What Do You Do With Old Computer Parts?

yoyoma writes "I am planning to rebuild our desktop computers. What do other slashdotters do with old computer parts? I would prefer to donate them. These are some old parts that I will end up with: two GA-686LX motherboards with PII 233, greater than 224 MB RAM (the new computers will take DDR), some video cards (Matrox) and possibly two ATX cases with 300 watts powersupplies (looking for quieter, smaller cases). Decent enough, but they will have no hard drives, floppy drives, or CD drives. TecsChange, and this other place accept donation of parts. Has anyone done this? What about the receipts for tax purposes?"

Heh...

[NecroPuppy]

The only old computer parts I have are fried by power surges. I lost an ethernet switch to a lightning storm last week.

No, I don't know why I keep them around. Maybe Katz can explain it in his next article.

If in the Sacramento area........

[Anonymous Coward]

you can donate them to ME. I need parts, I broke/unemployed ;(

Old Computer parts?

[override11]

My friends recently got several (over 10) old compaq laptops (486 style with monochrome display's). They made a sweet video of many ways to destroy them, some of which include burning with gas and rolling over with a truck. We will have it compiled into mpeg pretty soon, and if anyone is interested in getting a copy, gimme an email. :) [e-mail]

Wall art

[Overphiend]

I like to hang old computer parts on the wall. For a while I had a fully functioning system hanging on the wall.

Hoard them of course.

[trcooper]

I tend to store old parts in a pile, or closet. You never know when they will become useful. Someday I know I will need to use that old CGA card again, and you can never have too many 20 Mb drives lying around. You don't know that you won't learn how to fix that old burnt out monitor, and that floppy drive that exhibits destructive tendacies may come in handy sometime. Don't let me get started on my colection of power cords and other misc cables.

By all means keep them around. I've found that an excellent place to keep all this is in large rubbermade tubs under the stairs. Out of sight, but easy to get to when you need them, and also relatively dust free.

Re:Old Computer parts?

[Anonymous Coward]

My friend threw his old laptop off the top of Beachy Head (main suicide place in UK). He video-ed(sp?) the whole thing. It took a full 7 seconds to reach the beach. "Goodbye to Piglet" was distributed widely round school for a good number of months. Twas great.

Great use for SIMMs and other memory you dont want

[sheetsda]

One word: Keychain. Nothing says "Geek" like some RAM in your pocket with your keys. SIMMs already have wholes that most of those little steel ball chain keychains fit through, no modification required.

Fill them with cement!

[N3P1u5U17r4]

Fill them with cement, put labels that say Pentium 4 on them and leave them on your front yard.

Wasn't this covered in a previous slashdot article?

I Forgot My Favorite Use:

[jdevons]

Target Practice! All that you really need is something that will break when fired upon by a large caliber weapon...

Geeks with Guns