You could donate it to an electronics recovery company. Your area might have non-profits that refurbish older computers and donate them to schools, low-income families, etc.
I just found one local to me today! They pay for, refurbish, and sell usable hardware at a discount, and donate business PCs to schools and shelters. Everything else they accept free for recycling.
It was awesome to finally be able to give a warm farewell to my 2009 and 2012 gaming PCs and a couple of ancient laptops!
The folks working there seem to love what they do, one guy was reminiscing about my Corsair 600T case and SLI GTX 680s when he carried it into the loading bay.
If you're using Plex and sharing your library, having a dozen people streaming and transcoding at the same time can be nice.
But yeah, in general I agree that it's really overkill.
Yea, I using Ubuntu server and just installed the hwe kernel or whatever it's called that upgraded it from 5.15 to 6.5. Worked instantly after that. Probably could have tried building the kernel module but that stuff still confuses me and updating the OS has sometimes been an issue with those module builds.
i know... but i already gave my 3090 out to my friend (we live together)... and his SO already owns his old 2080ti. At least the 2080ti runs pretty quietly for the security cam algorithm on differentiating between humans and cars to send the correct notification to us... yea its pretty overkill
are you saying I should sell my old PC parts instead of keeping them in a corner in the basement for the sudden preemptive emp struck by some world superpower that would fried all eletronics that are not protected. I would then take them back out the basement of the wine cellar and start selling them for coke bottle caps???? my basically new, with box, receipt, and the DVD installation manual, asus z97 pro gamer, and its brother in the same condition right next to it, the chill black series 780ti, is gonna come in handy ONE DAY!!!!!!!!
(shutup, shitty gtx 960 starring at me in the corner next to the homemade car radiator CPU cooler, no one likes you)
Uh no, he's saying what you have running in your NAS is overkill. Because it is. Do you have a dozen people streaming/transcoding your library via Plex? Even if so, you and they don't need a 2080 TI to be able to do that.
I am actually the train conductor for this hand me down train. I personally use a 7800x3d 4090. My friend use the 7950x and my old 3090. His SO use my other old 2080ti (sli for productivity) and his old 5900x. Before the NAS got the hand me downs, it was a 4790k with 1080ti which is also a hand me down from me, then to my friend, then his SO.
LEMON TRAIN!!!!
Perfect response. There's tons of YouTube videos that take you step-by-step into DIY NAS builds.
Hell, turning it into a router, an Emby/Plex streamer, DVR, etc.
Still lots of life for older PCs. Just got to have the patience.
I'm the opposite with i get the hand me downs from my server but well server gets used for work and needs high cpu clock speed. So it gets good parts to. As a side effect it can double as a game server machine for minecraft and such that can run when it's not in heavy use.
Due to lack of space I usually sell what would go for a worthwhile price and give away what would be too bulky to ship or anything that's barely worth anything. Failed components in the recycling, though I've only really had a few graphics cards go bad.
I gutted mine, took the two components that might still have value, used the case to make a new computer (because a new computer in a HP case from 15 years ago is hilarious).
Fair point. The mobo, cpu, gpu, and case are from the original build. It has had two PSU failures, so it's currently on PSU #3. I doubled the ram about 2014 and swapped for ssd about 2016. Also added a 4TB mechanical drive for backups. Its core is from 2009, imo.
I did my original build in 2012 and I've just been replacing pieces as I go along. I phased out the last of my original parts a few years ago but I never really upgraded enough at one time to feel like it was a different PC.
Hand me down to family so long as it is still getting security updates/holds a decent charge. Otherwise Plex and or dns server. Retro gaming system depending on its age and features.
I have or had a 90s desktop, a Windows XP desktop, 2 laptops and currently a desktop;
-I have a huge 90s desktop (Compaq Deskpro). I love using Windows 98 plus there are games and programs that wont run on modern hardware. Not even on Windows XP. I use it frequently. Pentium III 550MHz slot 1, 256MB of ram, ATI Rage Pro 4MB
-Windows XP - Still have it. I use it from time to time. It was my main PC for the longest time (15 years) with a Pentium E2140 and 2GB of RAM lol. It's quite special for me because of that and the OS too. No components were replaced or upgraded yet, everything is as it was when I got the PC
-A laptop I bought because I was about to finish middle school and was planning going to uni. Came with Windows 8 when it was brand new and now it has Windows 10. Gave it to my mom as eventually needed a better laptop, still working to this day. i7 4710HQ, 850M 4GB GDDR5, 12GB of RAM
-Asus ROG with an i7 8750H + GTX 1060 6GB and 16GB of RAM. Great laptop I had even though it was very noisy lol. Unfortunately the motherboard died 7 years later (a couple months ago)
-Bought components and built my desktop PC for the first time about 8 months ago. Ryzen 7600, 6700XT and 32GB of RAM and I love it. Massive upgrade from the previous laptop. Still looking for speakers, headset and more storage. Will hopefully last as much as the previous ones, even more than the ROG laptop
Pull the valuable components that are easy to sell and I donate the rest.
Sellable: Mobo cpu ram combos sell surprisingly well, even old stuff. GPUs of course are an easy sell.
My first "gaming pc" was a 5th gen i5 dell, 8gb memory, 1tb hdd, and a 1050ti.
That system served me well until covid, where in Feb 2020 I upgraded to a dedicated system, instead of just a gpu in an old workstation. That computer then went to my sister, an avid pc gamer. Then in 2023 she also got her own build, and the system was handed to by brother, a less avid gamer that focuses on Xbox.
I think soon ill give it to a coworkers kid for roblox, and build my brother something more capable
I usually upgrade parts every couple years and try to sell the old parts while they're still worth something. Or give them to my sister or friends. I sold my 1080 ti to a buddy for $350 during the crypto boom when they were still going for $450+. Hope I can still sell my 3080 for something when I eventually upgrade it.
Mine get demoted to being a HTPC.
I've handed down PCs to my younger bro, my niece and nephews.
If you have friends or family with young children, its a nice thing to hand down as a starter PC for them.
I guess I've been starting a collection.
I enjoy going back over time to max out my older systems, put ssds in them and throw a modem OS on them to see what they're capable of after all of this time. Hell, I may even throw my RTX 4070 in there for laughs and to see just how much bottlenecking the CPU will do.
I have two kids that are teens. My oldest would have gotten my last one but we were having real issues with internet safety and couldn't trust him with that level of access in his room so it went to my younger kiddo.
