I recently (finally!) treated myself to a shiny new computer. Woo-hey! However, what do I do with the old one? It has just been sitting around, being in the way, for several weeks now, and I’ve decided that enough is enough. It’s pretty much a dinosaur, most parts are from 2002 or thereabouts. However, the graphics card is fairly new, and so is the DVD drive and one hard drive. Specs are 1.25 GHz CPU, 350 GB hard drive space, 1.5 GB RAM. There’s also an ancient 17-inch monitor that must be disposed off.
Sell it on Ebay? Probably can’t be bothered. Just throw it in the bin? Seems a bit… unimaginitive. Turn it into experimental art? Maybe. Take it out into the countryside and introduce it to high explosives, Mythbusters-style? Sounds like fun, but too much work.
With all that hard drive space you could turn it into a file or media server.
If you’re feeling ambitious you could upgrade the video card and put MythTV on it to get a cheap DVR.
If that doesn’t work out, post it on Freecycle. You’ll have someone offering to take it off your hands in no time.
Just keep in mind that computer components (particularly monitors) contain mercury and other things that you wouldn’t want to get into the water supply. Please don’t dispose of it irresponsibly.
You should really hang on to that 350GB HDD. Look around online for an “external hard drive enclosure.” Then you’ll have 350GB of extra space on your new machine!
Before you put it up on Freecycle - if you’re not going to use it for anything (I agree with Number - it’s got great specs) - offer it up to your local school system. They could very well use that machine, if not as a whole then for parts.
It could also do very well at a local old folks’ home or elder daycare.
And if you want to keep the machine but ditch the monitor, solicit those places too. I had a basement full of 17" monitors (about a dozen) and the local school system took them off my hands and gave me a receipt for $300 in donations ($25/monitor).
Love to. Heck, you can have it for free, as far as I’m concerned. Where are you, though? I’m in an outer corner of Northern Europe, so having it sent from here might not be the quickest or cheapest option in your case.
Well hell. I am in the states but the shipping alone may be worth the cost.
If you can weigh the system and let me know I will pay all shipping charges. I really just need the tower.
??? though, because I am “ignorant” of these type of things. Are systems over there different than over here? I know there is a voltage difference but I think there is a setting on the power supply for that.
Wow, I am so excited. I will pay at least something to you for it, even in home baked cookies or US candy.
Glad you found someone to take it–because it’s illegal in many places to throw computers away, and many businesses have to pay someone to take their old computers away for them.
I don’t have access to the specific computer in question, of course, but generally it’s just a little voltage switch on the back of the power supply. Don’t turn it on until you reset it to the North American voltage (110V). It only has two settings, 220 and 110 (these might vary by 5 or 10 volts, but it’s all okay ).
You’ll also need a power cable for it. Computer power cables detach from the power supply with a special connector; the end that goes into the power supply is common in Europe and the USA, but the end that goes into the wall is not. So if you have a power cable form a previous computer, it should be adequate.
Thanks!