody will pay it and they are of no use to they are not *worth* thousands. He needs to ask himself, will I be better off with $5, $10, $50, $500 than with these old tubes. Find the lowest value for which the answer is yes and make that minimum.
Start thinking of them as a tank of gas, dinner out, the pay tv subscription price this month or something and realize that would be better than a box you have to step over every time you go in the attic.

--
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Re:eBay... by DerekLyons · 2012-10-29 07:41 · Score: 4, Interesting

Grandpa still has his tubes from his tv repair days. They are doubtlessly worth thousands. But, no one will pay fair value for them in bulk
Translation: I'm pretty sure they're worth money, lots of money. But I actually don't have any evidence this is so, and can't be bothered to do the work and find out.
I saw lots of people just like you and your Grandpa when I ran a used and rare bookstore that thought the same thing... invariably, they were wrong.
Re:eBay... by Lonewolf666 · 2012-10-29 07:53 · Score: 1

In my experience, old RAM types stay available. Not necessarily from the same company, but at least you still get stuff that matches the standard. Looking at the offers on Alternate.de (for instance), they still sell SDRAM and the original DDR. There are only two caveats:
1) "Exotic" stuff like ECC RAM may be hard to get. For instance, I've searched for
2) The prices tend to be similar to the original market rate (but IMHO not worse). At some point, those old RAM standards go from "actively developed" to "we'll just keep a production line running and charge the same prices, until no one buys that stuff anymore".
Of course, original market rate looks rather bad compared to the current prices for DDR3. I can't remember the exact prices, but I think I payed more for the 128 MByte in my first self-built PC (around the year 2000) than for the 4 GByte in my last upgrade 2011.

--
C - the footgun of programming languages
Re:eBay... by Grave · 2012-10-29 07:55 · Score: 1

Not even close. 4GB DIMMs are not appropriate for most virtualization workloads. 128GB isn't enough for a board potentially housing 64 cores. It'd be inefficient at best, a complete waste of power at worst. Density is the name of the game there, and 16 and 32GB DIMMs are what most folks are looking to buy. In fact, it's quite possible that the reason all these DIMMs are becoming available is precisely because they were just replaced with 16 or 32GB sticks.
Re:eBay... by it_ain't_my_fault · 2012-10-29 07:57 · Score: 1

Or just combine them with a first generation digital picture frame.
Re:eBay... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 08:04 · Score: 1

Those are computerized email address harvesters.
When I did freelance computer services I would get emails asking if my "small business computer services was[sic] still available" for sale.
Re:eBay... by networkBoy · 2012-10-29 08:07 · Score: 1

Really...
I have bags of 30 and 72 pin simms, including IBM 3 tin can 256k 30 pin simms...
haven't looked in a while what they are going for, maybe it's time

--
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Re:eBay... by ArsonSmith · 2012-10-29 08:14 · Score: 1

Other than my typo of the word meat when meet was the correct term I think we said the exact same thing. You worded yours like that of classic markets of production suppliers and market consumers where I worded mine along the lines of collection owners and buyers.

--
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Re:eBay... by Khyber · 2012-10-29 08:29 · Score: 1

" 4GB DIMMs are not appropriate for most virtualization workloads."
What sort of horribly unoptimized shit software are you running? I have ten research facilities worth of hydro equipment, all across the globe, all run from an Athlon 64 X2 5200+ with 8GB of RAM sitting in my bedroom.

--
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Re:eBay... by PlusFiveTroll · 2012-10-29 08:55 · Score: 1

He's probably talking about commercial VM space sales. Most of the time your workload isn't CPU bound in these cases, it's IO and memory bound. There for the more memory you can fit in the board, the more VM instances you can run on any given machine, which leads to higher utilization and lower costs per VM.
People run horribly unoptimized shit like Windows without the services cleaned up and unneeded shit running, and PHP apps without an optimizer, and every other imaginable thing that used to be a machine at the office that is now 'in the cloud'. The migration techs will run tools to convert entire machines to VM images and import them wholesale.
Re:eBay... by PlusFiveTroll · 2012-10-29 09:00 · Score: 1

4GB DDR3 DIMMs are $18 New. I don't think you'll get $20 for them used.
Now that's assuming they are Non-ECC. ECC DIMMs start at $28, but ECC is must less useful to the majority of computers out there. Most computers will not even boot ECC memory. You have to have Intel server chipsets to recognize it, or you have to have a decent AMD board with support to use it.
Selling it in bulk or donating it as a tax write off (use the manufactures MSRP on the cost :D ) is your best bet.
Re:eBay... by Khyber · 2012-10-29 09:31 · Score: 1

" There for the more memory you can fit in the board, the more VM instances you can run on any given machine"
Until you hit the CPU limit (which in most machines/typical cases, due to shit coding, only takes two or three instances, and given most programs, even server programs, are 32-bit arch, they gain no benefit from anything higher.)
Been there, done that. With DEC Alpha, no less.

--
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Re:eBay... by TheGratefulNet · 2012-10-29 09:34 · Score: 2

uhm, did I just miss a romney joke in there?
whoosh, for me, perhaps?

--

--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Re:eBay... by Hatta · 2012-10-29 09:46 · Score: 1

Shame on you. They're not making any more of these.

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:eBay... by Quick+Reply · 2012-10-29 09:52 · Score: 1

Sounds like the standard procurement process for a major scientific project these days.
"Hey, is experiment sounds like it needs lots of RAM, lets just buy all the RAM now and worry about the rest of the hardware/software later; Slashdot will help us with that."
Re:eBay... by arkane1234 · 2012-10-29 09:58 · Score: 1

funny, I sell stuff on CL alot, and I only get stupid people. No murders and no scams.
You have to be somewhat sentient to sell on there, just FYI.