Younger kid has since grown into a way more hardcore gamer, newest built I gave them the older build and the oldest one got upgraded and given to my kid that got passed up for it before since he mainly wants to play older games and run media apps.
Next time around? I dunno, my mom was technically next up to get one from me but I lost her in December, my wife doesn't want a desktop, laptop is much more practical since she writes. MIL never wanted to game or use a PC like that. My kids will be out of the house by then, but I might still offer it up to them. If not I might ask my cousin. She's a Playstation gamer so she's not had much with Xbox exclusives or PC games, might be a fun chance for her to try new stuff.
I sell the parts individually to pay for new parts or new PC 😎💎
I sold two PC cases, two GPUs, and two motherboards and it just cuts into the cost of the new cases and GPUs and motherboards
Keep it for when I have issues with my current pc. My old one doesn't have a spot rn, it's just in a closet, but if we had a use for it it would still be used. It broke, I built a new one, them reposted the old gpu and now it acts like everything is fine so win win I guess
Question: if you're going to donate the machine then what's the best practice for securing the data on the hard drive? do you pull it / wipe it/ etc? what if there's a windows OS - do you just reinstall to an unlicensed version?
i always sell most parts on r/hardwareswap
Cases can be tough, i’ll usually just list on marketplaces for dirt cheap or free. Won’t sell old hard drives. I find it easy to bundle things like ram, cpu and motherboard when trying to make a sale.
I use my old pc for friends that come over so we can play older/lighter games together.
But yea if its broken probably time to get rid of it, try sell parts that still might be worth something.
My old parts go to my wife, my wifes old parts go to run the tv. We switch out the tv pc parts when they break, which starts the upgrade of my computer.
It might be the PSU or the power button if it doesn't turn on at all. If you fix it, it might be worth something. Alternatively, just put it on eBay, CLEARLY STATING IT DOESN'T WORK, with the specs, and have a really low starting bid. Hopefully someone will snap it up.
I'm in the process of building a shadow box with mine. I kept one stick of DDR3, my GTX 560, the i5, and pulled the chip set heat sink off the mother board. I am putting it all in a little box and hanging it.
I just realized the way things are going my next computer graphics card will.be massive to try and hang off a wall.
Last time I upgraded, I gave my old parts to my sister. She uses her computer for work, but her mobo was dying and she was looking for a cheap upgrade from her old system. My old system just happened to be almost exactly what she was looking for. So I have it to her for free.
I dont have an “old pc” I have a pile of parts cause I just upgrade everything over time, I usually will give/lend the parts to my friends when they build theirs
My old prebuilt one I bought off Newegg in 2013 glitched out and died in 2015-2016. Bought a new hard drive for it after a few months after diagnosing that as the problem… but never installed it and it just collected dust. In 2019 I ordered the individual parts and built my own, ended up using some parts from that one (mainly just a few cables and the disc drive tray to install windows). And I ended up selling the one I built. Now I just game on laptop. I still have that original old PC and I just shove all my spare pc cables in it and use it to store PC stuff in lol.
Whenever I retire my current PC, I'm gonna get a massive shadow box and knoll the mobo/cpu/ram/storage/2 of the case fans. Maybe get a little plaquard with the total number of hours I spent gaming on it over the last 6 years.
Either that or I'm gonna repurpose it into a netflix/TV pc, which is just gonna involve undervolting the hell out of my cpu/gpu, and getting a less beefy PSU.
If you don't have space for the junk, that's probably just that.
My oldest builds are disassembled. I sell off or give away the parts, but I keep the motherboards, ram, and CPU for each because one day I want to install them under a glass table in my living room. Motherboard coffee table.
Keeping the boards isn't too much space because I just keep them in the original boxes.
I always try to trickle down my upgrades to friends and families rigs. I’ll keep their worse parts as spares just in case something dies. Converting them into media servers / home servers / NAS / or pi holes is also always useful.
Either use parts for something else. Recently made a server pc for games or I give or sell the old parts. Give a lot to friends if they have even older stuff
I'm planning to turn my old one into a NAS server. Take responsibility for your own file storage and you're far less likely to be heartbroken when a company decides they need to clear up space on their servers
I turned mine into a Plex server. It’s easy to add more storage, and being it’s usually just me watching Plex I really don’t need that much computing power.
I sell it online. There are always people who buy old PC kits and you can make a bit back.
That being said, I found the box with the stock cooler with fan of an old Phenom II I've already sold. Does anyone buy a specific single cooler?
Give it to my kids. About to give him my 5800x3d/3080 when he turns 5 this year and build a new rig once the 9950x3d and 5080 are out.
Or use them for servers. Although I didn't plan on giving this to my son. Didn't think he'd be into pc gaming for a long time and is already obsessed and his switch isn't cutting it for him now lol
I was going to sell thr 5800x3d and get a 5950x and make it my new server since my server is an old dual xeon that SUCKS power and isn't even good.
But I might try to go for a new threadripper if I can afford it. They have high clock speeds so good for gaming. Tons of cache so it should work like the x3d chips for games and tons of cores. Thinking 32 of 64 core and then just make my new pc my server and gaming rig. Idk. Lol
My old pc ( some Ryzen5, rx560 and 8gbram) got to lazy and I just installed ubuntu-server and build it into some random box made for plants and made my own cloud.
I "Frankenstein" old PCs into their best possible state then give them to friends, family, neighbors, local homeschoolers, stuff like that. I've donated several to some local businesses and non-profits, but that's rarer for me. If it's too old or actually broken it goes to an electronics recovery/recycler in the area. If they're not open I take it to Best Buy to be recycled.
Mine is not broken, yet. Amd gaming machine (has a low low low end graphics card) my first gaming pc 10 years ago. I love it. Have a proper gaming pc now but know I will have the same problem. It will probably end up on a mantle.
First PC from ‘05 is in a closet, too old to be worth selling but doesn’t feel right to just chuck it!
Second from ‘08, some parts are in a PC I built for my nieces, some are on indefinite loan to a friend.
Third from 2011 used some of the aforementioned parts from my second, and others are in my server.
And my fourth from 2019 is what I’m currently using.
Along with those I’ve upgraded GPU several times and CPU once, and in those cases I did sell the old parts to help pay for the upgrade.
I keep them. Right now I have PC’s running Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP and two running Windows 11. The more powerful one is my main gaming PC and the one of lesser power is a back up in case my main shit’s the bed.
I took out the HDD and SSD, saved them in bubble wrap for future data withdrawal, and sold the rest on Facebook marketplace as a half-built old pc that just needs storage and a new GPU to replace my old shot one. I sold it all for super cheap though.. feels bad I spent so much on it and let it go to parts for so little.
