What do you guys do with older technology?

[ChRoNo16]

I was wondering lately, what do you guys do with older technology?


My mother in law recently gave me her old Compaq laptop with a 1.7ghz single core pentium 4.

Windows XP was all buggy and not savable, and this thing didnt want to let me reinstall it nicely. So I said screw it and threw Ubuntu on it and am playing with it. seems to run pretty good on single core.


What do the rest of you do? What cool stuff do you still have running?

 

[HeavensCloud]

The general consensus here is to donate it. Give it to a school, homeless program so they can send out job applications, poor family you know, etc. That's pretty much how the last several threads regarding this have gone.

A few here and there use old acquired hardware as a router or learning tool if applicable.

 

[Shintai]

Recycling center so it can be disposed correctly as the trash it is.

It needs to be actual useful before I give it away.

 

[N4CR]

Wall of Fame/Shame what I don't sell. I usually keep GPUs if I don't have more than one or it dies. Noteable or well performing CPUs/boards are kept also.

Rest sells or is given away.

 

[2k3eblade]

Take all the hard disk(s) out, drill/punch some holes into the drive(s) and then e-recycle the rest. I won't consider Pentium 4 machines salvageable, I won't even take lower end core2duos. However, I do have a soft spot for older P3 and Athlon Thunderbird PCs. I still hold on to a slot 1 P3 and an Abit motherboard.

 

[Nenu]

I give it away, hoard it or break it apart to fix other things.

Keeping stuff can be really useful if you have the space.
Yesterday I pulled an inductor from an old printer PCB and used some of the coated wire to repair a badly manufactured Dremel.
A year ago I gave an old PC away for a standalone firewall.

I always keep a working spare PC in case my main PC goes titsup.
Hard drives get retired when I need more space, the old ones are put into backup service.

 

[AgentxofxChaos]

Recycle it if I can. I'll usually keep a couple components like video cards and memory in case I need to test something.

The old processors I'll usually hold on to for a few years before I discard them.

Hard drives I'll either keep or destroy because zero filling takes too long and isn't as gratifying as using a hammer or fire.

 

[cyclone3d]

Not worth keeping IMO.

For stuff that is worth keeping, if I don't want it for something I usually give it away or use it for parts.

Some stuff is good for making retro machines.

I have way too much old hardware laying around... but I almost never keep any old PIV crap. I do have an old HP mini tower that had a Pentium-D in it. The same model board had many different revisions, some of them supporting C2D stuff, but this one doesn't. And the case is pretty standard, but just too small to fit what I wanted to use it for.

That is the only PIV stuff I have beside an old Toshiba laptop with a PIV (eithe 2.8 or 3.2Ghz) and a Geforce Go FX 5200. Not sure if I want to make a retro gaming laptop or not... just doesn't seem worth it.. but the laptop itself is huge and heavy, so I might just keep it.

 

[michalrz]

Everything including and upwards Conroe and X2 Athlons is fair game for me. Can be underclocked/undervolted and serve as a random appliance for something like backups.

When it comes to memory, I hoard everything that is DDR1+, tested good and at least 256Megs. You never know, and the sticks are compact anyway.
This basically implies PCIe and SATA enabled boards. Intel 945+ with 65nm support upwards.
I keep all HDDs as long as they're SATA, at least 40GB, and 100% tested healthy. I need around 5 at a time for emergencies, and the weaker ones are opened up and assaulted.
Power supplies - if something is at least reputable, over 400W (or a lower Wattage but odd format PSU), and it's both stable and visually ok, then I keep 2-3 on hand.

Useless heavy/big stuff like cases, PSUs I deliver to a nearby junkyard that recycles some of it and tosses the rest. They pay some symbolic amounts for the better stuff.

Edit: and to answer your question, I would probably keep that laptop only for some kind of emergency or sell it as a whole, cheap, to someone who's looking for parts.

 

[melk]

Sell it to the local scrap yard. If you have enough material it's worthwhile to break it down first.

 

[Hurin]

Trickle down from me --> daughter --> son --> living room seambox --> server in our furnace closet --> e-waste.

 

[eclypse]

I still have all my old crap from the past 23 years in pc'so. Haha. Yeah I've sold some if they were worth something when I would upgrade but man do I have some old crap. P2,P3 slot 1, athlon galore cpu's and old sound cards and motherboards and graphics cards like from 3dfx and so on.

Have build some old school gaming rigs from the good old days of doom,quake and Duke nukem and ROTT. They just so that make them like that anymore.

Too afraid to toss the stuff and old hdds and huge tubs of misc parts cause I know one of these days I'll want to play around with it again.

 

[Killerxp100]

I've donated some stuff to the local community college computer science prof. He does not accept anything older then 6 years or so, unless it's something really old or interesting.

 

[4330thgink]

I either clean them up(physically and installation) then donate them to someone in need, or I turn them into a storage server.

If I go the storage server route I down clock them because share files across the LAN does NOT require massive processing power. (seriously, you do not need lots of CPU power to store/stream things across a LAN)

 

[LordGardenGnome]

I take a lot of old technology to best buy for recycling, if I can't sell it I'll just recycle it.

 

[FrgMstr]

 

[FrgMstr]

Dang, isn't that the sort of caliber Anti-Materiel rifles use?

Yep.

 

[RJ1892]

I usually ask anyone I know if they need it. If nobody wants it I bring it to work for our PC Recycle service.

 

[fishrule]

Donate it to my office. I work at a non-profit and a good PC is always welcome.

 

[FnordMan]

Historically? Give it to friends that need it. From there they usually take it in for recycling as it's well and truly done by then.

 

[JediFonger]

most salvation-type donation centers require c2d and higher nowadays... so there are bare minimums even for tax write-offs.

meanwhile... recycling will take them.

if you have to pay for your electricity you wouldn't generally keep those rigs running as older machines are less energy aware (not inefficient) just not as aware as the newer rigs for power savings.