--
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Re:eBay... by jawtheshark · 2012-10-29 10:11 · Score: 1

Really? Kahlon. I've bought with them occasionally for really hard to find stuff. They still have EDO RAM, if you really need.

--
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Re:eBay... by asdf7890 · 2012-10-29 10:55 · Score: 1

There will no doubt be people out their willing to pay a pretty penny for those, hobbyists wanting to extend the life of some cherished old kit for instance. The problem for auction style selling (assuming you are thinking eBay) tends to be listing your items for sale when more than one of those people is passing by. The lot is either worth a fair bit or next to nothing. As you presumably have no use for them yourself, I'd go for it now and not have them lying around cluttering the place.
Re:eBay... by N3Bruce · 2012-10-29 10:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

When you get into obsolete parts, they generally fall into 3 categories. With the example of radio and TV tubes, there is a large percentage of the stock that is essentially worthless, everybody has them and nobody wants them. Compactron tubes in 1960s TVs are all over the place, but few people collect old TVs, and most have been junked. Second category is tubes which have a steady demand, but were made in large numbers, such as some of the tubes in the "All American Five" radios, and vintage ham and audio gear. The third category is tubes and parts for highly collectible gear, especially where specialized tubes were made for only a few models of equipment for a few years and are classified as Unobtainium. Some of the tubes in my Zenith Transoceanic radio fall into this category, a good used 1L6 goes for about $50 on Ebay, while I have a half a dozen perfectly good 5U4 rectifier tubes in my junk box. After a while, if a certain model of audio or radio gear has lasting appeal, the supply will eventually dry up. 6146 tubes are starting to fall into this category, commonly used as final amplifier tubes in many popular ham rigs, despite wide use in many applications.
This phenomenon happens with all types of vintage collectibles, because most examples of a particular item will have the same part that tends to fail or deteriorate.
Re:eBay... by mrmeval · 2012-10-29 11:56 · Score: 1

I sold some old Commodore parts I'd had thought I lost but had stored with a friend, got steady income from it for a couple years. I was higher priced than most but I tested and guaranteed it.
If you have a stand alone ram tester and can do a printout it's good, I had one for Commodore ram chips but sold it to someone in Germany. I would include a print out for the chips. I also had a socketed commodore motherboard and would run tests on the chips I'd sell, good tools that gave a print out.
I buy and resell certain cast iron cookware, I list it at a high price on ebay and when some cooking guru blathers about cast iron I make a good profit. There are other bizarre collectibles I buy. Some go to websites dedicated to niche items, others go to ebay/amazon.
It's trivial to list thousands of items on either, they have the tools and they want you to list stuff so you sell stuff. There are also many other websites dedicated to certain categories of parts, collectibles and such and there's the up coming juggernaut, Etsy for handmade and other items.
Yes you could put a ring on them and sell them on Etsy as a geek kubotan.

--
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Re:eBay... by dissy · 2012-10-29 13:38 · Score: 1

Grandpa still has his tubes from his tv repair days. They are doubtlessly worth thousands. But, no one will pay fair value for them in bulk
When I happened to have a few hundred old tubes, I hand crafted a few chess sets out of them, most given away as gifts.
As I recall not a single person I gifted them to failed to mention how I should be selling them and getting rich instead (ha!)
It at least might be an idea if you had some spare time kicking around for a new hobby, for you and/or for Grandpa!
Re:eBay... by toddestan · 2012-10-29 15:03 · Score: 2

There are new motherboards available that have ISA slots and support the latest Ivy Bridge processors. I kid you not.
Re:eBay... by toddestan · 2012-10-29 15:07 · Score: 1

Well, part of the problem is that if market is small and you have a massive stockpile. If you try to sell all at once you'll flood the market and drive prices way down (a good example is the US government's selling off of the helium reserve at any price). So you have to trickle them out selling a few a time over a long period of time. So yes, they are potentially worth thousands but they are highly illiquid.
Re:eBay... by sumdumass · 2012-10-29 19:02 · Score: 1

If I remember right, you can find tubes with printed solid state circuits inside to replace old tubed too. I ended up getting one for an old guitar amp (60's era) a few years ago. You could hear a slight difference as lower volume levels but if cranked for an audience, it was almost identical in sound quality.
Re:eBay... by fuzzywig · 2012-10-29 21:21 · Score: 1

Last year I looked into upgrading the 4Gb of DDR2 I had to 8Gb. Because I'd bought a motherboard that had both DDR2 and DDR3 slots (not intentionally, it just happened to have other features I wanted at the right price), and it turned out to be cheaper to buy 8Gb of DDR3 than to buy DDR2 used. Which of course meant selling my DDR2 on fleabay actually made me a profit :)
Re:eBay... by Custard+Horse · 2012-10-29 21:35 · Score: 2

Motherboards just look 'empty' without them don't you think? Like a living room without a fire place. The ISA slot is a focal point.
Re:eBay... by Hognoxious · 2012-10-29 23:43 · Score: 1

sell them at your local flee market
I can see that being a run away success!

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Re:eBay... by rot26 · 2012-10-30 02:26 · Score: 1

Nothing political at all.

Oh, while I'm thinking about it do you know anybody who needs 200 Dialogic D/41D ISA voice cards?

--

To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
Re:eBay... by rot26 · 2012-10-30 02:30 · Score: 1

I miss slots with names that you could pronounce as a word. The world was so much friendlier back then don't you think?

