How much is my computer worth?

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Ma1icious

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Sep 14, 2006
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I'll be going to college soon and would find a laptop much more useful and practical than a desktop. Therefore, I wish to sell it and use the money to purchase a new or used laptop. How much is my desktop worth? Specs are in sig.

I will include everything:
- Tower
--- Intel Pentium 4 560J (3.6 gHz)
--- ASRock 775Dual-VSTA
--- 1 GB (2x512) DDR-400
--- ATi X300
--- 250 GB Western Digital Caviar
--- SmartPower 2.0 500 watt
--- Antec P180b
- 19" Sony Monitor [ HERE ]
- Stock Sony Vaio Speakers (2 of them)
- Stock Sony Vaio Keyboard
- Stock Sony Vaio Mouse
- Steelpad QCK+
 
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That's a halfway decent computer, but dont expect much due to lack of ram or a video card. I'll tell your right now that you are going to have a hard time selling that computer as a whole unit, no one will buy it. Part it out. By itself I would say maybe 500. Part it out you could get a little more....that monitor could sell maybe for 120 or so.
 
On a side note, used laptops are almost always a bad idea. I'd suggest getting something inexpensive as you can find and paying for extra warranty coverage -- my ASUS has broken 2 times in 2 years (both motherboard failures, would have been $300+ if not covered by warranty) and I know many others who have had similar bad luck with laptops. All the moving around and the considerably higher temperatures experienced inside the much smaller housing make failure much more common.
 
You're going to get more selling it off in pieces than as a package.

I would also recommend not getting a used laptop. I know how it is to be on a budget when going off to college, but peace of mind in your hardware is worth its weight in gold. I'd take a long look at Gateway laptops. I'd also suggest going to Best Buy to look for them, as there are occasionally some fantastic rebates that you can't get off the Gateway site. You can also get HP laptops for hella cheap, but be prepared to format it as soon as you get it. Absolutely flooded with bloatware. I've found the Gateways to be much better built as well.

One other place you could check is a Dell outlet. There are some nice deals to be had there, but make sure you're getting a warranty with it.
 
Jason_Wall said:
You're going to get more selling it off in pieces than as a package.

I would also recommend not getting a used laptop. I know how it is to be on a budget when going off to college, but peace of mind in your hardware is worth its weight in gold. I'd take a long look at Gateway laptops. I'd also suggest going to Best Buy to look for them, as there are occasionally some fantastic rebates that you can't get off the Gateway site. You can also get HP laptops for hella cheap, but be prepared to format it as soon as you get it. Absolutely flooded with bloatware. I've found the Gateways to be much better built as well.

One other place you could check is a Dell outlet. There are some nice deals to be had there, but make sure you're getting a warranty with it.
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Well, the thing is that its pretty hard to find buyers for all if not a majority of the items. If I part out and sell and only manage to sell 1 or 2 parts, then, I'm basically left with, not a computer, but just a bunch of parts that I can't really use.

I'd be happy to sacrifice a few bucks to guarentee that I get all of it sold. Anyways how much difference would it make, price wise?

I currently have about $800 to spend on a laptop plus whatever I get from selling my desktop.
 
Ma1icious said:
I currently have about $800 to spend on a laptop plus whatever I get from selling my desktop.
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You can get a very decent laptop for $800. That's actually more than I thought you had to deal with. A lot of people come up and ask me "I have $250 to spend on a new laptop. What do you recommend?" I reply, "Try a TI-83."

Anyway, for about $1000, Gateway offers a tablet notebook that's awesome. Only one better that I've seen is Lenovo's, and it's about double the price. Don't know if you're into tablets, but in my evaluation of it, I used it for college/lab work and it was fantastic.

On your old computer, put it in our FS/FT subforum. One of the [H] Folders would probably jump on it. I'd say you're not going to get much more than $300 for the box, though. I'd sell the display separately - you can probably get a couple of hundred for that by itself, especially if all of the pixels are good.
 
Jason_Wall said:
You can get a very decent laptop for $800. That's actually more than I thought you had to deal with. A lot of people come up and ask me "I have $250 to spend on a new laptop. What do you recommend?" I reply, "Try a TI-83."

Anyway, for about $1000, Gateway offers a tablet notebook that's awesome. Only one better that I've seen is Lenovo's, and it's about double the price. Don't know if you're into tablets, but in my evaluation of it, I used it for college/lab work and it was fantastic.

On your old computer, put it in our FS/FT subforum. One of the [H] Folders would probably jump on it. I'd say you're not going to get much more than $300 for the box, though. I'd sell the display separately - you can probably get a couple of hundred for that by itself, especially if all of the pixels are good.
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the box can be sold on ebay. here is how you do it (im DEAD serious)

buy it now price $600
bid price $500

"ZOMG COLD CATHODES AND FREE SHIP FOR THIS LEET H4X COMPUTER!! GAMING COMPUTER HARDCORE GAMER HERE PLAYS ALL GAMES BEAUTIFULLY" put LAN PARTY in there somewhere

sold my a64 3000+ rig for $800 two months ago...yeah...it had an x700pro radeon.

most ppl will scoff. but the noob will bite. thats when you win
 
realistically, $380 shipped for the box is not too unreasonable

$180 shipped is fair for the monitor

if i were you i would get a 799.99 lappy and keep the desktop for your dorm room, use the lappy elsewhere but you are intent on selling so if i were to sell thats what i would charge.
 
