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Ask Slashdot: What To Do With Over 500 Used DIMMs?
An anonymous reader writes "My company is pursuing a RAM upgrade, resulting in 500+ used DDR3 4GB DIMMs. What could this be used for? Are there any cheap products on the market which can take a huge number of DIMMs? Is there a worthy cause we should donate the gear to?"
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.
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.
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.
They'll help your used chips find good homes in school computers and so forth: http://www.cristina.org/aboutus.html
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?
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 :)
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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.
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...
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 for special-needs teenagers, and we could probably use about 200 of them if they were available.
You may find donating company assets is harder than you think.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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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.