--

To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
Re:eBay... by redalien · 2012-10-30 03:12 · Score: 1

Those are usually emulated ISA slots that plug into the PCI bus. They're not actually compatible with a huge number of PCI cards as they buffer commands before translating between buses, breaking anything that needs very low latency.
Re:eBay... by NJRoadfan · 2012-10-30 23:13 · Score: 1

4MB, 8MB, and 16MB 30pin SIMMs command a price premium. 1MB and lower are still much too common.
Re:eBay... by N3Bruce · 2012-11-04 14:30 · Score: 1

If you watch an episode or two of Antiques Roadshow or Pawn Stars, the first thing an appraiser does is inspect the item not only for flaws but evidence of repaired flaws in the past, and knocks the price down accordingly. A perfectly preserved original is the gold standard and flaws, refinishing, and non-original modifications only. reduce its potential value to a serious collector. Painstakingly restoring an item with as close to original materials as possible can add value to a flawed item, but it will never match an untouched and well-preserved original.
These days there are all sorts of electronic goodies to emulate tube sound. Behringer makes a nice setup I have played with tinkering with old AM Ham gear. . For line level audio, they work well, and if you are working with solid state finals, they are the way to go.

DiMM by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 05:58 · Score: 1

Ill take a handfull of those off of you!

I'll take 2 by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 05:58 · Score: 1

I'll take 2, thanks.

Yum by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 05:58 · Score: 2, Funny

EAT THEM!

Re:Yum by Dogtanian · 2012-10-29 06:50 · Score: 3, Funny

EAT THEM!
Not a good idea- I tried eating one and it took me an eternity. At a guess, I'd say it had around four billion bites' worth.

--
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Re:Yum by Psicopatico · 2012-10-29 07:02 · Score: 1

EAT THEM!
Eating them would be the easy part.
Pooping them would be the hardest.

--
Mastering the English language is fucking easy: all you have to do is to put an f* word in every fucking sentence.

Trip down memory lane by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 05:59 · Score: 1

Could always treat the memory sticks as if they were legos and take pictures of the creative things you build. Then you can take a trip down memory lane (pun intended).

Worthy Cause: Education by BabaChazz · 2012-10-29 05:59 · Score: 5, Informative

I don't know where OP is from, but in BC, Canada, there is a group called Computers For Schools BC, who are in the (government-funded) business of taking old computers and buffing them up for use in the school system. I suspect they would be pleased to receive something as close to current as 4GB DDR3... and they do enough volume that 500 of them would likely be used up in a month.

Re:Worthy Cause: Education by Gen_Music · 2012-10-29 06:05 · Score: 2

Good idea, but the thought of trying to find a old mobo that takes DDR3 pretty much kills that idea in my mind.
Re:Worthy Cause: Education by confused+one · 2012-10-29 06:09 · Score: 1

DDR3 is the current standard...
Re:Worthy Cause: Education by CnlPepper · 2012-10-29 06:11 · Score: 2

They could sit on them until DDR3 supporting devices get "old".
Re:Worthy Cause: Education by FyRE666 · 2012-10-29 06:15 · Score: 1

What sort of MB are you using that's loaded with DDR4?

--
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Re:Worthy Cause: Education by BabaChazz · 2012-10-29 06:18 · Score: 1

Who says computers donated to this place are "old"?
Typically, these people get computers that have been in the school system for a couple years and are physically abused. School kids don't treat school computers very well. Electronically they are still sound, and recent in enough cases that DDR3 is a serious option. Granted, they also get rafts of (relatively) ancient computers from businesses, but the update / recycle of school machines that have only suffered physical damage is, as far as I understand it, still a pretty big part of their job.
Re:Worthy Cause: Education by DarwinSurvivor · 2012-10-29 06:24 · Score: 2

There are TONS of these companies in BC. Roboot, FreeGeek, etc. If any of those organizations can't use that much ram, they'll know who can!
Re:Worthy Cause: Education by Gen_Music · 2012-10-29 06:24 · Score: 1

Which makes it pretty useless of a company "in the (government-funded) business of taking old computers and buffing them up for use in the school system". Being current means that a company like this would much rather sell them and buy DDR2/SDRAM for the umpteen million P4s and P3s in this world that are just lying around. The cost of each pair of these units could easily match the relative worth of the systems that they distribute, if you consider there are Dual Harpertown Xeon servers for sale these days at $300.
Re:Worthy Cause: Education by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 06:52 · Score: 1

"old mobo that takes DDR3"
Any school PC in need of an upgrade is likely to be old enough to be running on DDR2 and not support DDR3 modules.
The ones with DDR3 support probably aren't looking around to upgrade just yet.
Re:Worthy Cause: Education by Gen_Music · 2012-10-29 07:51 · Score: 1

"who are in the (government-funded) business of taking old computers and buffing them up for use in the school system." But you raise a good point.
Re:Worthy Cause: Education by greg1104 · 2012-10-29 10:24 · Score: 1

Typically, these people get computers that have been in the school system for a couple years and are physically abused
A problem my new charity, People for Ethical Treatment of Poor Old Obsolete PCs, intends to address. Case modding is murder!
Re:Worthy Cause: Education by toddestan · 2012-10-29 15:14 · Score: 1

They could just hold onto them until they start getting DDR3 machines en-mass. DDR3 appeared on the scene about 3-4 years ago anyway, which means some of the first generation machines are probably starting to show up anyway and most likely those machines are sporting 1-2GB sticks.

Donate through National Cristina Foundation by Andy+Prough · 2012-10-29 06:00 · Score: 4, Informative

They'll help your used chips find good homes in school computers and so forth: http://www.cristina.org/aboutus.html

ECC? by nion · 2012-10-29 06:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

Desktop or Server ram? Because server ram is generally ECC and cannot be used in desktops.

--
der dee der.

Re:ECC? by LordLimecat · 2012-10-29 06:08 · Score: 1

I believe ECC can be used in (some?) AMD desktop mobos.
Re:ECC? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 06:09 · Score: 1

Not necessarily true.
If the memory is registered or unbuffered may be the more important spec. Putting ECC memory in a desktop that doesn't support it just leaves the ECC bits unused, But platforms that don't support Registered memory won't boot.
Modern servers will generally boot from either Registered or Unbuffered memory and with or without ECC as long as you don't mix memory types in the same system.
Re:ECC? by ericloewe · 2012-10-29 06:16 · Score: 1

Can't it be used, just without the ECC features?
Re:ECC? by DigiShaman · 2012-10-29 07:01 · Score: 1

Correct. ECC memory can be used with some modern AMD systems. The DIMMs just can't be registered.