Id pay 350 max for the computer, and another 120-150 for the screen
 
When I was about to start college, my parents offered to buy me a laptop (this was my Sr year of HS, Oct 2001) I respectfully declined their offer for a laptop, but instead got a desktop. All throughout college I never once was dissapointed with my decision. Sure I didn't get to carry it with me to class, but that's why God invented PAPER. There were computers all over the engineering building waiting for me to use and I just remoted in to my PC to use it. I streamed my music over the network, hosted my CS projects on it so I could connect to it while giving presentations etc etc.

Everyone who had a laptop my freshman year had a honkingly heavy frisbee by the time we graduated. My PC, plus a few upgrades, is on its final leg. If you REALLY want a laptop, wait until your first semester of college is over and then get a cheap one, if you feel like you need it.

By then you will know what college is like. Also, a [H]uge plus, no one steals desktops from your bookbag when you go in to eat at the cafeteria.

Desktops ftw.

Nate
 
flipflopsnowman said:
Everyone who had a laptop my freshman year had a honkingly heavy frisbee by the time we graduated. My PC, plus a few upgrades, is on its final leg. If you REALLY want a laptop, wait until your first semester of college is over and then get a cheap one, if you feel like you need it.

By then you will know what college is like. Also, a [H]uge plus, no one steals desktops from your bookbag when you go in to eat at the cafeteria.
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Really good advice.
 
flipflopsnowman said:
When I was about to start college, my parents offered to buy me a laptop (this was my Sr year of HS, Oct 2001) I respectfully declined their offer for a laptop, but instead got a desktop. All throughout college I never once was dissapointed with my decision. Sure I didn't get to carry it with me to class, but that's why God invented PAPER. There were computers all over the engineering building waiting for me to use and I just remoted in to my PC to use it. I streamed my music over the network, hosted my CS projects on it so I could connect to it while giving presentations etc etc.

Everyone who had a laptop my freshman year had a honkingly heavy frisbee by the time we graduated. My PC, plus a few upgrades, is on its final leg. If you REALLY want a laptop, wait until your first semester of college is over and then get a cheap one, if you feel like you need it.

By then you will know what college is like. Also, a [H]uge plus, no one steals desktops from your bookbag when you go in to eat at the cafeteria.

Desktops ftw.

Nate
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same here. just graduated from HS, parents asked me, said no i upgraded my desktop, and im using a $150 lappy for college.
 
I agree with the idea of keeping it and buy a decent new 14" $800 laptop, too. (Go to a retailer like BBY or CC so you can check it out first.) Definitely stay with a major brand!! You will be surprised how much of your work you do on the desktop and how little you use the notebook if you have both, and after a while you'll stop carrying the notebook probably if you live on campus. The core of the desktop unit is fine, and you can ask for a video card for Christmas (or whatever holiday) and have a great gaming solution, too. If you sell, it could go for $350-400, which is way less than it's worth to you.
 
freshman year i went to school with a 7 pound toshiba laptop, and a shuttle XPC. never used the laptop in class because it was too big (15" screen) to fit on the desk's comfortably.

sold the toshiba, bought a 14" gateway and used it in my Biology classes for all my note taking. but in the bio classes we had tables instead of desks, in classes with desks I still found it kind of big, i wanted room to put a piece of paper on the desk as well so i could sketch diagrams or whatever (a tablet would have been great, but at the time were $1300++)

so, i sold the gateway, and my desktop (kept the 20" lcd, keyboard, mouse, speakers and hard drives) and bought my macbook

since buying the macbook i have never looked back, I use it in all of my classes for notes, programming, digital photography etc. and it works great. the size / weight is perfect for my needs, and the price was not bad at $1050 for a 2ghz core2duo with 1gb ram, 120gb hard drive and the Dual layer superdrive. I made the upgrade to 2gb of ram and now it is the ultimate college laptop.


cliff notes:
15" is way to big for most college desks
14" is pretty good, but still bigger than I liked
13.3" is perfect size / weight for me
macbooks rule :)
 
Velocity_Micro said:
If you sell, it could go for $350-400, which is way less than it's worth to you.
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This is another good point. You can still get a lot of mileage out of your current machine, especially if you're only using it for basic tasks - surfing, email, word processing. It's worth a lot of money just in the fact that you already have it and that you don't have to go buy another entirely new machine. In other words, your computer is worth more to you in its current state as a functioning tool than what you could conceivably get for it in order to replace it.
 
And then when you realize that a lappy isn't in your future, you can get a 24" widescreen + 8800 GTS 320 and be in biznass.
 
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