Never throw anything out

I never throw anything out, especially electronics. Seems odd given the obsolete nature of most electronics, but I always find a use.

I just got done(last week) putting together some unused stuff for a garage PC.

I had an old Asus compact PC I got from work that was used in the shipping department. I spent about 60 bucks on an SSD and a wireless keyboard and mouse.

I took an old flatscreen monitor and fastened the pc on the back and wired everything up nice. It's essentially an all in one without a touch screen .With a compact footprint(about 4 inches deeper than just the screen and only 2 wires coming off the back). It's nice and compact and takes up no table space.

Its been really nice having this, instead of always using my phone. Been using it mostly just for light web browsing, nice to look up a few sites I was using my phone for. Been great for looking up automotive related things and some weight lifting stuff(I have all my gym stuff in the garage). Also just got done using it to log onto and do some server maintenance on the home units that I've been neglecting for months.

Just another great reason, to me, why I hold on to all this junk. I have a bin full of old computer parts(PSU's, MB's, etc), I've dug through that bin and used old parts to build a few PC's as well as update peoples PCs(usually for free, since I'm not using the parts). Electronics are rapidly obsolete, but it's amazing how much recycling one can do and how truly long some things can last.

Ask John Titor how useful that some of those old parts are.

a reply to: MisterSpock

Plenty of treasures in my garage i wish someone would put to use. Mix and match dell, lenovo, and hp SFF. A half dozen dell towers and C6200 chassis with 3 sleds, loaded. HP and Cisco switches, managed and unmanaged. Fortinet and juniper srx firewalls. Four giant totes of cables neatly coiled in sandwich bags, among other spare parts. Rack patch panels, cat6 modular jacks, finger ducts, shelves and other rack accessories. Liani li and cooler master cases. Tons of memory, 4gb and less. Canon color laser printer. Samsung and hp laptops. Most of the home router stuff has been picked over by friends. Between my equipment and baby stuff i can barely park a bicycle in there.

a reply to: MisterSpock

You and your new-fangled gizmos.

For some reason, I'm still holding on to two word processors. They're in good shape, I've got the instruction books, the CGA monochrome monitors, but they will never be used for anything.

It just kills my soul to throw away something that works.

originally posted by: VictorVonDoom
a reply to: MisterSpock

You and your new-fangled gizmos.

For some reason, I'm still holding on to two word processors. They're in good shape, I've got the instruction books, the CGA monochrome monitors, but they will never be used for anything.

It just kills my soul to throw away something that works.

Build a coffee table out of them. Recessed shelf under glass.

originally posted by: MisterSpock

originally posted by: VictorVonDoom
a reply to: MisterSpock

You and your new-fangled gizmos.

For some reason, I'm still holding on to two word processors. They're in good shape, I've got the instruction books, the CGA monochrome monitors, but they will never be used for anything.

It just kills my soul to throw away something that works.

Build a coffee table out of them. Recessed shelf under glass.

Sounds like a typical apartment on the lower east side.

Well, I cleaned house. Among the stuff I threw away was a real lot of older computer parts and at least fifteen computers. I gave them to the guys at the scrap yards, there was probably a lot of value to the gold on the old computer cards. I do have maybe a half pound of the cut off circuit board connectors that are gold plated. I also kept many of the processors from the old computers I collected over the years. You can buy a good computer for under three hundred bucks now, a motherboard with chipset used to be more than that back in the nineties.

I used to fix computers and upgrade them for people but gave all that up. I figured I would learn something that is less apt to change so started to learn about the chemistry of food and pharmaceuticals instead.

All the computers I built over the years and all the replacement parts I bought and most all I learned is obsolete these days along with the parts. I did keep at least a dozen fans and a bunch of processors and one server tower complete with old pentium processors.

Two trailers full plus at least ten pickups full of stuff went to the scrap yard this summer, I gave away at least two trailer loads of tools and antique stuff and brought eight huge loads in the pickup to the dump. Not to mention my daughter took a whole load of some unique old junk from the building I sold.

At least I did not have a 40 foot by sixty foot building piled high with junk like my stepfather had.

I used to collect and store, nevermore.

originally posted by: VictorVonDoom
a reply to: MisterSpock

You and your new-fangled gizmos.

For some reason, I'm still holding on to two word processors. They're in good shape, I've got the instruction books, the CGA monochrome monitors, but they will never be used for anything.

It just kills my soul to throw away something that works.