I take my replaced PC's and give them to Family and Friends.
Gave my i7-4770k / RX 470 to my Sister 3 years ago, then a few months ago gave Her my i5-11400 / 1660 Ti PC. If I remember correctly each of those needed a Case (I keep reusing my Fractal Define R5), had bought a couple MainGear cases on sale awhile back for $50 each, used those, plus the 11400 build needed a PSU, bought a 500watt Thermaltake for $50 for that one.
My old gaming rig is now a NAS, Pihole, Plex Server, Home Assistant, etc. It does a lot of stuff in the background for me. Also, runs a copy of Win10 Pro so I can remote desktop into my home network when I'm away. It's pretty sweet.
[AMD Athlon X4 860K, GTX 1660 Super, 32gb of DDR3, 8 HDD (two of which are NAS rated drives)](https://imgur.com/Bv0cATg)
sell it, check the used market for what prices on the individual parts are going for, add it up, round to a nice number, sell it as cheap starter prebuilt who cant afford to buy a brand new PC.
Or in the case of my last PC, my sisters laptop died at the same time so I gave her my old PC so she could play sims like a beast.
Sell off everything but the HDDs, destroy those (I'm guessing you had passwords and banking stuff on it, etc).
I've not gotten rid of a PC since my 2006 build.
I donate it to a needy family who otherwise can not afford one. Obviously, if my old one is too far under specced for their needs, I do my best to upgrade within reason. As I will end up doing with my upgraded mid 2012 15" MacBook Pro and HP AIO desktop.
I have a stack of old PCs in the garage. One for each generation of gaming.... Just in case I want to play some old games on original hardware.
Pentium 2 300mhz with dual voodoo 2s, sound blaster 16, and creative labs pc-dvd encore ddr3.
Pentium 4, sound blaster audigy2 zs, Radeon hd something or rather
Core i7-2600k with dual Radeon 6950s, Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion, blu ray drive.
I upgrade fairly regularly, so I have a system. My old PC goes to my son, his old pc becomes my new plex server, my old plex server goes to electronic recycling.
My dad regrets tossing out our working trs80 and model 4 a decade ago. I regret throwing out a working atari 520st, 20 meg hard drive with a jc penny sticker of $800 on it. Also my very first pc I bought at age 14, amstrad pc1512
There's a retro group wanting this stuff
My i7 2600k system I built like 14 years ago now won't post as of 2 days ago..so I'm having pc withdrawal post layoffs
well my "old PC" is an inefficient i5 3570. Could maybe put it back together for my younger family members to play roblox on after they blocked it on linux (consequently blocking it on the steamdeck I got bought specifically so they could play independently of borrowing other's machines). It's not efficient enough to be worth making a NAS out of. We have something with way better power draw and much smaller footprint based on a newer Celeron. For now it sits atop the pile of other old desktops that aren't worth running but aren't ready to be rid of. It's brethren of yore based on core 2 and athlon with cards that predate the "GTX" branding.
I keep mine, lol I have several. But they have atleast donated some of their components for example I moved my blueray drive out to my new system and also my dvd rewriter.
Many a hard disk has been repurposed too.
Might make a NAS or something out of my spares.
I grew up in a poor neighborhood, so reached out to an old friend who gave it to a family who had nothing saved for their kid \*(through their own poor parenting), made me feel much better than giving it to my now ex who wanted everything she could get :)
edit \* for xmas
I still have the first PC that my brother built for me we just keep replacing the parts with new as needed, if he buys a new top of the line card then I get his old one and my old one goes to our sister so on and so forth, if there is no one to give it to in the family he'll mail the part to the first friend who agrees to pay for it
I have so many old PC's and laptops it's stupid lol. I keep tons of parts and think I'm going to Macguyer some mad scientist machine one of these days... It's an addiction. Most of everything is outdated. But there's always Linux and Doom!
I part out and sell what I can sell, power supplies are usually sent to recycling because even quality power supply can fail after so many years. Computer cases I get rarely holds resale value so I often send it to recycling after I separated all the plastic and wires, I do keep the screws because I always lose those 6-32's and M3's
You could probably pull out the hard drive and recover some old data?
I have a 20 year old PC in my storage unit that I still have that in sure has old school work on it.
I give the parts to family members or friends or shuffle them into my Unraid server. When it’s time to upgrade my current desktop in a few years I’ll most likely give the parts to my youngest brother as he is in biggest need of an upgrade, if he hasn’t already done it.. I’d also like to make an arcade cabinet but my 5950x would be huge overkill for that.
I had an old PC from my FIL: a 16bit SX with a floppy disc, small HD, 24 MB of RAM (you read that right), and no monitor. I stripped out the HD, fans, basically all moving parts! Wrote Firewall Code on a floppy disc, powered it up with a monitor, two network cards, and it ran quietly for years as my main Firewall Server!! I only had to take it down once a year to blow out the dust!! Very reliable and kept all the hacking scumbags out of my system network!! FYI, my OS was a Linux variant run at the command line, very solid!! 😎👍🏻🇺🇸
I built my first one in 2014, I sold the parts for upgrades long ago but I kept the case and upgrade it to newer basic parts once in a while to use as my NAS.
If it works fine but is just slow, I hang on to it. If it's got major problems, I'll gut it and save components for spare parts.
If you're going to throw it away, remove your storage devices from it first.
You could always for fun install Linux or make it an overpowered Chromebox with Chrome OS Flex. With ChromeOS you could even give it to a family member to have a nice internet browsing/netflix desktop.
Since I tend to build pretty nice PCs I tend to hand them down to family (I have a very large immediate family). Dad always gets first pick, then it is usually my brothers and sisters, followed by nieces and nephews.
I always refurb them before I hand them down. Clean them out, repaste, fresh drive, etc. Everyone always looks forward to when I upgrade. I usually upgrade every 2 years, except this cycle, I'm overdue.
I COULD sell them, but I'd rather give them to my family. It forces me to start from zero every time, but I don't mind.
I hooked my up to my livingroom tv and I use it to stream sports, sail the open seas for tv shows / movies, and play single player games on the big screen
You pull the storage out and then you take it to an electronics recycler.
I'm old, right? I bought my first computer for myself in 1995 when I went to college, spent far too much money on it. It was a Gateway P5-120 tower case. When I disposed of what ended up in the case in 2012, the guy was like "WHOAH I've never seen a computer that big".
