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Decio Lira
Asked: 2009-05-03 15:40:03 +0800 CST

what to do with old hardware

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What do you do with your old / unused hardware? Cables, Hard drives, motherboards, and others peripherals you have around? Stuff that is broken or just too obsolete to use.

hardware

13 Answers

  1. There are a lot of people out there with far more time to tinker with "worthless" parts than I have - freecycle.org. It doesn't head to a landfill AND you don't have to take it any farther than the curb. Win-win.

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  2. We have a company locally that recycles old computers for schools and people who otherwise couldn't afford a computer, so a lot of stuff goes there. Old parts that can be assembled into computers, I've used for

    • mail servers
    • router/firewalls for friends, with m0n0wall
    • network storage with FreeNAS
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  4. Give it to me!

    ...

    Just kidding :)

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  5. I hate throwing out hardware that still works, I feel that it could always come in useful later, when something breaks and there's a crisis. So it usually ends up in a big box of bits. I'll try to organize it but eventually it gets overrun and I have to throw some out or find a new home for it.

    Often working parts will get re-purposed for a home project or used in a friends old PC that needs repairs.

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  6. Broken, bin it (only individual components however - Never bin an entire computer). Hard drives and cables always come in use, as do PSU's. Really old motherboards bin, keep the others as spares.

    Edit: When I say bin it, I mean dispose of it correctly. For example hard drives should be securely destroyed/wiped.

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  7. Go green and recycle by giving cat a bed.

    taken from Here

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  8. In my area, electronics recycling is now required by law. An eco-fee is charged at point of purchase to cover this, and our bottle depots accept electronic devices.

    I probably keep more than I should; I still have a huge box of parallel cables. Hard drives I always take apart before getting rid of them. Partly because I want to wipe the data, and partly because I want the magnets. Wipe one of the magnets across the surface of the disc and/or smash it with a hammer. Use the magnets to hold papers against metal storage cabinets. (I also used some magnets to make a coat hook in my cubicle.)

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  9. I recycle what I can, in a number of different ways. Just today I was handed an old laptop, still in working order. What do you do with a 400MHz Celeron laptop? Give it to one of the other staff members to give to his pre-school age grandchildren to play with. Things like cables can become a problem. There are only just so many any of us can find a use for and they accumulate faster than wire coathangers.

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  10. Hm, we trade in our old hardware even the broken one. But I'm not in the purchasing department. Although this question was asked before, iirc.

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