What to do with old PC parts?

[Professor420]

I'm about to upgrade my PC, I'm wondering what people do with old PC parts? Is there any purpose for them? I'm not really thinking about selling them, I'll probably look to give any useful parts away (such as the 3GB of nice RAM I can't use...), is there a demand for any of these old parts? Do you think they'd be useful as contest prizes or something for example? It would be cool if TWCers donated spare PC parts. So what do you do with old PC parts?

[Dick]

Charities will often take old PC parts. Not the big ones, local charities that need a PC for emails and accountancy, stuff like that. I know the Hillsborough Justice Campaign appealed and recieved useful parts, which was good as otherwise money would have been diverted from the important issues.

I don't know how you'd find a place to give them away to, maybe a local organisation. Church? Scouts? WI? I'm really clutching at straws, but it's something to consider if you aren't going to sell.

Perhaps TWC needs parts for a new server or something.

Or you could give them to your friends (mine fight over my old parts).

[spartan_phalanx]

Yeah this is something I have always wondered. Some components have small amounts of silver/gold and I have heard mention that some companies take in old parts just for this, but I've yet to find anyone. One other is local PC shops, they often can find uses for the old parts. One local shop told me that even if they can't use them they get frequent visits from people asking for the odd old part but i'm sure there's a limit to what they take.

If you go to some of the bigger companies out there they want you to pay them to take the parts.

Sadly most charities don't have the expertise/resources to use old parts (working systems maybe) and if they partner with someone that does it's hit or miss on timing as it typically doesn't happen very often.

Another possibility is ebay (costs $ to sell) or if you live in the states is 'craigslist' (free : partially owned by eBay).

Finally, the trash is probably a last resort, but there are legalities in doing this though.

[SonOfCrusader76]

Charities will often take old PC parts. Not the big ones, local charities that need a PC for emails and accountancy, stuff like that. I know the Hillsborough Justice Campaign appealed and recieved useful parts, which was good as otherwise money would have been diverted from the important issues.

I don't know how you'd find a place to give them away to, maybe a local organisation. Church? Scouts? WI? I'm really clutching at straws, but it's something to consider if you aren't going to sell.

Perhaps TWC needs parts for a new server or something.

Or you could give them to your friends (mine fight over my old parts).

Is there any chance of using them as part-exchange for new parts if the old ones still work and aren't too old?

[SonOfCrusader76]

Is there any chance of using them as part-exchange for new parts if the old ones still work and aren't too old?

Has anyone managed to flog their old parts to a shop in part-exchange then?

[Ummagumma]

I keep mine, but I do a lot of 3D work. Just stick a nice Linux OS on it and use them as a cheap render farm! I also thought that if I had any critical hardware failures I could just gut an old box, but my present box has ddr2, am2, sata2 and pci express, so my older boxes are incompatible. Still handy having a few extra brains to throw large render jobs at.
You could (electricity bills notwithstanding) use them for a bit of folding at home, but as you are a fellow 3D junkie, you might get more practical use in making a farm.
Just a thought..

[Simetrical]

I keep mine, but I do a lot of 3D work. Just stick a nice Linux OS on it and use them as a cheap render farm!

Ah, right, my brother does that too (Linux and all). He's a computer graphics major.

[ProneStar!]

specs?

[Simetrical]

Keep around any parts that will fit into your actual computer. You never know when your video card will die and that old GeForce 2 will be the only thing between you and no functioning computer. Seriously, that has happened to me before. I've used a GeForce 1 once when my video card died (this was a couple of years ago).

Of course there's not much point if it doesn't fit your computer (e.g. DDR1 RAM), although at my house we tend to keep them lying around anyway. We have a cupboard and a chest full of old computer parts, some working and some not.

[mrmouth]

I know it sounds silly but even the copper on a component is worth a bit of money. A friend of mine had a copper heatsink on his old video card, the same card I currently own, he took that in after it died to a metal recycle shop and they gave him $25 for it.

Craiglist is is most countries now, so you should be covered. Ive bought and sold a number of things on that site, love it.

[spartan_phalanx]

I just recently got into th e whole craigslist deal so I didn't know it was outside the states, good deal then.

[Vanquisher]

I also have loads of old pc parts tha lie around and are just junk to me... but if you can collect enough bits for an entire pc you can just give it away to some needy folks

[Niccolo Machiavelli]

It depends - my PC parts are usually still pretty usable when I decide to upgrade and I usually have some friend or relative in need I donate them to so they can upgrade.
I did that with my Athlon 64 3800+ along with an Asus mobo, 2 gigs of ram and a geforce 7800 GS and the PSU in february - not exactly top notch, but he built a usable system out of it...

I don't bother selling it on ebay - too much hassle for a few bucks...

[Professor420]

Well the problem with keeping the parts around is so few of my parts will fit the upgraded comp, since its basically a complete overhaul... buying a cheap optical drive, case, and HDD is actually a very good idea, as its really all the comp needs to be functional (seems kind of strange to give away a 3800+, 6800GT, and XMS RAM but hey, why not). I may do it in a few months, maybe fold with it in the meantime.

I'm not really interested in getting money for the parts right now though the heads up and possibilities are good. I'm generous as long as I'm doing well (and too often even when I'm not), to me the money would just buy me some trivial things but a nice gesture can make someone's day (like leaving a nice tip if a hard-working waiter makes an honest mistake) or impact their life (such as how Nakandarkari gives away his comps).

[Niccolo Machiavelli]

(seems kind of strange to give away a 3800+, 6800GT, and XMS RAM but hey, why not).

Not strange at all (but maybe I am strange), but I have given the stuff mentioned above to a friend for free...

Money? Not that I have much of it but... *shrugs*

[mrmouth]

Then give them away to a school or something.

nice avatar, one of the best shows ever.

[Leo4444]

You could sell them in other countries. For example old parts here are worth more in mexico.

[Roman Clone]

Give Old Parts to me! lol

[Spiff]

It is useful to keep parts you can use handy. When my graphics card stopped working for example i was grateful to have an extremely cheap PCI-E card sitting in my cupboard (seems many new motherboards these days don't come with on-board graphics of any sort). Not ideal but it at least allowed me to use windows fine.

Generally its good to keep hold of graphics cards, power supplies, ram etc - never know when you might need it as a backup or for testing purposes - or even if a friend needs to use them for the same reason ive found.

[Shaun]

Keep your graphics card - you never know when your current one will die. But anything else which will not fit onto your current set up, well, get rid of it somehow, unless you have enough parts to make a complete new computer, then keep them for a spare PC.