QOTD: What Do You Do With Your Old PCs?

[taintsauce]

I repurposed my first build - a Prescott P4 with a gig of ram and a Radeon 9600 - into a ghetto HTPC. My old laptop - Dell C400 with a mighty 1.2ghz PIII - is sitting in my closet as a low-rent webserver.

I do regret not shooting my first machine when the mainboard died. There wasn't much I could do with it otherwise, as socket 423 had been replaced and it used RAMBUS memory. Pelting it with 7.62mm rifle rounds would've been the greatest way to go.

 

[eriko]

I used to re install them, and give them away.

But I found that I was constantly having to support them, and I was trying to see the back of the dam thing, so to speak.

So they pile high on the shelf, and get dismembered as customers'PCs required anything they have.

 

[dark_lord69]

I sell it because if it's old to me. Other people can still use it for e-mail and internet. If I couldn't sell it I would recycle it... But I am yet to have that problem.

 

[Guest]

I use my PII / 256MB RAM / 10 GB HDD as my personal web server using Linux. Have been working like a charm for almost 4 years now

 

[invlem]

Give them to my parents

Honestly if I didn't they'd still be using the Commodore 64

 

[corsair115]

Its amazing what a 8mm or .45 ACP round does to hard drive. The .45 round barely makes it through the drive and the 8mm makes it tofu. A well placed 12 GA slug removes the CD drives quickly and efficiently. Add a few rounds of buckshot to the insides at a decent range and you now have a Holy PC! Then I do the responsible thing of dragging the remains to the nearest PC recycling depot. I always seem to get a really sarcastic Thank you.

 

[rooket]

Hmm I just built a pentium 4 out of spare parts, upgrading from P3 1ghz and installed windows 7 on it. Weird thing is that 1, win7 has no drivers for my 3com 10/100 ethernet card although it has drivers for the gigabit onboard and 2, it has no drivers for the onboard soundmax audio chipset yet the online update does but if you install it, it bogs down the system mouse gets all choppy as hell and outputs slowed down sound. I thought windows 7 would be better than this. I don't recall having these issues with windows vista on basically the same motherboard. So looking like I have to install a pci sound card to get around that whole mess.

 

[zebow2002]

Gave mine to a school nearby, they can always use a pc, old or new as long as it's free.

 

[mitch074]

I usually sell them for a nickel at people that don't need powerful machines; only one ended up in the trash bin, but it had been so abused that there wasn't much I could do with it.

On the other hand, since I change computer only once every 3 years (on average), I haven't had to concern myself with these...

 

[sonofliberty08]

turn it to the karaoke system

 

[liemfukliang]

First --> Define old? PC that older than 5 years? I have Toshiba Portege 2000 buy in 2007 repubished. I use that "old" pc to minimize the Indonesia Internet slownest. I have 3 pc. One for download in the morning to night. The other Portege 2000 is to replace this pc (aka resume download) when I am going to sleep. Actually both of the PC is laptop. The thirt one is normal PC with the bigest HDD to store the download file (I know 500 GB today is so small).
Since my Portege 2000 is so slow, than I don't any other choise but to download.

 

[Thurin]

My old hardware always finds a new home in my circle of friends and family.
Since my requirements for hardware lie a lot steeper than those of my relatives and some of my friends, they are more than happy to get their upgrades for free when I upgrade.

 

[danimal_the_animal]

I sell them cheap if they work....or give them away if they are too old.

I hate being tech support for people so if i have a problem machine....i leave it on the street and let someone else deal with it.

the last system i gave away was a e2180 @2.66ghz OC and 2 gig of ram with a 9400gt video card...running on an asus p5n-mx....

I wanted a low power system that could do visualization so i got a E6300 running windows 7 RTM (perks from work)on a ASUS P5N7A-VM....this is for my windows media center computer in the front room.....i am running linux in virtualization as a server....i used to have a mini itx PC but why why not take advantage of free horsepower.

same mobo with a q6600 and a gtx 260 and a 24 inch monitor for my main PC....and a fully loaded dell studio 14z.

I just cleaned house....

by the way....the chipset on these asus boards are VERY efficient.....they make the PC feel very snappy....i was led onto it when i got my new laptop...I cant believe how CHEAP computer parts are now adays......i got a recertified gtx-260 for 119 shipped!!! from newegg.

look for the deals folks.

 

[danimal_the_animal]

that PC I gave away was for my daughter to have something at her moms house.....she enjoys here acer aspire one netbook.

 

[jellico]

Generally, the only time I throw parts away is when they are absolutely DOA (dead motherboards, dead video cards, glitchy memory, etc.) But if it is still good, I keep it just in case someone in my family has a problem that requires that particular part. As a result, I have a couple of large bins filled with old, working computer parts. I think I still have my original 3DFX Voodoo 3D Graphics Accelerator card (ah... that takes me back). In any case, I'll occasionally sell parts on eBay, but overall, I reuse the parts as much as I can.

 

[masterasia]

I have about 5 old PCs in my basement right now collecting dust. I can't seem to get rid of them. I build myself a new one about once a year and give the old working ones away to family members and friends who are in need of some good computers. Almost all of my friends and family know squat about computers. Most of them only use them for surfing the internet.

I do a lot of video editing and movie rips so I like the latest and greatest stuff. I'm waiting for the price of SSDs to drop so I can get a couple and raid them.

 

[chrisv815]

I dump my old computers in the towns water supply.

 

[MickyDee]

I have 3 machines so when I want to make a faster one I use the trickle down method, and the oldest one if useable gets recycled and scavinged for parts to give to friends who need them. If its to old and unuseable I send to a computer recycle location (got to be eco-freindly).

 

[jsloan]

ok i got it, i load it up with viruses, spyware, rootkits, adware and other malware and give them away to the poor.

 

[cyb34]

Anything useful I give to my brother or any other relative that needs it. Everything else I give to recycling.

 

[itadakimasu]

we donated a bunch of our old p3 systems to this school a year or 2 ago, and then most other stuff ends up dropped off @ the local recycling place.

 

[silversquare]

Mine become reborn as new computers for family members who seem to be stuck on hardware from a decade earlier. Sometimes I donate them to nearby schools to use in whatever way they wish and some parts just go in the closet as spares or trophies from times past.

 

[ebattleon]

I use them for parts for older machines that people bring for me to fix. I have p3 600 using as a data server.

 

[bill gates is your daddy]

I chunk that bastard over the fence...it's the neighbor's problem after that.

 

[Kithzaru]

generally part them out to friends...