--
Life is not for the lazy.
Re:ECC? by fa2k · 2012-10-29 07:09 · Score: 1

I believe ECC can be used in (some?) AMD desktop mobos.
At least up to the Phenom II (don't know about the new stuff), and it requires motherboard support as well. In my very limited experience, 100 % of cheap AMD motherboards support ECC (1 of 1). It has helped me ID a bad DIMM that had a few errors every couple of months.
Re:ECC? by vikingpower · 2012-10-29 07:13 · Score: 3, Informative

Just plain wrong. You can stick ECC RAM into a desktop; the desktop computer will simply ignore the ECC bits, and use the RAM as if it were of the common desktop variety.

--
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Re:ECC? by nojayuk · 2012-10-29 07:15 · Score: 1

I have a pair of 1GB ECC DDR3 RAM sticks surplus from a friend's Apple Desktop Pro upgrade running happily in an AM3+ mobo (Biostar TA880GU3+) running alongside a pair of 4GB regular non-ECC DDR3 sticks. No BIOS or other tweaks required to get them to work.
Re:ECC? by timeOday · 2012-10-29 07:28 · Score: 1

Really, is that true of DDR2 also? I was upgrading a machine recently, and "server RAM" is quite a cheaper than non-ECC DDR2, which seems to be holding its value on the used market surprisingly well.
Re:ECC? by Khyber · 2012-10-29 08:33 · Score: 1

" Because server ram is generally ECC and cannot be used in desktops."
If it's ECC and the motherboard doesn't support ECC it simply doesn't use ECC and just treats it as normal RAM, as ECC is performed by a chip on-stick and it only in use when supported by that motherboard.
How did this get modded as insightful when it's pretty much 100% incorrect?

--
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Re:ECC? by PlusFiveTroll · 2012-10-29 09:02 · Score: 1

No, most boards will fail to boot with the no memory detected error code.
Re:ECC? by PlusFiveTroll · 2012-10-29 09:04 · Score: 3, Informative

Err, I am afraid sir, that you are incorrect.
Many boards without ECC support will fail to post. If it is also registered memory, EVERY board without ECC support will fail to boot.
Re:ECC? by washu_k · 2012-10-29 10:13 · Score: 2

Most posters are confusing the issue. ECC and registered are two different things, even if commonly found together. If the DIMMs are ONLY ECC then they will probably work in desktops. If they are registered, ECC or not, then they will not work.
Re:ECC? by Score+Whore · 2012-10-29 11:44 · Score: 1

There's a chip between the RAM and the bus. Also known as buffered.

Consider local public universities by GodfatherofSoul · 2012-10-29 06:00 · Score: 2

They're more likely to get more bang out of 2nd hand hardware. Additionally, there's always a need to upgrade hardware. Note, make sure you contact an administrator rather than a student employee in their IT departments. Odds are better the hardware will get put to use inside university machines rather than repurposed to supe up some undergrads private servers.

--
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!

The obvious answer by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 06:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

Few people are going to need 500+ DIMMs.

If your company really wants to help a worthy cause, why not put the work in, sell them all individually on eBay, and then donate the revenue to a charity of your choice?

Re:The obvious answer by Existential+Wombat · 2012-10-29 16:39 · Score: 1

Who in your company suddenly decided that ALL 4GB DIMMS needed replacing? Surely not every PC suddenly became so starved of memory. Sounds like a poor decision?

Probably just recycle, but check value first by Wrexs0ul · 2012-10-29 06:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

RAM has a history of starting expensive for cutting-edge, getting dirt cheap as it becomes mainstream, then the old stuff gets expensive again when the market moves-on and it's in limited use. If an EBay search doesn't offer good value then most parts can be recycled these days, check with your local recycling center to see if they have a program to reclaim component materials.

Or, if you're looking for a laugh, ehow says you should consider making a sculpture. With the amount of RAM coming out of companies I bet you could do something person-sized :)

--
--- Need web hosting?

Re:Probably just recycle, but check value first by deburg · 2012-10-29 06:15 · Score: 1

Or, if you're looking for a laugh, ehow says you should consider making a sculpture.

Please don't. I live in a 3rd world country where lots of us are still using C2D as primary/sole machines. And those with motherboards that can accept DDR3 would go gaga for these RAM.
Re:Probably just recycle, but check value first by mcrbids · 2012-10-29 06:35 · Score: 2

I live in a first world country, where lots of us are still using Core 2 Duos as primary/sole machines.

--
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Re:Probably just recycle, but check value first by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2012-10-29 06:36 · Score: 1

Please don't. I live in a 3rd world country where lots of us are still using C2D as primary/sole machines
Wow, talk about luxury. I live in a first world country and I'm still using a K8 machine as my primary/sole machine. And I'm quite happy with it. (I only wish for an ARM-like power consumption profile, that's all I need to be happy.)

--
Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Probably just recycle, but check value first by AK+Marc · 2012-10-29 06:59 · Score: 1

You are talking about the same 1st/3rd world country, the USA. Not enough people have noticed that the lead nations have changed 1st world is Europe and China and the US is 3rd world.

