What To Do With Old Computers?
So, I have an old PC (Windows 98) that needs to get ditched, now that I'm getting a Mac at home and (probably) ditching the Dell I have now, or at least putting it away.
Last time I got rid of one, it was my ancient (Windows 95) Thinkpad from college. I snapped a few important-looking chips in half, removed the power supply and threw it in my apartment's dumpster.
That seems pretty wasteful and environmentally sketchy.
So now that the old Pentium II box is my third-string computer, what should I do with it?
(After using a bootable CD utility like DBAN to overwrite the hard drive, naturally.)
Uhm....donate it to a battered women's shelter? I'm sure someone has a need for it that you could dispose of it in a charitable way.
Posted by: j on July 28, 2006 8:39 AM | permalinkIf you are not in a charitable mood, you could do what I did: turn it into a Linux box. I recently wiped WinXP Pro from my old Dell P3 550 replaced it with Ubuntu Linux. So far I'm digging it, but it really is a novelty more than anything else. I'm not sure what role it would play since you already have the Windows PC and the (soon-to-be) Mac, but you can do it for the sake of doing it.
Which Mac did you decide on?
Posted by: Will on July 28, 2006 9:35 AM | permalinkIt's bad practice, but you can get away with dumping the computer itself in most areas. However, you can not throw away old CRT monitors because they contain several pounds of lead.
That said, computers that are legal to throw away still have a lot of polluting crap in them (despite the lack of laws), so you still should consider taking it to a computer recycler or donating it.
Posted by: Od-ll on July 28, 2006 9:36 AM | permalinkOh yeah, forgot to say... If you are paranoid enough that you wiped the drive, consider one of those free formatting utilities that writes every single spot on the platter with a random value and then again with its complement.
If you did a "quick format," it didn't write over the old data.
Posted by: Od-ll on July 28, 2006 9:40 AM | permalinkSell parts that are worth anything on craigslist, and ditch the rest?
Posted by: Jay on July 28, 2006 9:59 AM | permalinkI'd second the "Craigslist" idea for the parts, but you'll have to more or less give them away. (Still better than landfilling it, I suppose.)
Or, thrift store donation?
The thrift store chain in town still takes PCs as old as Pentium II (though I wonder for how much longer.)
Posted by: Adam Vandenberg on July 28, 2006 10:06 AM | permalinkI definitely don't want to go through the hassle of selling the near-worthless parts.
However, thrift store is a great idea -- this is a perfect box for someone who only wants to surf the web and/or do AOL.
Posted by: Joe Grossberg on July 28, 2006 10:15 AM | permalinkRemove the innards and turn the case into either a hamster cage, birdhouse or planterbox.
As for the monitor, see if you can safely remove the innards and replace the glass to turn it into a fish tank.
Posted by: Daffy on July 28, 2006 10:27 AM | permalinkI actually have 2 useless PCs that I haven't had the time to deal with.
a) what's that disc wipe utility?
As for craig's list/ebay/what-have-you or charity, I've found that most really have use for near-useless tech either.
However, http://www.turtlewings.com/ will take it and do what the rest of us don't have time for.
Posted by: Kearns on July 28, 2006 10:44 AM | permalinkI have a P2-333 that i've been using as a linux server for years, and i've had zero issues with it. basically it doesn't do much--runs fetchmail/procmail/courier-imap so that all my family's emails are stored locally so we can get to them offline and back them up easily, as well as an apache/subversion pair for my personal document/code repo, and serves my music collection up to my SlimDevices Squeezebox. I suspect that by asking this question you have already decided to forgo the turn-it-into-a-linux-box answer that I see you've already gotten here anyway. Whee!
Posted by: ben compton on July 28, 2006 11:38 AM | permalinkYou never know when a third-string computer will step up and have a monster day, going off for 150 instructions computed in a nan-
too much fantasy football.
you might also check to see if your city/county offers any kind of computer recycling program.
Posted by: james on July 28, 2006 12:51 PM | permalinkMaryland has statewide recycling of computers.
http://www.mde.state.md.us/Programs/LandPrograms/Recycling/SpecialProjects/ecycling.asp
I'm not sure if VA has a similiar program or you could sneak across the border and do some illicit recycling.
Posted by: Nephlm on July 28, 2006 1:30 PM | permalinkKearns,
http://dban.sourceforge.net/
is Darik's Boot and Nuke a bootable live CD that will do things to your harddrive that the DoD and similiiar type people recommend.
Posted by: Nephlm on July 28, 2006 1:44 PM | permalinkAdd a hard drive and make it a NFS server for your TIVO images.
Add a wireless card, load it up with music, and put it somewhere as a wireless file share (anonymous, of course).
Host some mirrors of your favorite OSS project.
Firewall.
ROM emulator for classis video games (pac man and such)
SETI or Prime Number search machine.
(C'mon...there are SO many things to do with it.)
Posted by: Bubba on July 28, 2006 1:56 PM | permalink"The thrift store chain in town still takes PCs as old as Pentium II (though I wonder for how much longer.)"
Dude, I've seen thrift stores in certain cities that were trying to sell AOL discs (amongst other total computer garbage) for $1. With them doing that, you can imagine what kind of crap they'd take and try to resell.
Posted by: Od-ll on July 28, 2006 2:26 PM | permalinkI have a Gateway GP6-350. I really need to know what the value of it was in 2005-6 and the current value if any. Just an approximation will be great. I need it in writing and as much feedback as I can get about it. Thanks so much for your help. I really appreciate it.
Posted by: steph on July 9, 2007 8:11 PM | permalinkNo more comments! Either someone has violated Godwin's Law, I'm tired of the discussion or, most likely, the ten-week window has closed. You can, however, contact me through email.