What to do with old hardware?

[gujuguy007]

Not sure if this is the appropriate forum as I'm not really trying to sell anything on Anandtech. Just here to get ideas. What do most of you do with your old hardware?

Here's what I have?

2 - crt monitors (17" Hyundai Beige and 15" Sony Triniton w/speakers Greyish)
1 - MicroATX case with no p/s Beige
1 Full Tower PC - 1.33gh Athlon XP PC with 256mb ram and 100gb hard drive, but no video or Ethernet (Grey case)
1 - Epson Scanner/Copier/Printer with 3 packs of Ink (the nozzles need some expert cleaning, but the scanner functions great) Greyish
1 - Cambridge Sound speaker set (2 front 2 rear) Beige

I'm sure I can do something useful with these. Probably buy some cheap parts and either upgrade/build something useful and either sell it to somebody or give it away to charity. I just think beige is out of fashion and don't see anybody buying a Beige PC or a full size tower. PCs in general have dropped considerably in price and gotten smaller over the past 5 years. Just not sure where to begin as I don't want to invest too much..maybe $100-200 max...if any of this stuff is salvageable.

BTW I'm not willing to pay somebody to recycle it. I don't understand this concept as there's no tangible reward. Don't get me wrong. I conserve and recycle almost all of the time. Hence why I'm posting this. Just looking for better alternatives. Thanks.

 

[imported_wired247]

CRT monitors such as those are best for donation, garage sale, or otherwise drop them off at a hazardous waste roundup in your community (always been free in my experience). hundreds of that type of CRT are thrown away at business and universities almost daily. they are essentially worth zero because they cost more to ship than they're worth.

case - good for hobbyists, sell it online (craigslist ?) for $20?

if you have no need for these things, really the best thing is donation, there is almost always someone to accept used computer parts.

 

[DSF]

I work at a school Baltimore, and believe it or not we'd love to have a 1.33 GHz PC. A lot of the computers our students are P3s with as little as 128MB of RAM that are struggling to run XP. My vote would be donate it to a church or school.

 

[Roguestar]

Well you're too far away to give it to me so I'm going to have to reluctantly go with DSF's suggestion. A school or library (why do churches need PCs? Unless they're going to pass it on to some poor family) or perhaps a charity would really appreciate it.

 

[SpeedEng66]

build a mame arcade

im using a old dual slot p3 850 and I have it running mame under xp pro
it plays all clasic games and most 90's games (no chds)

im in the middle of building a bartop arcade using a old 15'' lcd (you can use the crt the acrade will just be alittle bit fatter )

 

[Narse]

Originally posted by: wired247
if you have no need for these things, really the best thing is donation, there is almost always someone to accept used computer parts.

This is what I would do, there are alot of places that could really use some of that stuff and its not really worth selling.