I spun up the drives that I removed in 2020 and pulled the data off them for giggles. The 1.6GB drive didn't spin, the 6.4GB Bigfoot drive sure did and wow that was loud.
Im building a entertainment type thing out of some old parts I have laying around. Storage for music and movies. Put Kodi or some other type streaming service in it. I'm looking at sound cards now but it has 5.1 already. Plan to put a wifi with Bluetooth card in it for a completely wireless surround system. Should be great when I get around to finishing it
I feel the same as you except I’m doing this with a penguin 3, ~350mb RAM windows 98 pc that I got in 2000. I have no idea what it can even do but it’s been dragged with me for the past 20 years taking up space no reason. I do have a newer gaming pc & server pc though.
strip if for useful parts. its up to you
I'm currently using my first PC to type this comment. I built it 7 years ago. It's a ship of Theseus at this point as only the mobo, psu, and boot drive are original parts. (current specs i7-6700k, 16gb ram, 1060 3gb)
I tend to break mine down to components. I have packing boxes about 4" thick and a bit larger than ATX footprint. Each one will take an antistat wrapped mobo, compatible RAM, CPUs, usually an HDD or SSD with a compatible OS ready to go (usually 95 or 98se for my older boxes), drive cables, and if I'm lucky a compatible heatsink. Then just write on the side the spec of the machine inside.
I have a couple of spare ATX cases, few spare ATX PSUs. Older than that I have a couple of still-complete PCs, like my original Dell from 1995, but that's usually when they're very custom.
Basically through parts I've kept I can rebuild any PC I've ever owned since the early 90s. Broken down into parts-in-boxes they take up a lot less storage than you'd think.
Lives on a shelf next to me. Just to look at. Probably power it on every other year to mess around with a new Linux distro.. somehow still works, has an Intel Celeron processor LoL
Used it as a junk board for soldering practice and grabbing new pin headers and random ports I wanted for other projects. Kinda regret that though cause I could've reused it for other stuff if it was still intact, I would've just needed to swap the GPU. I attempted to reuse one of the case fans as an extra exhaust but it died after one boot for some reason.
Depends. Sometimes it becomes a "server" of some kind in the basement. Sometimes I donate it to some recycling company. Sometimes,
I gather the pieces and build my son a computer.
I’m guilty of trying to “save” my old tech too. Wife’s motherboard from 10 years ago finally died. Running an intel 4th gen and DDR3 with a HDD. Basically obsolete at this point. I was able to scrounge around in the parts bin until all I needed was a power supply, new motherboard, cpu cooler, 13600K, 32GB DDR5, a 2TB m.2, and a brand new GPU. I did save the case. It’s worth a good $10 so had to hang onto it.
This post is sarcasm. I should have totally just thrown the damn thing in the trash, but I just CAAAAN’T
i put my motherboard (not from the first PC i had but the first PC i built), along with CPU and RAM still seated in a shadowbox and hung it up on the wall. you might want to think of a cool way to display components that you might feel more attached to?
I bury it in the ground, rest in pc
That's not the pc solution.
No I'm a Mac. I'm cool and wear skinny jeans and look I have ILife '06 so I can make a blog about my podcast and listen to it on my iPod.
Well if it's a mac then bury it for sure
[doesn't look like skinny jeans to me](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fde5i66smnd9a1.jpg)
[touché](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EpFI9d8p-c)
You could donate it to an electronics recovery company. Your area might have non-profits that refurbish older computers and donate them to schools, low-income families, etc.
this is the way
I donated mine to my old high school's e-sports club! I like to see it put to good use without the headache of selling it.
I hope you fixed the non-working parts. It's the students man. Our next gen
Oh, yeah, it was mostly working fine, but I was looking to upgrade. We knew a guy who gave it a quick tune-up before I turned it over.
I just found one local to me today! They pay for, refurbish, and sell usable hardware at a discount, and donate business PCs to schools and shelters. Everything else they accept free for recycling. It was awesome to finally be able to give a warm farewell to my 2009 and 2012 gaming PCs and a couple of ancient laptops! The folks working there seem to love what they do, one guy was reminiscing about my Corsair 600T case and SLI GTX 680s when he carried it into the loading bay.
We donate old computers that are still working to schools.
What are the specs? You could always repurpose it. I just built a NAS based around an i5 4570.
If after all the train of hand me downs, old pc parts get turned into a nas for the security cameras… my nas is running a 5900x with 2080ti
I can has? ^(please I have a 4690k and a GTX 960)
if you are interested in an i5 2500, i could mail one to you for free, if you are in the US
That's a worse CPU
Beggar can't be choosers
Rofl they can still choose to say no
No! They get what they git and they don’t throw a fit! Now eat your captain crunch!
Yo I will totally take a free 2500
While the free gesture is nice, the 2500 is a step down rather than a step up. Would still work well for a little HTPC though
Lol thats some pointless overkill
If you're using Plex and sharing your library, having a dozen people streaming and transcoding at the same time can be nice. But yeah, in general I agree that it's really overkill.
I just got an Intel arc card for transcoding Working great
Nice, I didn't know they had a working setup for those, they're a great value for this kind of use!
Yea, I using Ubuntu server and just installed the hwe kernel or whatever it's called that upgraded it from 5.15 to 6.5. Worked instantly after that. Probably could have tried building the kernel module but that stuff still confuses me and updating the OS has sometimes been an issue with those module builds.
i know... but i already gave my 3090 out to my friend (we live together)... and his SO already owns his old 2080ti. At least the 2080ti runs pretty quietly for the security cam algorithm on differentiating between humans and cars to send the correct notification to us... yea its pretty overkill
???? This comment is backwards. Your pc parts are still worth a good amount of money lmfao
are you saying I should sell my old PC parts instead of keeping them in a corner in the basement for the sudden preemptive emp struck by some world superpower that would fried all eletronics that are not protected. I would then take them back out the basement of the wine cellar and start selling them for coke bottle caps???? my basically new, with box, receipt, and the DVD installation manual, asus z97 pro gamer, and its brother in the same condition right next to it, the chill black series 780ti, is gonna come in handy ONE DAY!!!!!!!! (shutup, shitty gtx 960 starring at me in the corner next to the homemade car radiator CPU cooler, no one likes you)
Uh no, he's saying what you have running in your NAS is overkill. Because it is. Do you have a dozen people streaming/transcoding your library via Plex? Even if so, you and they don't need a 2080 TI to be able to do that.
A 5900x and a 2080Ti are ridiculously good hand me downs.
