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?"

Call your local school

[disenfranchised]

Your local school district would probably be happy to receive the parts. Anything older than that probably wouldn't be useful, but these sound similar to a number of systems (200+) that we donated to the San Francisco Public Schools after our last round of upgrades.

I don't know for a fact that the schools can give you receipts for tax purposes, but knowing my employer it seems a good bet.

Ask Google

[Twid]

Why do people ask slashdot when five minutes in Google yields productive results:

Typing "computer recycling" [google.com] in google led me on the FIRST LINK to:

The national directory of computer recycling programs [microweb.com]

A State, National and International Directory of agencies
that facilitate donations of used computer hardware
for schools and community groups.

Scrolling down, I found the second link:

The computer recycling center [crc.org]

Computer Recycling Center accepts for Donation drop-off, ALL computer equipment of ANY age and ANY condition, working or non-working. We charge a small REUSE FEE for older items.
Our Mission is to promote the highest and best re-use of computer equipment, and recycle the unusable items to keep them out of our landfills.

You can take it from there....

freegeek.org takes 'puters and teaches linux4free!

[photovoltaics]

freegeek.org takes donations in Portland, Oregon. They also teach linux for free and give you a free computer if you complete the course!!!

I'm out like Elian.
S. ALan(TM)

Local Community College

[standards]

My local community college offers a course for building computers. It helps people understand computer hardware, AND it helps people obtain a useful, low-cost machine.

Components like the ones described by the poster are in demand - reasonably modern equipment, and with a few extra pieces (like drives), the builder can save hundreds of dollars and have a useful and potentially upgradable home PC for the kids.

Other options include the local school district or the local place of worship - whatever floats your boat. Or give it to the neighbor kid who is interested in such things.

The only thing I ask you not to do is to let it rot - by storing it in a closet until it's useless, or by putting it out with the garbage.

Steps to take if you donate

[johnjones]

right if you want to donate a machine

put manuals in plastic bag along with driver disk and phyically attach it to hardware
(those plastic ties are nice )
this is to prevent it getting lost if they seperate the box from board

FORMAT HARD DISK
(do it with a linux distro for a laugh and root pass =password)

HOW Many machines Have I boot to find letters to tax man porn and such is quite unbeliveable

those 2 steps are really nice

my advice is walk into a primary school with a linux box and X up and running with a edu game on it and the teachers love you (-;

regards

john jones

Salvation Army

[Asic Eng]

Their Thrift Stores take old computers and give you a receipt. Not sure about parts, but old complete systems are fine. (Just donatated one recently.)

UFO Chicago Hardware Swap

[Nater]

Check your local geek clubs. UFO (Users of Free Operating Systems) Chicago [chicago.il.us] has a list of its members' idle hardware. I sold an old SCSI drive and video card that I've been holding onto for a few years for just about market value to another UFO member.

Places to donate old equipment

[xijix]

I work for a non-profit group here in Michigan, The Geek Group, that is always looking for donations. We run quite a few classes to teach kids about computers and keeping a steady flow of systems to have them rip apart and learn tends to be a strugle.

[e-mail]
http://www.thegeekgroup.org

"The Geek Group is an American based, 501-c-3, non-profit organization with members from all over the world who have been brought together for one simple purpose, to have fun while learning and sharing knowledge for a positive impact on mankind.

We educate the public with fun and interesting science projects. From our Tesla Coil to Geekmobile Unit 3, our projects catch the eye while demonstrating scientific concepts in a fun and interesting manner. In addition to this, we also conduct classes on various areas of computer science, mechanical and electrical engineering, high voltage physics and more.

The Group also offers services to the public. Current on-line services include computer repair and web design. We are also capable of security advising, prototypical design, and software development. We also hold private demonstrations of our projects for schools and other groups.

To learn more about The Geek Group, please feel feel to browse the site. We promise to keep you entertained. Because the Geek shall inherit the Earth!"

Check out goodwill computers

[aglio412]

I'm not sure if it's a national thing, but when i lived in pittsburgh, there was a place called goodwill computers...accepted donations and provides decent systems for affordable prices. however, the stuff you're talking about ditching is worth holding onto if you ever want to build some test boxes, routers, firewalls, etc...

Re:Computer Renassaince (sp?)

[tie_guy_matt]

Each CR is independently owned. This means that
some stores do suck but some are ok. It is true
that in many ways you are better of getting new
than used, but it depends on what you need. For
some people going to one of these stores might
make sense.

Re:Let's talk about "OLD"

[steronz]

i used to work at a computer recycler in columbus called "raven tech." i'm sure there's something similar in your area. they take just about anything that remotely resembles a computer, and then break it down. somebody comes and collects the cases for scrap, all the cards are melted down for the gold leads and other metals, and the old processors apparently contain about $3 worth of gold. they even cut up ribbon cables for the gold in the connectors. they won't give you any money for your old stuff, but they'll take it off your hands for you.

Re:Computer Renassaince (sp?)

[dEEbEE]

Once upon a time before acquiring Real Employment[tm], I worked for the Computer Renaissance in Paradise Valley, AZ, so I can speak based on my experiences there.