--
Learn to love Alaska
Re:Probably just recycle, but check value first by Fjandr · 2012-10-29 07:30 · Score: 1

Completely off-topic, but it's amusing to see the term "Third World" applied to the USA given its original definition.
Not nitpicking, since the term now means something quite different in common parlance...
Re:Probably just recycle, but check value first by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 07:31 · Score: 1

I'd not go that far. Realistically:
Europe: First World. Prisoners with life sentences in most countries there have a better standard of living than most Americans, especially those in urban areas.
The US: Second world, a place that Russia used to be. Lots of internal bickering, resulting in a strong police force intended to keep groups from going into overt race wars, but the by product is that it takes very little to wind up arrested and a "guest" of the private prison system here. The US got First World status when it was one of the few survivors of WWII, but that is definitely gone since somewhere in the 2000 decade.
Third World: This is subjective. People would snicker and point at Chile... but their country has UHC and pays for their students to go to college. One can consider Russia and China third world, but they actually spend money on infrastructure and plan for the future, while the US plans for a new iPhone release.
Re:Probably just recycle, but check value first by AK+Marc · 2012-10-29 10:08 · Score: 1

The original definition indicated no lack of services or poorness. Switzerland was technically 3rd world, according to the first definition, though was considered 1st world by most people. The non-aligned countries were often non-aligned because they were uninteresting. UAE and others are rich, richer than the US (per capita), and still 3rd world. But now, the powerhouse and main "enemy" and "the rest" would seem to be something more like 1st world - China. 2nd world - India. 3rd world - everyone else. Though it's more even now, with 1st - China, 2nd - everyone else not listed in 3rd, 3rd - Africa (except SA) and South America/South East Asia as honorable mentions.

--
Learn to love Alaska

On this topic by Threni · 2012-10-29 06:03 · Score: 5, Funny

I've got a load of car stereos I want to shift fast because..uh..I've upgraded to in-car mp3 players or something. Anyway, if you want a load of car stereos quick and aren't going to ask too many questions then get in touch.

Re:On this topic by magarity · 2012-10-29 06:15 · Score: 1

I've got a load of car stereos I want to shift fast because..uh..I've upgraded to in-car mp3 players or something. Anyway, if you want a load of car stereos quick and aren't going to ask too many questions then get in touch.
It does sound dodgy since 4GB modules shouldn't be anything to sneeze at. But image a poorly spec'ed corporate purchase that got PCs with one 4GB module of 667Hz memory when the chipset supports 1066 - if they want to upgrade to 8GB the proper way to do it is to toss the individual slow ones and get a pair of 1066 4GB for each computer.
Re:On this topic by afidel · 2012-10-29 07:08 · Score: 1

Not really, we had 180 DIMM's left over after an upgrade a few years ago. We upgraded all our VMWare hosts from 72GB to 144GB, 18 DIMM's times 10 hosts equals 180 DIMM's. The cost of 8GB DIMM's when we purchases the server, ~$1800, 20 months later when we did the upgrade $400. The cost to upgrade all ten hosts was down to the point where it was about equal to buying two new host with licensing but it gave us an additional ten hosts worth of capacity. We ended up using some of the leftover DIMM's for upgrading all of the next years worth of physical server purchases to max ram and the remainder went to our computer recycler.

--
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Re:On this topic by magarity · 2012-10-29 07:54 · Score: 1

I was just giving one example scenario; not the definitive explaination.

Donate to FreeGeek! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 06:04 · Score: 2, Informative

http://www.freegeek.org

Goodwill by ItsJustAPseudonym · 2012-10-29 06:06 · Score: 1

Goodwill repairs and recycles computers.

Re:Goodwill by ackthpt · 2012-10-29 06:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

Goodwill repairs and recycles computers.
We have something called The Grey Bears, which recovers and recycles working computers for low prices. Might be something like that in your community.
One cautionary word, though. Make absolutely certain your employer is completly cool with you gathering these up and sending them off to worthy causes, get it in writing lest some stuffed shirt bureaucrat or bean counter come around and claim you took company property - some employers have very bizarre ways of handling disposal of assets, even stuff like old, broken printers or CRT monitors, which you and I would think are largely worthless, they have numbers on books which state otherwise.

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Re:Goodwill by mlts · 2012-10-29 07:42 · Score: 1

I would also say, not just get it in writing, but get it in writing with the "property release" form that some companies require.
This way, the abovementioned bean counter wouldn't be able to say that whomever gave it in writing didn't have authorization and raise a case of employee theft (which can get felony level quickly from the numbers on the books.)
Reason this is important is that I saw this secondhand when a company had a bunch of CRT monitors sitting around. To free up cube space, a cow-orker offered to donate them to give the company a tax break. This got cleared from his supervisor and up the chain, with paperwork. The gratitude later on? Said employee was shown the door and threatened with grand theft charges because said piece of paper wasn't "official" from the finance department.

Armor by Microlith · 2012-10-29 06:07 · Score: 5, Funny

Put holes in the corners and connect them via metal rings. Create yourself a suit of nerd armor the likes of which has never been seen. With 500 DIMMs you should be able to get a chest piece or pair of gauntlets...

Re:Armor by Alsee · 2012-10-29 09:16 · Score: 1

500 DIMMs is maybe just enough to make mail armor one chest piece only, but it's plenty for 8 suits of femail armor complete chest, bottoms, gauntlets, and a dozen keychains to boot.
-

--
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.

HardOCP by Pedestrianwolf · 2012-10-29 06:07 · Score: 2

Steve over @ HardOCP is always putting together PC's for charitable causes.

Ram Drives by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 06:07 · Score: 1

Ram drives are great performance wise.

Re:Ram Drives by fa2k · 2012-10-29 07:06 · Score: 1

Ram drives are great performance wise.
Yeah I think that was the point of "Are there any cheap products on the market which can take a huge number of DIMMs?". So, are there?
Re:Ram Drives by Fjandr · 2012-10-29 17:41 · Score: 1

Unfortunately, no.
The only ones I'm aware of are the Gigabyte iRAM and the ACard ANS-9010. Both use much older RAM. The iRAM 4 DIMMs of DDR1 and the ANS 8 DIMMs of DDR2.