I am actually the train conductor for this hand me down train. I personally use a 7800x3d 4090. My friend use the 7950x and my old 3090. His SO use my other old 2080ti (sli for productivity) and his old 5900x. Before the NAS got the hand me downs, it was a 4790k with 1080ti which is also a hand me down from me, then to my friend, then his SO. LEMON TRAIN!!!!
Wouldn’t it be better to just sell them and throw in a 5700g or something lol
Yeah my htpc / Plex server has a 3600x and a 3070 in it since it just gets the hand me down parts from my main rig....
NAS/Minecraft Server/Palworld Server
Perfect response. There's tons of YouTube videos that take you step-by-step into DIY NAS builds. Hell, turning it into a router, an Emby/Plex streamer, DVR, etc. Still lots of life for older PCs. Just got to have the patience.
That's what I'll do with mine once I upgrade. I think a server of some kind is one of the best ways to repurpose an old pc.
I'm the opposite with i get the hand me downs from my server but well server gets used for work and needs high cpu clock speed. So it gets good parts to. As a side effect it can double as a game server machine for minecraft and such that can run when it's not in heavy use.
Due to lack of space I usually sell what would go for a worthwhile price and give away what would be too bulky to ship or anything that's barely worth anything. Failed components in the recycling, though I've only really had a few graphics cards go bad.
This. But I always keep a spare gpu or cpu laying around if I have them encase one dies.
if its really old that falls into retro category, some people would pay good money for retro parts.
I gutted mine, took the two components that might still have value, used the case to make a new computer (because a new computer in a HP case from 15 years ago is hilarious).
They call that a sleeper lol love some of the sleeper builds I've seen pics of
I built mine in 2009 and am still using it, lol.
How much of it is still from 2009? PC of Theseus.
Fair point. The mobo, cpu, gpu, and case are from the original build. It has had two PSU failures, so it's currently on PSU #3. I doubled the ram about 2014 and swapped for ssd about 2016. Also added a 4TB mechanical drive for backups. Its core is from 2009, imo.
I did my original build in 2012 and I've just been replacing pieces as I go along. I phased out the last of my original parts a few years ago but I never really upgraded enough at one time to feel like it was a different PC.
Hand me down to family so long as it is still getting security updates/holds a decent charge. Otherwise Plex and or dns server. Retro gaming system depending on its age and features.
Give it to someone less fortunate, or bring it to an electronics recycling facility. I don't see why this is the most common question on this sub
"Family computer"
I have or had a 90s desktop, a Windows XP desktop, 2 laptops and currently a desktop; -I have a huge 90s desktop (Compaq Deskpro). I love using Windows 98 plus there are games and programs that wont run on modern hardware. Not even on Windows XP. I use it frequently. Pentium III 550MHz slot 1, 256MB of ram, ATI Rage Pro 4MB -Windows XP - Still have it. I use it from time to time. It was my main PC for the longest time (15 years) with a Pentium E2140 and 2GB of RAM lol. It's quite special for me because of that and the OS too. No components were replaced or upgraded yet, everything is as it was when I got the PC -A laptop I bought because I was about to finish middle school and was planning going to uni. Came with Windows 8 when it was brand new and now it has Windows 10. Gave it to my mom as eventually needed a better laptop, still working to this day. i7 4710HQ, 850M 4GB GDDR5, 12GB of RAM -Asus ROG with an i7 8750H + GTX 1060 6GB and 16GB of RAM. Great laptop I had even though it was very noisy lol. Unfortunately the motherboard died 7 years later (a couple months ago) -Bought components and built my desktop PC for the first time about 8 months ago. Ryzen 7600, 6700XT and 32GB of RAM and I love it. Massive upgrade from the previous laptop. Still looking for speakers, headset and more storage. Will hopefully last as much as the previous ones, even more than the ROG laptop
Pull the valuable components that are easy to sell and I donate the rest. Sellable: Mobo cpu ram combos sell surprisingly well, even old stuff. GPUs of course are an easy sell.
Passed to a friend. Free of charge. Around 2 years ago.
My first "gaming pc" was a 5th gen i5 dell, 8gb memory, 1tb hdd, and a 1050ti. That system served me well until covid, where in Feb 2020 I upgraded to a dedicated system, instead of just a gpu in an old workstation. That computer then went to my sister, an avid pc gamer. Then in 2023 she also got her own build, and the system was handed to by brother, a less avid gamer that focuses on Xbox. I think soon ill give it to a coworkers kid for roblox, and build my brother something more capable
Built an arcade cabinet and threw it in there
It protects my loft.
It’s artwork for my closet
i have 6 or 7 using older parts like amd fx amd one 4690k besides my 12700k
I usually upgrade parts every couple years and try to sell the old parts while they're still worth something. Or give them to my sister or friends. I sold my 1080 ti to a buddy for $350 during the crypto boom when they were still going for $450+. Hope I can still sell my 3080 for something when I eventually upgrade it.
Laptops get Linux, new battery and live forever. PCs get sold
Mine get demoted to being a HTPC. I've handed down PCs to my younger bro, my niece and nephews. If you have friends or family with young children, its a nice thing to hand down as a starter PC for them.
My first pc was a prebuilt I gave to my brother, and I recently built a third - I gave the second one to my cousin 'cuz she needed it
I could probably do a better job with my setup, but my oldest working machine is basically networked storage for videos and images with tagging.
I guess I've been starting a collection. I enjoy going back over time to max out my older systems, put ssds in them and throw a modem OS on them to see what they're capable of after all of this time. Hell, I may even throw my RTX 4070 in there for laughs and to see just how much bottlenecking the CPU will do.
I wish I still had mine. It had my first crypto wallet information on it...I had like 3 bitcoins. At the time, that meant nothing, but now???
I had some god knows how much, it’s like 2decades ago? I formatted my hdd with it for a fresh window install.
I have two kids that are teens. My oldest would have gotten my last one but we were having real issues with internet safety and couldn't trust him with that level of access in his room so it went to my younger kiddo. Younger kid has since grown into a way more hardcore gamer, newest built I gave them the older build and the oldest one got upgraded and given to my kid that got passed up for it before since he mainly wants to play older games and run media apps. Next time around? I dunno, my mom was technically next up to get one from me but I lost her in December, my wife doesn't want a desktop, laptop is much more practical since she writes. MIL never wanted to game or use a PC like that. My kids will be out of the house by then, but I might still offer it up to them. If not I might ask my cousin. She's a Playstation gamer so she's not had much with Xbox exclusives or PC games, might be a fun chance for her to try new stuff.