Ha, I still have a Commodore SX-64 (portable commodore 64, built in 5inch crt colour monitor, built in 1541 fdd) but in non-working order, but I just cannot bare to lose it. No keyboard, which does my head in because it was all together, so the bermuda backroom steals another lost soul, and you can't buy them cheap. Ironically, people are all over themselves trying to get the connector for the keyboard to the box, but I'm not parting with it.

It's funny, I can fix it if I put the effort into it, and have it working just as it did 35 years ago... yet all the motherboards, ram, old cpu's I can't use with the technology changing so much over the years. Could always strip all the parts for the gold

a reply to: rickymouse

Sounds like a ton. At hundred square feet of foil per ounce, i wouldnt count on too much $, but its better than nothing.

originally posted by: drewlander
a reply to: rickymouse

Sounds like a ton. At hundred square feet of foil per ounce, i wouldnt count on too much $, but its better than nothing.

I figured The ones I kept would be worth maybe twenty bucks. The box might actually have a pounds of ends in it, I never actually weighed it. About forty circuit boards and maybe five mother boards of pins and ends. I kept most of the processors, maybe seventy or eighty of them total. The year before I had gotten rid of about a half a pickup of computers. People were giving me their old computers so I could give away the parts to fix others computers.

Anything I haven't used in 6 months gets tossed.
I like things simple, clean and uncluttered.

But that's just me.

a reply to: rickymouse

I have been hoarding up old computers over the years , tablets and computer docks for some models and a slimline range i like , and the prices have started going crazy on these as they are antique in computer age and going up in value due to the geeks .

I have a collection in my attic of stuff that will rise in value rather than get dumped of speakers ,computers etc that are worth keeping

a reply to: MisterSpock
The catch is that women call this "hoarding", and will throw it out for you, in the interests of "being tidy".

take some of those older computers and load Linux Mint Or Kubuntu on them. Now its just like windows without having to purchase a thing. Uses all the same browsers as Windows uses (google, Firefox, Opera) and turns that slow PC into a nice machine you can do anything on.

originally posted by: Plotus
Ask John Titor how useful that some of those old parts are.

That's why I love ATS, if you randomly threw that comment out in the pub people would look at you and think 'eh? wth is this person on about?'

Here, it's just like 'oh yeah, lol, have a star' 😂 🍻

a reply to: rickymouse

I gave them to the guys at the scrap yards, there was probably a lot of value to the gold on the old computer cards. I do have maybe a half pound of the cut off circuit board connectors that are gold plated. I also kept many of the processors from the old computers I collected over the years.

Pro-tip: You'll earn more for closely trimmed board connectors (fingers / gold fingers [and other materials]) per Lb on eBay than you will by processing them yourself.

I spent years scrapping computers for PM's, my largest haul was around 200 pc's from a large local firm, made a nice chunk of change when all was said and done, but nearly snapped the axle on my van, lol

a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

And then there's the issue of disposal of the chemicals it takes to actually extract the gold, not to mention the toxic fumes which will make your house smell worse than a meth lab.

a reply to: bud316

That's a very sad but true statement!

Microsoft overhead is just stupid huge!

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

And then there's the issue of disposal of the chemicals it takes to actually extract the gold, not to mention the toxic fumes which will make your house smell worse than a meth lab.

One should never attempt the recovery or refinery of PM's in the home. Not only are the resultant fumes highly toxic, they're incredibly corrosive (think electronics, faucets and taps, door hinges, that list goes on and on).

The only truly safe way is to have a dedicated space with a fumehood, but like most things it's as safe or as dangerous as one makes it.

Chemical disposal after recovery can be an issue, but with a bit of research one learns to drop (precipitate) heavy metals from solution and what you end up with is essentially neutralised and can now be considered plant fertiliser.

But, that's a whole other thread, and I'm way out of practice on that side of things, it's been a while,

I save stuff as well. Anything with a circuit board I save it in case I need some parts off it to fix something.
I can't fix any board like a pro but if a part is obviously burned up and I find a match for it I sometimes get lucky. I'm good with a soldering iron.

Lightning fried the built in Network Interface Card (NIC) in my PC a while back and I took one from an old PC that I never threw away and bang back up and running.

Another thing and I can't tell you how many times I've done this but I'll find a hose clamp or perfectly good bolt or screw laying on the ground. I pick it up and it will be just what I need to survive or get on with my work another time.