I have a Windows7 machine that’s 8-10 years old (don’t recall when I got it) and it’s sloooooooooooooooooow! It’s been replaced by a Win10 computer, and I did back up all the photos and documents from the old system. I’m not averse to taking it to our local computer repair place in the hopes of making it run at speed again, but then what? Between our personal computers, laptops, and business computers, we have close to 10 systems, so it’s pretty much superfluous. And my granddaughter is just 9 months old - still a tad young.
Sooooooooo, What to do? I don’t want to just take a sledge hammer to it, especially if it’ll work again. I know the school systems around here don’t take computers - they have contracts to maintain the ones they have. Maybe someone would want it for parts??
If the computer were younger I’d suggest wiping it thoroughly, installing Linux, and giving it to charity; in this case, given the computer’s age, probably about about all you can do is make sure that it’s disposed of properly (some e-cyclers will “redeploy” usable parts). You can find more information here.
I use an old computer as a music server. I store all my ripped albums on it, and connect its audio-out port to the auxiliary input port of my stereo. I also run Pandora on it to feed to the stereo, as well as YouTube occasionally.
Computers that are old enough should go to a responsible recycler like the recycling area of your local government. If it’s 8 to 10 years old, it’s getting close if not already there. If it was serving some useful purpose for now you could still leave it doing so, but looking for a new job for this computer is not all that likely to pan out. If there’s a tinkerer in your life who actually wants it, great, but otherwise, it’s off to the dump.
Now, if it were older still, then it might make a nice antique. I have an IBM PC motherboard I’m thinking of giving to somebody for this reason. I mean, a real one – 8 bits, 4.77 MHz, with “IBM” on the pcb. Sucker’s gotta be, what, 37 years old? Maybe 38? Not only that, but it also still worked about 15 years ago the last time I fired it up. Gotta be a collectable.
A PC of that age is still completely usable as an office PC - really you don’t need much by today’s standards to run MS Office and an internet browser. Especially if you put an old SSD in it.
But at that age the components will be wearing out. Most commonly the capacitors on the motherboard and in the PSU.
I have a PC of that vintage in storage as a hot spare. It works just fine.
I’d pull the hard drive and get one of those sleeves that enables it to be used as an external hard drive to your new computer. Then I’d take the rest of the computer to recycling. (Does your county have electronics recycling? Calvert does.)
If you still have the CDs that came with the computer you could try restoring it to ‘factory’, in which state, if it ran okay, give it to somebody. Otherwise, I’d pull the hard drive and recycle whatever else isn’t reusable.
I’ve got a couple of hard drives and an optical drive from old computers inside my current desktop unit serving as drives ‘E’, ‘F’ & ‘G’, IIRC.
It’s also usable for schoolwork/ homework.
I’ve donated old computers to a charity near me that gives mostly food and clothing to the needy.
But needy people have kids in school, too.And the charity happily took my computer .
I had to replace the power supply a few years back, and in the last year or so that I used it, it was making odd noises - I’m pretty sure it’s not a digital drive. Talking to a computer guy/coworker, it seems like recycling is the best answer.
I have no disks for the OS - does anyone provide those any more? So even if I wipe it clean, it’s just a box that makes noises. Maybe it’s time to go to the digital graveyard…
Take the HDD out before you recycle the PC. Then, the next time you are feeling frustrated or angry, take a sledgehammer and beat the ever-living crap out of it.
You can also just completely wipe the hard drive, instead of pulling it from the computer. Make sure you have all of the data you want off the drive, because it will not be recoverable at all once this is done (as that is the whole point).
This looks like a reasonable tutorial to use DBAN to do that. The quick erase option is fine, and will be the fastest. A single pass of overwriting the drive will make anything on there unrecoverable. That applies to spinning hard disks only. Solid state drives require different procedures.