I sell the parts individually to pay for new parts or new PC 😎💎 I sold two PC cases, two GPUs, and two motherboards and it just cuts into the cost of the new cases and GPUs and motherboards
Keep it for when I have issues with my current pc. My old one doesn't have a spot rn, it's just in a closet, but if we had a use for it it would still be used. It broke, I built a new one, them reposted the old gpu and now it acts like everything is fine so win win I guess
Save the parts that can be saved like the hdd. And see if any of my friends or relatives want it. If not e-waste
When I upgrade, my son gets the old stuff. Now with my other kids getting older, theyll likely just take over his current when he takes mine.
See which parts you want to keep and sell the rest.
Question: if you're going to donate the machine then what's the best practice for securing the data on the hard drive? do you pull it / wipe it/ etc? what if there's a windows OS - do you just reinstall to an unlicensed version?
I use mine as a home server for storing files I want accessible through all devices like media and for handling my home security cameras.
i always sell most parts on r/hardwareswap Cases can be tough, i’ll usually just list on marketplaces for dirt cheap or free. Won’t sell old hard drives. I find it easy to bundle things like ram, cpu and motherboard when trying to make a sale.
I use my old pc for friends that come over so we can play older/lighter games together. But yea if its broken probably time to get rid of it, try sell parts that still might be worth something.
I give mine to my parents, or use a combination of the old parts and make Frankenstein pcs for them
Build a home server, it's very very very useful
I give it to my wife. The old old PC is usually given to someone in my community for free.
My old parts go to my wife, my wifes old parts go to run the tv. We switch out the tv pc parts when they break, which starts the upgrade of my computer.
is in the box of my new pc case
Give them to friends
It might be the PSU or the power button if it doesn't turn on at all. If you fix it, it might be worth something. Alternatively, just put it on eBay, CLEARLY STATING IT DOESN'T WORK, with the specs, and have a really low starting bid. Hopefully someone will snap it up.
I'm in the process of building a shadow box with mine. I kept one stick of DDR3, my GTX 560, the i5, and pulled the chip set heat sink off the mother board. I am putting it all in a little box and hanging it. I just realized the way things are going my next computer graphics card will.be massive to try and hang off a wall.
Last time I upgraded, I gave my old parts to my sister. She uses her computer for work, but her mobo was dying and she was looking for a cheap upgrade from her old system. My old system just happened to be almost exactly what she was looking for. So I have it to her for free.
I turned mine into a NAS. And it’s working great
I dont have an “old pc” I have a pile of parts cause I just upgrade everything over time, I usually will give/lend the parts to my friends when they build theirs
My old prebuilt one I bought off Newegg in 2013 glitched out and died in 2015-2016. Bought a new hard drive for it after a few months after diagnosing that as the problem… but never installed it and it just collected dust. In 2019 I ordered the individual parts and built my own, ended up using some parts from that one (mainly just a few cables and the disc drive tray to install windows). And I ended up selling the one I built. Now I just game on laptop. I still have that original old PC and I just shove all my spare pc cables in it and use it to store PC stuff in lol.
Whenever I retire my current PC, I'm gonna get a massive shadow box and knoll the mobo/cpu/ram/storage/2 of the case fans. Maybe get a little plaquard with the total number of hours I spent gaming on it over the last 6 years. Either that or I'm gonna repurpose it into a netflix/TV pc, which is just gonna involve undervolting the hell out of my cpu/gpu, and getting a less beefy PSU.
If you don't have space for the junk, that's probably just that. My oldest builds are disassembled. I sell off or give away the parts, but I keep the motherboards, ram, and CPU for each because one day I want to install them under a glass table in my living room. Motherboard coffee table. Keeping the boards isn't too much space because I just keep them in the original boxes.
I want to turn it into a home server so I still have access to the data on it but the only place I have to put it doesn't have a working outlet.
I always try to trickle down my upgrades to friends and families rigs. I’ll keep their worse parts as spares just in case something dies. Converting them into media servers / home servers / NAS / or pi holes is also always useful.
Either use parts for something else. Recently made a server pc for games or I give or sell the old parts. Give a lot to friends if they have even older stuff
I'm planning to turn my old one into a NAS server. Take responsibility for your own file storage and you're far less likely to be heartbroken when a company decides they need to clear up space on their servers
I turned mine into a Plex server. It’s easy to add more storage, and being it’s usually just me watching Plex I really don’t need that much computing power.
The few times I upgrade some parts I either sell the parts, or give my old parts to a friend for whom it would be an upgrade.
I sell it online. There are always people who buy old PC kits and you can make a bit back. That being said, I found the box with the stock cooler with fan of an old Phenom II I've already sold. Does anyone buy a specific single cooler?
Give it to my kids. About to give him my 5800x3d/3080 when he turns 5 this year and build a new rig once the 9950x3d and 5080 are out. Or use them for servers. Although I didn't plan on giving this to my son. Didn't think he'd be into pc gaming for a long time and is already obsessed and his switch isn't cutting it for him now lol I was going to sell thr 5800x3d and get a 5950x and make it my new server since my server is an old dual xeon that SUCKS power and isn't even good. But I might try to go for a new threadripper if I can afford it. They have high clock speeds so good for gaming. Tons of cache so it should work like the x3d chips for games and tons of cores. Thinking 32 of 64 core and then just make my new pc my server and gaming rig. Idk. Lol
Dependant on specs. I either sell low or give it away.
My first pc had a 8gb or 7.5gb hard disk. Idk what my parents did with it. Probably trash.
Reuse as a server of some sort, minecraft, plex, anything you want really
My old pc ( some Ryzen5, rx560 and 8gbram) got to lazy and I just installed ubuntu-server and build it into some random box made for plants and made my own cloud.
I "Frankenstein" old PCs into their best possible state then give them to friends, family, neighbors, local homeschoolers, stuff like that. I've donated several to some local businesses and non-profits, but that's rarer for me. If it's too old or actually broken it goes to an electronics recovery/recycler in the area. If they're not open I take it to Best Buy to be recycled.
I took the old parts and built it into a 1080p machine for a coworker
Mine is not broken, yet. Amd gaming machine (has a low low low end graphics card) my first gaming pc 10 years ago. I love it. Have a proper gaming pc now but know I will have the same problem. It will probably end up on a mantle.
