Do you do "under the radar" builds, and....

[punkncat]

Allow me to explain.

I tend to build systems about once every four or so years with a nice upgrade that I can move forward in the 3rd to 4th year. My wife knows nothing of computers. She expects it to turn on and be lightning at everything it does, regardless of open windows, number of processes, etc. She has no conception of RAM usage as it relates to number of current tasks, and so forth. And in respect to that, she also has no conception of the cost of a fast and competent machine.

With that said, my "mo" as it were is to purchase a few things I need to complete an upgrade, typically with the use/recycling of current parts. I tend to keep everything within a 4-5 year window for upgrade. This keeps me under the radar with the wife, as buying a $2K computer in one sitting will certainly raise the eyebrows. Lol. Anyway.....
I end up with quite a lot of parts that are still more than usable. Typically a few generations back or as mentioned old. I have pretty much every member of my (living) family, and friends hooked up with decent systems, particularly for non gamers.

I have attempted to list this stuff on CL and I may as well burn it in the yard. I haven't used eBay a lot over the years and have no rating to speak of, so items there just pay to be sitting most of the time as well.

What do you do with older, still functional PC parts and "accessories"?

 

[Karadjgne]

Donate them to schools, goodwill etc. As long as it's internet capable, it's usually good.

 

[WildCard999]

I've scrounged up a few systems and gave them away to low income families and some churches that could use them. If it's something I can't give away Best Buy used to do a trade in program (not sure if they do it anymore) where you could give them parts (minus the HDD) and pay them $10, then they give you a $10 gift card which is much cheaper then trying to get rid of this stuff at a dump and not as sleazy as leaving it on the side of the road.

 

[punkncat]

Even now I sit here wondering about "completing" a build in parts I have left over.

I have a Ryzen 3 1200, a B350 Mobo, case, PSU, 8gb of DDR4 memory, and a choice of two GTX960 I could put in. I have a boatload of storage drives.....all I need in an SSD and OS and I have another system. With a minor few other parts I can guild a Pentium G...a little more detailed since I need a mobo that will deal with registered RAM...whole other story.

 

[R0GG]

_Donating/ selling for a lower symbolic price on craigslist assembled fully working systems (with configured windows).
_Selling complete assembled system or parts combo especially mobo-CPU-Ram + at attractive price on ebay
_Performing parts inventory/ taking pictures and organizing and listing 5-10 items at a time continuously on ebay for couple of months with attractive pricing is the fastest way to get rid of the most of the computer parts especially if sold in working combos. (to avoid returns: low price = good deal, listing items with limited warranty like as is or guaranteed only against DOA).

 

[The Paladin]

slap them together, find a needing family group in your local area and go donate the unit... I did once with 5 complete systems 4r monitors and all of it formatted with whatever legal windows license I had for the box/case and other had a copy f linux on it and voila... they where all smiles and super happy to be able to use to give these to kid in need

 

[stdragon]

When donating computers built from spare parts, I usually don't have a Windows license as I have no idea what that MB was licensed for, let alone the key. So, I'll just throw Ubuntu on it along with LibreOffice and Firefox. It uses less system resources, and makes for a speedy experience surfing the web. Also, less likely to get infected with malware for those not computer savvy.

Just my two cents.

 

[R0GG]

I agree with you, that would work too despite of most users would be expecting a more familiar MS windows interface especially for light gaming/office compatibility.