How do you organize spare parts?

Like I'm sure most of us on this forum we all take on computer repair jobs on the side. Over the years I've accumulated LOTS of spare parts. And I've had computers given to me or sold to me rather cheap that I couldnt pass up. I use the spares mostly for diagnostics when I have a job.

But when I'm not using these parts how do you organize them? As of now I have about 8 motherboards ranging from P3's to socket 478 to LGA775, lots of video cards pci-e, agp, a few pci sound cards, a few pci nic's, TONS of power supplies and optical drives. On top of the normal things I have countless peripherals I do not use but still will not throw out. Power cables, data cables, AV cables. You name it. I probably have it around here somewhere.

I really need to overhaul my organization. Any ideas?

pictures would help

I have a couple shoeboxes in my closet and an old case that has some components in it like my last motherboard/cpu.

A closet full of stuff organized in containers. I wish there was a way to display some of it, but I just don't have the room and my wife is not a big fan of the idea.

Shoeboxes? lol! I outgrew those a loooong time ago. But yeah, I had a few of those going at one time. They are great!

I have a whole box full of parts now that I'm ready to throw out, some old PCI modems and LAN cards, mice, TV cards, cables, etc.

The rest I have in a big office sized box from Staples. I have a few and they stack nicely.

All the power adapters and similar are zip tied and stored together, as well as SATA, video, and extra PSU cables. Screws are sorted and put into little ziplock bags, although I have purchased some of those "Really Useful Box"'s to transfer those into, although the little bags work really well. The rest, fans, cards, mobos, drives, case parts, I just try to fit in the box as best as possible. I have another box on the side with some extra powers supplies for my old black IBM Netvista, which works as a small server and to play some of my old games that run too fast on modern CPU's, Commandos for example.

The term "It's eveeerywhere!" could quite easily be applied here. I have lots of crap from the P3 and Socket A era. Low wattage PSUs, old cases and stuff.

My wardrobe with boxes and stuff. There are also 3 old laptops, two boxes full with random spares like PSUs and RAM, about 6 HDDs ranging from 2.6GB IDE to 80GB SATA. There is also a P3 866 and a P3 500 + Mobo + RAM in there somewhere (I'm not entirely sure where). Oh, and an oldschool network switch:



Not even the overhead cupboards are safe. Up here is an Athlon XP system + 15" LCD:


Another 15" LCD:


And two Athlon XP systems under a wardrobe too:


Not to mention the bigger boxes in the attic, and the box of spares + an old CRT + the P3 and the Duron in the garage. Sorry for the truly horrible pictures. They were a bit rushed.

steel shelves in the basement, in a spot where no leaks or floods could reach it. also, i have several large cookie tins i use for specific small parts, ie one for sleeving, with tools, connectors, pins etc. one for usb stuff like propritary cell phone cables, sd/mem stik card readers, wireless dongles, bluetooth dongles, etc. and i keep all my empty boxes until i no longer have the part that belongs in it.

One word: Rubbermade

I actually purged most of my old parts collection when I moved to England, but for current products that have any resale value I always keep the boxes. The closet shelf and my hall closet are filled with boxes

i got tired of pack-ratting shit so i cleaned house a few years ago when i moved. i still have my small shelving unit with spare stuff and a growing amount of unused items, but im not going back to the old days of hoarding. its just a waste of space to me.

Rogue71 said:

i got tired of pack-ratting shit so i cleaned house a few years ago when i moved. i still have my small shelving unit with spare stuff and a growing amount of unused items, but im not going back to the old days of hoarding. its just a waste of space to me.

Click to expand...

OMG! Hoarding sucks.

You ever watch that show Hoarders? D:

Organized you say.......

I once had 8 years of hardware filled from top to bottom in a walk in closet. I dumped/ebay everything and only kept 1 amd test ring, 1 intel test ring, and one of each component in some cheap drawers I found at ikea.

jvz555 said:

Organized you say.......

[*URL=http://img638.imageshack.us/i/ss852093.jpg/][*IMG]http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/5640/ss852093.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Click to expand...

Everything looks good, except...

WHERE'S THE OTHER PAIR?!?!?!?!?

I have no closet - I have a door that I can open and pray nothing falls out. Then I start unpacking until I find that one part I remembered where it was at, then everything goes back into the closet and the door shuts.

Yeah I need to get organized - which is why this thread caught my attention. I was hoping someone had some cool way to organize all those excess cables, connectors, wires, cases, motherboards, coolers, fans , and so on. I was thinking of eBay as well to get rid of mine, but 90% is stuff no one wants or isnt worth shipping/listing, but I will need it a week later if I throw it out now - it has happened too many times, so now I am scared to throw anything out. I have an old AGP 5xxx Nvidia card I am holding onto for some reason, along with several 20 & 40GB IDE drives I cannot seem to part with either. I have MOUNTAINS of cables and connectors that I can never find so I buy more then I find the excess ones a few days later - its crazy this hobby I tell ya!