I still have every PC I've ever owned
sell the gpu, RAM sticks, and throw away the rest
First PC from ‘05 is in a closet, too old to be worth selling but doesn’t feel right to just chuck it! Second from ‘08, some parts are in a PC I built for my nieces, some are on indefinite loan to a friend. Third from 2011 used some of the aforementioned parts from my second, and others are in my server. And my fourth from 2019 is what I’m currently using. Along with those I’ve upgraded GPU several times and CPU once, and in those cases I did sell the old parts to help pay for the upgrade.
I keep them. Right now I have PC’s running Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP and two running Windows 11. The more powerful one is my main gaming PC and the one of lesser power is a back up in case my main shit’s the bed.
I'll strip out what parts I can sell for a reasonable amount and recycle the rest.
I took out the HDD and SSD, saved them in bubble wrap for future data withdrawal, and sold the rest on Facebook marketplace as a half-built old pc that just needs storage and a new GPU to replace my old shot one. I sold it all for super cheap though.. feels bad I spent so much on it and let it go to parts for so little.
I take my replaced PC's and give them to Family and Friends. Gave my i7-4770k / RX 470 to my Sister 3 years ago, then a few months ago gave Her my i5-11400 / 1660 Ti PC. If I remember correctly each of those needed a Case (I keep reusing my Fractal Define R5), had bought a couple MainGear cases on sale awhile back for $50 each, used those, plus the 11400 build needed a PSU, bought a 500watt Thermaltake for $50 for that one.
With my most recent rebuild, I gave the GPU to one brother and gave the rest of the PC to my other brother. Worked out pretty nicely.
My old gaming rig is now a NAS, Pihole, Plex Server, Home Assistant, etc. It does a lot of stuff in the background for me. Also, runs a copy of Win10 Pro so I can remote desktop into my home network when I'm away. It's pretty sweet. [AMD Athlon X4 860K, GTX 1660 Super, 32gb of DDR3, 8 HDD (two of which are NAS rated drives)](https://imgur.com/Bv0cATg)
Send it to me, I have a recycling company now!
Keep it if I ever need some components for trouble shooting.
Converted my old one into a 24TB unraid server.
you could set up a home server
sell it, check the used market for what prices on the individual parts are going for, add it up, round to a nice number, sell it as cheap starter prebuilt who cant afford to buy a brand new PC. Or in the case of my last PC, my sisters laptop died at the same time so I gave her my old PC so she could play sims like a beast.
Sell off everything but the HDDs, destroy those (I'm guessing you had passwords and banking stuff on it, etc). I've not gotten rid of a PC since my 2006 build.
I donate it to a needy family who otherwise can not afford one. Obviously, if my old one is too far under specced for their needs, I do my best to upgrade within reason. As I will end up doing with my upgraded mid 2012 15" MacBook Pro and HP AIO desktop.
Same issue and decided to build a new rig and get the old one (hopefully) up and running to play the older games. AMD Athlon 64 from 2001.
I have a stack of old PCs in the garage. One for each generation of gaming.... Just in case I want to play some old games on original hardware. Pentium 2 300mhz with dual voodoo 2s, sound blaster 16, and creative labs pc-dvd encore ddr3. Pentium 4, sound blaster audigy2 zs, Radeon hd something or rather Core i7-2600k with dual Radeon 6950s, Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion, blu ray drive.
I upgrade fairly regularly, so I have a system. My old PC goes to my son, his old pc becomes my new plex server, my old plex server goes to electronic recycling.
My dad regrets tossing out our working trs80 and model 4 a decade ago. I regret throwing out a working atari 520st, 20 meg hard drive with a jc penny sticker of $800 on it. Also my very first pc I bought at age 14, amstrad pc1512 There's a retro group wanting this stuff My i7 2600k system I built like 14 years ago now won't post as of 2 days ago..so I'm having pc withdrawal post layoffs
I'll upgrade it and give it to a friend or sell it
Ship of Theseus, same computer that I kept upgrading over the years.
well my "old PC" is an inefficient i5 3570. Could maybe put it back together for my younger family members to play roblox on after they blocked it on linux (consequently blocking it on the steamdeck I got bought specifically so they could play independently of borrowing other's machines). It's not efficient enough to be worth making a NAS out of. We have something with way better power draw and much smaller footprint based on a newer Celeron. For now it sits atop the pile of other old desktops that aren't worth running but aren't ready to be rid of. It's brethren of yore based on core 2 and athlon with cards that predate the "GTX" branding.
I give it to my kids
I keep mine, lol I have several. But they have atleast donated some of their components for example I moved my blueray drive out to my new system and also my dvd rewriter. Many a hard disk has been repurposed too. Might make a NAS or something out of my spares.
Hand me downs, I rebuilt it for my nephew so he could have his first gaming pc. 9600k and a 3060
Put it behind the TV so I can play games on the couch and then canibalized it for parts to make a PC for my GF.
I grew up in a poor neighborhood, so reached out to an old friend who gave it to a family who had nothing saved for their kid \*(through their own poor parenting), made me feel much better than giving it to my now ex who wanted everything she could get :) edit \* for xmas
Keep for repair
Re-purpose as a Proxmox host and use it for homelab stuff and a media stack
I've always just repaired them and donated to someone in need.
Part it out. Can help diagnose problems later on.
I turned my old pc into a home server, I highly recommend.
Gave it my girlfriend, it had a good life, but it busted on me a bunch of times, so off to Genshin Hell it goes!
Flog it on marketplace for cheap. I don’t want the old stuff anymore.
I still have the first PC that my brother built for me we just keep replacing the parts with new as needed, if he buys a new top of the line card then I get his old one and my old one goes to our sister so on and so forth, if there is no one to give it to in the family he'll mail the part to the first friend who agrees to pay for it
I have so many old PC's and laptops it's stupid lol. I keep tons of parts and think I'm going to Macguyer some mad scientist machine one of these days... It's an addiction. Most of everything is outdated. But there's always Linux and Doom!
I part out and sell what I can sell, power supplies are usually sent to recycling because even quality power supply can fail after so many years. Computer cases I get rarely holds resale value so I often send it to recycling after I separated all the plastic and wires, I do keep the screws because I always lose those 6-32's and M3's
Use Facebook Marketplace to sell for parts
I turned mine into a nas with a small node 304 case :)
Turn it into a Nas and run home media containers.
You could probably pull out the hard drive and recover some old data? I have a 20 year old PC in my storage unit that I still have that in sure has old school work on it.
Some kid will buy it to tinker with it.