Snark... by multimediavt · 2012-10-29 06:08 · Score: 2

Build a giant RAM NAS!!! hehe

Find a nonprofit... by magarity · 2012-10-29 06:08 · Score: 3, Informative

I once worked at a nonprofit that redistributed bulk PCs donations from large donors to many small nonprofits. We would get a hundred computers at a time and they almost always 1: had minimal RAM and 2: no hard drives. Any donations of RAM would be appreciated. If you have a similar charity in your area consider old hard drives (that are still working OK) as well.

I work at a school... by theedgeofoblivious · 2012-10-29 06:08 · Score: 4, Informative

I work at a school for special-needs teenagers, and we could probably use about 200 of them if they were available.

Poker Chips by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 06:10 · Score: 1

Paint them with coloured paint and use them as poker chips

Check with accounting by whoda · 2012-10-29 06:10 · Score: 4, Interesting

You may find donating company assets is harder than you think.

Re:Check with accounting by Fished · 2012-10-29 07:05 · Score: 2

Indeed. I used to work for a state university, and we had equipment that was purchased under a special grant that never allowed us to get rid of it. We had to periodically inventory this equipment separately, with ridiculous consequences if we couldn't find some of it. This was around 1995, and we literally had original IBM XT's stacked up in a warehouse, and the only thing we did with them was to periodically inventory them.

--
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1

RAM disk by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 06:10 · Score: 1

Make a RAM disk

Re:RAM disk by AwesomeMcgee · 2012-10-29 07:38 · Score: 1

I really don't think these things are very aerodynamic

A little mortar... by ackthpt · 2012-10-29 06:11 · Score: 2

And you could build the absolutely coolest clubhouse, ever!

Also, I see geocachers attach these to Travel Bug dog-tags, and give them names like "I've lost my memory" and send them traveling.

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar

Re:A little mortar... by Dogtanian · 2012-10-29 07:35 · Score: 1

Some nerd had their bathroom tiled with 486 processors...
Do you have a link for that? While I can believe that some people *are* geeky anough to try such a thing, whether it would be practical is another question.

Aside from the fact that they're very unlikely to be suitable as tiles, even if the 486s were as close to free as makes no difference, I suspect it'd still be damn hard to get enough of them together in one place to make this idea worthwhile.

--
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).

Decorations by Kingkaid · 2012-10-29 06:13 · Score: 1

Try to donate them as best as possible to a school or computer recyclers - although they do make GREAT Christmas tree decorations!

Sell them. by rollingcalf · 2012-10-29 06:13 · Score: 1

Either sell them all as one big batch, or in lots of 100. There are businesses and nonprofits that will buy them.

--
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.

Find a local non-profit by jacknifetoaswan · 2012-10-29 06:13 · Score: 1

I used to work for a non-profit called the Devereux Foundation, and we were always accepting computers from organizations that were upgrading. Most of the computers were Windows 98 vintage or older (in 2002) so they were horrendously underpowered at the time (and we were trying to shoehorn XP onto them), but an influx of additional RAM would have made a world of difference. If you can, call around and find out if there's a non-profit that would accept the DIMMs, especially if they're for desktop systems. I can't speak for the organization now, but there weren't many laptops floating around, and their group homes tended to be desktop only.

Re:Find a local non-profit by jacknifetoaswan · 2012-10-29 11:10 · Score: 1

No, this wasn't that kind of NFP, it dealt with children with mental illness with multiple treatment centers all over the US. These aren't the type of kids that would go pawn something, they're the type that are dealing with developmental and learning disabilities.

DDR3 Donation by hardburlyboogerman · 2012-10-29 06:14 · Score: 4, Informative

You can always donate them to a local Computers For Kids project.Believe me,any and all kinds of hardware is always needed.I ought to know.I've run such a program for a good 20 years

--
Geek Hillbilly

You could hang it from your car mirror... by nighthawk243 · 2012-10-29 06:16 · Score: 1

I use old burned out DDR3 sticks for a mirror decoration. They even have a little convenient hole to put a thread through.

Re:You could hang it from your car mirror... by characterZer0 · 2012-10-29 06:20 · Score: 2

Shiny things swaying in your field of vision while you are responsible for controlling a 3000 pound vehicle without hitting people. Brilliant.

--
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.

Donate them!! by EmagGeek · 2012-10-29 06:16 · Score: 5, Informative

Here's a charity local to me that builds PCs for the disadvantaged:

https://sites.google.com/site/carolinafreepc/

Purpose
To provide PCs with educational programs to low income
families and children at no cost.

Goals

To help kids become knowledgeable about computers

To interest kids in engineering and technology

To encourage kids to stay in school and graduate

I'd buy a couple of them off you by blind+biker · 2012-10-29 06:19 · Score: 1

I most of my computers have 2 GB of RAM. I wouldn't mind to upgrade to, say, 8 GB

--
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.

Obvious answer by 1s44c · 2012-10-29 06:20 · Score: 1

Sell them, they are worth money.

Or does your company not use money?

Imagine... by Anonymous+Psychopath · 2012-10-29 06:23 · Score: 2

...a Beowulf cluster of these...

--

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Dance Dance what? by tepples · 2012-10-29 06:23 · Score: 4, Funny

What sort of MB are you using that's loaded with DDR4?

Original PlayStation, model SCPH-5500-something if I remember correctly. It runs Dance Dance Revolution Konamix, the U.S. version of Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix.

Oh, you meant that DDR4, the kind that can hold every Dance Dance Revolution song in one stick of RAM at once.

Re:obviously someone screwed up by Mike+Buddha · 2012-10-29 06:27 · Score: 2

Someone really screwed up, and didn't RTFA.

--
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.