The CR stores are a franchise that gives each store owner pretty much free reign over what they will/won't buy and what prices they'll offer. At the one I worked for, the owner is a strong believer in blind margin points and the PC Hardware Bluebook. He'd generally offer slightly less than bluebook, assuming he was even interested, and he'd only take things of PII class or higher....so no really old parts-for-pennies there. Then, he'd go by what the bluebook said the item was worth and put some insane margin of 20-50 _points_ above that. Suffice it to say that the used hardware in that store has a _lot_ of price stickers that have browned with age from idling on the shelf for months/years. There are still items that I took in years ago that are still out there, and still with the same pricetag placed on them at the time.

At least in my (now dated) experience, the Paradise Valley store does put together a decent low-end ~$500 PC and provide good "for beginners" support in getting it setup for those who are new to owning a PC, I'll give them that. But for buying/selling old parts, there is no way I could fathom recommending them.

recycling resources

[Anonymous Coward]

The following list of places to donate old computers was copied from an LA Times article quite some time ago (sorry I can't cite it). You'd have to double check that they will accept parts in addition to whole machines.

* Goodwill Industries: 888-4-GOODWILL (to find closest donation center)
* Goodwill Computer Clearance Center: 626-915-4433 (for donating more than two computers)
* All Tech Computer Recyclers: 877-PC-RECYCLE
* Salvation Army: 800-95-TRUCK
* National Safety Council: http://www.nsc.org/ehc/epr2/recycler.htm [nsc.org] (listings by state)
* California Materials Exchange: http://www.cimb.ca.gov/calmax/ [ca.gov]
* Los Angeles County Materials exchange Program: http://www.lacomax.com/ [lacomax.com]

Best of luck!
- Rachel
http://www.reinyday.com/ [reinyday.com]

we accept donations

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like I came about 2 hours too late, but if by some chance you wade through all of the responces before me and are still up in the air about what to do with your parts, you could donate them to us, Children's Hopes & Dreams (like make a wish) We've been around since 83 helping ill children. I would pay shipping and personally write you a reciept for tax purposes. We can always use parts for our workstations. as a matter of fact our server is only a 166w128mg RAM. Anyway, call me M-F 9-5 EST [phone] (luke)

Re:freeboxen

[outofpaper]

FreeBoxen is down right now but for any one who wants to try to find out what hapened to the sight hear is all the contact info for Mr. Lincoln the ownert of Freeboxen.net.

James Lincoln

1317 Highland

Duarte, CA 91010

US

Phone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

My working table

[Pac]

The table I am working on right now is made from an old wooden door, covered with a thick blade of transparent glass. The many layers of paint, some of them decades old, were sttripped out almost, but not quite, back to the original wood.

Inside the door carvings there are 5 1/4" disks of various colours, some memory chips, a internal modem, some other unidentified chips, some serail and paralel ports. There are also other raw eletronic components.

The final effect is very good. :)

Computers 4 Kids

[waldoj]

There are lots of programs like Charlottesville's Computers4Kids [computers4kids.net] out there. We'll take any processor at or above 130MHz, drives over 1GB, and other things of that generation. I don't know of any central directory of similar programs, but if there's not one, I know that we'd love to have 'em!

-Waldo

Re:Similar question...

[Anonymous Coward]

You might try compgeeks.com [compgeeks.com]. They have a lot of older parts for cheep. Around my neck of the woods (San Diego) we have a swap-meet where people buy and sell real old crap.

Re:West Africa has need

[foxxtrot]

dmachine, not to be rude or anything, but most of what Africa needs isn't computers. There was a really interesting article about this in Linux Journal a few months ago. It is called "Algorithms in Africa", and it makes some very good points about the ways our Society and Africa's differ, and why computers may not be the best thing for most African's at this time.

The article can be found online here [linuxjournal.com]

It's a good read, and highly recommended.

WE NEED YOUR EXTRA COMPUTER PARTS!!!

[olav]

I was just checking out slashdot and noticed you were asking what you could do with your left over parts..well while I do not have a 501(c) non-profit I do run a non-profitable website from which all the proceeds go towards keeping the site online. So if you have left over equipment I would LOVE to get it =) I'm trying to gather parts to expand as well as build a beowulf cluster to devote to SETI @Home as well as a privately funded seti station we are working on building. I guess a little background - I run The Anomalies Network (http://www.anomalies.net) which is a good sized online paranormal/ufo community. We have over 9gigs of online data as well as over 1300 registered users in our online forum but all in all we get about 3 million hits per month which means its a bear to keep online. We run on either self funded or dontated hardware, and I got really lucky with the bandwidth! Lets see what else - We've been online for over 5 years (I think about 6 years but the launch date escapes me right now..although my wife knows =) and in all that time I earned $45 from the site =) Anyways I would love all your spare hardware (Pentium 1 plus), to make this cluster a reality! It will take time but I promise this is a good cause =) Ok thats as compelling as I think I can be...check out the site and you'll see what I've built. And hopefully you guys would like to help!! Thanks for your time, Olav Founder The Anomalies Network http://www.anomalies.net