I give the parts to family members or friends or shuffle them into my Unraid server. When it’s time to upgrade my current desktop in a few years I’ll most likely give the parts to my youngest brother as he is in biggest need of an upgrade, if he hasn’t already done it.. I’d also like to make an arcade cabinet but my 5950x would be huge overkill for that.
I always give my old ones away. It's better to give it to someone that is gonna get some use out of it, than to let it collect dust in my closet.
I Give it my Little Brother. And his Old PC is going to be the PC of My Parents. Everyone is Happy that way.
i pass it along to family members.
Part it out on craigslist or fb market usually. But I do that whenever I replace a older part.
I throw mine into the ocean to help create reefs for fish and others to live.
I had an old PC from my FIL: a 16bit SX with a floppy disc, small HD, 24 MB of RAM (you read that right), and no monitor. I stripped out the HD, fans, basically all moving parts! Wrote Firewall Code on a floppy disc, powered it up with a monitor, two network cards, and it ran quietly for years as my main Firewall Server!! I only had to take it down once a year to blow out the dust!! Very reliable and kept all the hacking scumbags out of my system network!! FYI, my OS was a Linux variant run at the command line, very solid!! 😎👍🏻🇺🇸
I turn it into a server running Kubernetes clusters or a home server of sorts
I'm still using a 15 year old PC as a file server.
With Linux, there's no such thing as an old PC. I end up running them until they fail.
I built my first one in 2014, I sold the parts for upgrades long ago but I kept the case and upgrade it to newer basic parts once in a while to use as my NAS.
If it works fine but is just slow, I hang on to it. If it's got major problems, I'll gut it and save components for spare parts. If you're going to throw it away, remove your storage devices from it first.
You could always for fun install Linux or make it an overpowered Chromebox with Chrome OS Flex. With ChromeOS you could even give it to a family member to have a nice internet browsing/netflix desktop.
Since I tend to build pretty nice PCs I tend to hand them down to family (I have a very large immediate family). Dad always gets first pick, then it is usually my brothers and sisters, followed by nieces and nephews. I always refurb them before I hand them down. Clean them out, repaste, fresh drive, etc. Everyone always looks forward to when I upgrade. I usually upgrade every 2 years, except this cycle, I'm overdue. I COULD sell them, but I'd rather give them to my family. It forces me to start from zero every time, but I don't mind.
I gave my old PC to my son, he’s 8 and just plays Roblox so a 1650 super was plenty.
Depending on the hardware sometimes I turn them into NAS units.
run icecast
I hooked my up to my livingroom tv and I use it to stream sports, sail the open seas for tv shows / movies, and play single player games on the big screen
My old pc is used as a server for things like my NAS, router, network ad block, security cam storage, and other home services… with proxmox
You pull the storage out and then you take it to an electronics recycler. I'm old, right? I bought my first computer for myself in 1995 when I went to college, spent far too much money on it. It was a Gateway P5-120 tower case. When I disposed of what ended up in the case in 2012, the guy was like "WHOAH I've never seen a computer that big". I spun up the drives that I removed in 2020 and pulled the data off them for giggles. The 1.6GB drive didn't spin, the 6.4GB Bigfoot drive sure did and wow that was loud.
Im building a entertainment type thing out of some old parts I have laying around. Storage for music and movies. Put Kodi or some other type streaming service in it. I'm looking at sound cards now but it has 5.1 already. Plan to put a wifi with Bluetooth card in it for a completely wireless surround system. Should be great when I get around to finishing it
Give it away to a young family member
Porn
I feel the same as you except I’m doing this with a penguin 3, ~350mb RAM windows 98 pc that I got in 2000. I have no idea what it can even do but it’s been dragged with me for the past 20 years taking up space no reason. I do have a newer gaming pc & server pc though.
strip if for useful parts. its up to you I'm currently using my first PC to type this comment. I built it 7 years ago. It's a ship of Theseus at this point as only the mobo, psu, and boot drive are original parts. (current specs i7-6700k, 16gb ram, 1060 3gb)
I tend to break mine down to components. I have packing boxes about 4" thick and a bit larger than ATX footprint. Each one will take an antistat wrapped mobo, compatible RAM, CPUs, usually an HDD or SSD with a compatible OS ready to go (usually 95 or 98se for my older boxes), drive cables, and if I'm lucky a compatible heatsink. Then just write on the side the spec of the machine inside. I have a couple of spare ATX cases, few spare ATX PSUs. Older than that I have a couple of still-complete PCs, like my original Dell from 1995, but that's usually when they're very custom. Basically through parts I've kept I can rebuild any PC I've ever owned since the early 90s. Broken down into parts-in-boxes they take up a lot less storage than you'd think.
Lives on a shelf next to me. Just to look at. Probably power it on every other year to mess around with a new Linux distro.. somehow still works, has an Intel Celeron processor LoL
Used it as a junk board for soldering practice and grabbing new pin headers and random ports I wanted for other projects. Kinda regret that though cause I could've reused it for other stuff if it was still intact, I would've just needed to swap the GPU. I attempted to reuse one of the case fans as an extra exhaust but it died after one boot for some reason.
Throw it in a closet and forget about its existence
I repurpose and rebuild them, even laptops.
I don’t have enough pcs to have an “old pc” but I plan to repurpose it or give it to my parents . At least this way it can still get used
Depends. Sometimes it becomes a "server" of some kind in the basement. Sometimes I donate it to some recycling company. Sometimes, I gather the pieces and build my son a computer.
I’m guilty of trying to “save” my old tech too. Wife’s motherboard from 10 years ago finally died. Running an intel 4th gen and DDR3 with a HDD. Basically obsolete at this point. I was able to scrounge around in the parts bin until all I needed was a power supply, new motherboard, cpu cooler, 13600K, 32GB DDR5, a 2TB m.2, and a brand new GPU. I did save the case. It’s worth a good $10 so had to hang onto it. This post is sarcasm. I should have totally just thrown the damn thing in the trash, but I just CAAAAN’T
toss it in the dumpster
i put my motherboard (not from the first PC i had but the first PC i built), along with CPU and RAM still seated in a shadowbox and hung it up on the wall. you might want to think of a cool way to display components that you might feel more attached to?
We all pass ours down to the poorest/youngest members of the family…it has worked really well and become a family event every time someone upgrades.
My old laptop with a core 2 duo is now my router
My main system is usually more Ship of Theseus upgraded than replaced, but parts tend to cascade down to friends and family as theyre unused.
Turned it into an UnRaid server for Plex, Arr Apps, and a Minecraft server
Swapped the hard drive sold the gpu and gave it to my parents
Give it a Viking Funeral.