Art project by JestersGrind · 2012-10-29 06:32 · Score: 1

Take down the AOL CD collage and tile the walls of your office with them. It will look cool and you can brag about you 2+TB walls!

I miss Amigas by Grayhand · 2012-10-29 06:39 · Score: 1

It's times like this I miss aspects of the Amiga computers. They had a really friendly system for expanding ram. Most cards and drives came with extra ram slots. I never understood limiting ram expansion so severely. For computer graphics I see no top end in ram needs and I used to always say if your computer has slowed down nine times out of ten it's the ram not the CPU. 500 chips sounds like a couple of hundred gig of ram if the OSs and hardware would support the expansion.

Re:I miss Amigas by omnichad · 2012-10-29 07:23 · Score: 2

RAM expansion is limited so severely because the speed of light has a huge impact on performance these days. The bus latency is a huge factor.
Windows 7 lets you add slow RAM with ReadyBoost. Not sure if Linux lets you do anything like that. But it's just not as fast as RAM that's only an inch away from the CPU.
Re:I miss Amigas by dacut · 2012-10-29 08:16 · Score: 2

IBM PCs of the era had a similar option: attach the RAM to the ISA bus via an add-on card. Like the Amiga (and most computers of that era), the expansion bus was the processor bus (with a bit of buffering and maybe a tad bit of glue logic, but not much more).
As processor speeds increased, this became a problem. Many peripherals just weren't designed for the increased speed, so they divorced the bus speed from the processor speed by making it a fraction of the processor speed (ISA) or going asynchronous (Amiga Zorro III). This became quite pronounced with PCI (max 66MHz, even if you're running a 3.0GHz CPU); you can add memory onto the bus, but it will slow you down if you try to use it as main memory.
That doesn't mean it can't be used at all these days. The cluster computer folks have a concept called NUMA, or non-uniform memory access, where memory isn't considered necessarily equal in speed. Or you could treat it like a very fast SATA drive, provided you have the necessary means of keeping power to it during power failure events (or use it only as temp or swap space).
Re:I miss Amigas by Nyder · 2012-10-29 14:25 · Score: 1

It's times like this I miss aspects of the Amiga computers. They had a really friendly system for expanding ram. Most cards and drives came with extra ram slots. I never understood limiting ram expansion so severely. For computer graphics I see no top end in ram needs and I used to always say if your computer has slowed down nine times out of ten it's the ram not the CPU. 500 chips sounds like a couple of hundred gig of ram if the OSs and hardware would support the expansion.
um till you got the A3000 and it has the zip ram.

--
Be seeing you...

give them to employees by XaXXon · 2012-10-29 06:40 · Score: 4, Informative

let the employees take home a few if they have a use for them. Make people happy and it won't cost anything or at least not much depending on what you would otherwise do with them.

Linux4Africa by hq9plus · 2012-10-29 07:06 · Score: 1

I think that the Linux4Africa project would be quite happy about such a donation.

Re:ebay for about $3 ea. by omnichad · 2012-10-29 07:07 · Score: 2

$3? You're looking at active listings to gauge final selling price. Most bids these days come in the last hour or the last minute of the auction on auction-style listings. Either look at Buy-it-now prices, or select "Completed Listings" on the lefthand side of a search.

I'm seeing roughly $15 each average. Search settings.
1,081 results found for 4gb ddr3 -2x -1gb -2gb desktop
Preferences: Buy It Now, Completed listings

One could say... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 07:11 · Score: 1

that's quite a large... *puts on glasses* DIMM sum.

Re:Donate to an artist or art class by Krojack · 2012-10-29 07:15 · Score: 1

You mean these types of artist?

Real old school by SuperTechnoNerd · 2012-10-29 07:27 · Score: 2

I still have several tubes of DIP DRAM chips. 256kX4 and 1MegX1 Plus a suitcase full of 74 series logic chips. You want them, you can take em!

Re:Real old school by Norwell+Bob · 2012-10-29 08:28 · Score: 1

Please be near Boston....

Get Crafty.... by RedLeg · 2012-10-29 07:50 · Score: 1

Stitch 'em onto an appropriate undergarment and make a scalemail shirt.

Red

Free Geek by metrometro · 2012-10-29 07:50 · Score: 1

Free Geek teaches people (typically low wage, low education, high enthusiasm folks) to rehab computers, upgrade them from their parts bins, responsibly dispose of the rest, and load up some open source software.

They'd love to max out memory on their boxes, as it's usually the first thing to truly age out compared to current systems.

http://www.freegeekchicago.org/

Oops, left 1) incomplete by Lonewolf666 · 2012-10-29 07:55 · Score: 1

I was going to write "For instance, I've searched for ECC SDRAM, and found only a handful of offers at all".

Slashdot could use an edit function...

--
C - the footgun of programming languages

I need them! by phrackwulf · 2012-10-29 07:58 · Score: 1

I'm building my own Beowulf cluster and I really need some parts! My e-mail address is phrackwulf@gmail.com. What would convince you to part with them?

--
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!

ddrdrives? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 08:04 · Score: 1

You can populate a bunch of these, and give systems that could use it an "ssd" read and write cache
http://www.ddrdrive.com/ddrdrive_x1_p3.png

Free Geek! by fm6 · 2012-10-29 08:12 · Score: 1

In Portland, we havve Free Geek, which will take your unwanted hardware and turn it into systems and sell them cheap or give them away. (The build program which allows anybody to put in some time building computers and walk away with their own system as a reward, particularly tickles me.) You can certainly ship your DIMMs to them, though there might well be a similar effort closer to you.

Server or Workstation? by Norwell+Bob · 2012-10-29 08:28 · Score: 1

Just in case it hasn't been asked yet, were these sticks from workstations or servers? ECC or non-ECC, buffered or unbuffered, etc.? Can't really mix types, so if it's server RAM, for practical purposes, it's not going to work in home/school PCs.