Sure, the computer might be usable by somebody who really needs it and has no money at all. Mostly schools and charities don’t want old PCs, because newer ones are much better and don’t cost very much compared to the amount of time required to restore an old ones. Old PCs are pretty much one step above used diapers in their desirability.
Things the above paragraph does not apply to: Computers that are 100% functional and less than 4 years old; Macs which are 100% functioning and can run the current version of MacOS; servers with specialized components, such as 24 hot swap drive bayes, that are less than 6 years old and 100% functioning; that lucky unicorn of a system which somebody needs exactly; and a few other things I can’t think of.
I’m sure many of you are using computers which fit in the above “throw away” category. That is fine, nobody is telling you that you have to upgrade, but when you do decide to upgrade, nobody wants your old one.
Wipe it, pull out the hard drive, get the cheapest drill bit in your toolbox, and drill holes through it like you’re creating a new kind of dice.
Then let it sit on the most powerful magnets you have until your town has its recycling day the next summer. On that day, drive all the parts (including the drive) to the recycling area and stay until you physically watch it being crushed.
(Look, you Bought things on that computer; there is data that passed through it that you just can’t ever risk being in any hacker’s hands. Look, its this or nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.)
Heh, I have an old Win 7 box. Gave it a new (cheap) SSD with a fresh install of Win 7, put a few utility/productivity programs on it, included a monitor, keyboard, mouse and the Win7 box (with key in case they ever needed it) and offered it for $50 which was just to cover the cost of the SSD and got zero takers. I thought maybe someone would want it for a cheap browsing or homework machine but no one wanted it for nothin’.
On the other hand, if I hold on to it for a few more years, it’ll be a quaint antique system and desirable as a collectible, right? Wish I’d held on to our Commodore 64…
Yeah, sounds like it’s not worth anything to anyone, alas…
One hole is adequate to prevent any of your old data from ever being compromised.
My old computers? After transferring all data from the hard drive, I remove it and drill a hole in it. Then I give the rest of the computer away on craigslist.
Lots of older computers have compatibility issues, and homework is not word processing, but specific web based software requiring a updated web browser, extensions and other modern programs that a older computer simply can’t run or will be so slow as to cause major frustration for them and their parents.
While parents dream of a new computer for themselves and giving their older one to the kids, this often is doomed to failure. The kids are the ones who needs the new updated computer to get their work done, not the hand-me downs from their parents (though sometimes newer old machines can be used - though this is not). They usually have newer software to run, have to do things the way the teachers show them, and don’t have the experience or ability to cope to be able to do it with older software. Adults are much better equipped to deal with older computers.
For kids playing around on the computer yeah it’s fine, but generally not for schoolwork.
I gave away a bunch of old computers to Goodwill a while back. If I remember correctly they have some sort of recycling program that benefits people. I did remove the hard drive and drill holes in it. Some you can just hit with a hammer if they are old enough and the right type. I also messed up the connectors, just in case.
At this point, an 8-10 year old computer isn’t all that slow. The computer I’m running right now is about that age, as its hard drive has been running (as in actual hours fetching data) for 7.5 years. It is likely that a fresh install of Windows 7 on an SSD would breathe new life into it, with maybe some additional memory and a cheap GPU upgrade. (That’s what I’ve done on mine.)
So, while it’s not in the vintage era where people would want it because it’s an old computer, it could have some value to, say, someone with low income that needs a computer for basic Internet stuff. So I wouldn’t trash it. You might get like $30 for it or something, if you care about that, but, even if not, it’d be better to find a way to give it away.
But, yes, wipe the hard drive. In fact, test it. If it’s starting to fail (which could be part of why it’s so slow), I’d just keep it as storage for stuff I don’t really care about or that is backed up, or just get rid of it if ti’s bad enough. No need making others have to deal with a dying drive. But, other than that, I’d try to give the computer a new home.
There are also some places that recycle them for poorer people, or even poorer countries. I’d look into those.
Or, yeah, having it a junker for kids to play around with. That makes sense, too.