And this is where somebody needs to out-nerd me and tell me how I'm wrong and call me names.

Type of RAM by kryliss · 2012-10-29 08:30 · Score: 1

ECC or Non-ECC.. if it's ECC then good luck finding many home users that can use it.

--
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.

Re:Donate to an artist or art class by Khyber · 2012-10-29 08:35 · Score: 1

Bah, no. More like the old Cafe Apocalypse in Memphis, where old components were literally the walls of the place (non load-bearing walls made from motherboards and cases patched together, etc.)

--
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.

Re:recycle them by Khyber · 2012-10-29 08:37 · Score: 1

"Dont mess with it just recycle them"

We're not even shipping DDR4 modules/motherboards in any large amount. DDR3 is still the latest 'standard' for most boards except servers, and even then DDR4 is rarely found there, you're more likely to find it hardwired to video cards.

Better get that money.

Disclaimer: I work in the semiconductor manufacturing/selling industry.

--
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.

keychains by GLowder · 2012-10-29 08:41 · Score: 2

I've got a couple I've had for years that I have as keychains. Slap a keyring on them and sell them as keychains fot 10 bucks each at local novelty stores or on Ebay.

--
I used to have a good sig...

Some assembly required by Alsee · 2012-10-29 09:23 · Score: 1

If you combine them, 500 DIMMs should be plenty to make at least four or five BRIGHTs.

-

--
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.

Put them in a big box.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-29 09:28 · Score: 1

and label it MEMORIES.

This? Why, I can make a hat or by jfdavis668 · 2012-10-29 09:46 · Score: 1

a brooch or a pterodactyl

My mum wants one by Sketchly · 2012-10-29 09:47 · Score: 1

My mum has reached that age where she can't remember shit (or even where to shit). I figure if you send me one, I might be able to insert it into her head and turn her into some kind of cyber-grandma. In fact, best send two or three, there's a good chance one or two may get broken hammering them in.

Was I the only person... by Yaztromo · 2012-10-29 09:49 · Score: 1

...to read this whose first thought was "Woo hoo! Big-ass RAM disk!"?

Apparently, there are SATA RAM disk assemblies out there, although apparently none that will work with DDR3 RAM (not that a quick search could find at least).

RAID (or perhaps LVM containerize) a pile of these suckers together, add in all those DIMMs, and you could have some seriously fast storage on your hands.

Practical? Probably for limited applications. Damn cool? Absolutely! It would be a like a Beowulf cluster of RAM disks...

Yaz

StRUT by prickeke · 2012-10-29 10:07 · Score: 1

Many states have a StRUT (Students Recycling Used Technology) program. Oregon, for example has a website here: http://www.strut.org/. You can donate used computer equipment and students learn how to put it together and place computers in the classroom or students' homes. That's how I got my start in technology. It's a great cause.

I can use some. by Nyder · 2012-10-29 14:24 · Score: 1

I'm poor and my i7 that i saved up all my money for has bad ram that keeps dying.

I'll take a couple chips.

thanks!

--
Be seeing you...

subject by Legion303 · 2012-10-29 14:39 · Score: 1

Donate them to your local hackerspace.

Sell them to a recycler by Specks · 2012-10-29 17:30 · Score: 1

Depending on the DIMM itself you might be able to sell them to a company that recycles them and extracts the precious and semiprecious metals out of them.

--
Specks
Batteries not included

Freegeek.org by LandGator · 2012-10-29 17:38 · Score: 2

http://freegeekorg/ is a 501(c)(3) which ethically repairs and recycles computers and components, benefitting schools and non-profits. The City of Portland and multiple non-profits donate equipment already.

--
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA

There be gold in them there dimms by REALMAN · 2012-10-29 18:21 · Score: 1

The contacts are gold. Sell them to a person who specializes in gold retrieval from computer hardware.

--
- A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -

Re:Donate to an artist or art class by GerryHattrick · 2012-10-29 20:02 · Score: 2

I had two 1-bit 6-lead toroid memories in clear epoxy. Made them into neat cufflinks. They were stolen in Amsterdam (shouldn't have taken them off)..

Build a House! by kaatochacha · 2012-10-30 02:39 · Score: 1

Last year, my company cleared out a HUGE amount of PCs for RAM ugrades due to requirements of a new software package. We ended up with tons of used 256 MB DIMMS.
So... I built a DIMMgerbread house as a Christmas decoration, using hot glue Seriously. It was kinda fun

4 (and filter filler) by zakkie · 2012-10-30 07:12 · Score: 1

I'll take 4 if they're going spare...

4 GB DDR3 is current by nu1x · 2012-10-31 15:39 · Score: 1

What did the company exchange it for ?

I have, in my quite modern machine, that runs most every game full speed @ max settings, 4x4 sticks 1866 MHz RAM. This is a huge overkill for everything, most people settle for 8 GB and that is with a healthy safety margin.

If the company is getting rid of 4GB sticks (one stick is enough for a normal-range desktop system to function properly on modern desktop OS. throw in a second 4GB if you want to overkill stuff), what are they replacing it with ?

Also, DDR3 RAM is modern and current, and in wide use, not some legacy abomination.

Is this article from the future or just a subtle troll ?

In worst case, you cn list it @ 10 bucks a stick on ebay (going price ~14-15 per stick) and make $5K FAST.

--
I have nothing to lose but my bindings.

RAM Drive by myee123 · 2012-10-31 19:10 · Score: 1

Make a RAM Drive! Try one of these products and insert your RAM. Then you have the FASTEST Hard Drive in the world! http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hyperos-dram-hard-drive-block,1186.html http://techreport.com/review/9312/gigabyte-i-ram-storage-device

Slashdot Mirror

Ask Slashdot: What To Do With Over 500 Used DIMMs?

205 of 291 comments (clear)