Someplace to stash my stuff
"well they might come in handy one day."
Published on August 24, 2012 By starkers In Personal Computing

It hadn't occurred to me just how much junk I had collected over the years until I needed to find a couple of parts for the rig I'm building for my mother.  It's like 5 deep plastic storage bins and 3 sets of 4 drawers... all reasonably full.... and I haven't even rounded up what's in the cupboard underneath the stairs, which has a multitude of cases, monitors and other stuff.

Anyhow, I thought that I'd start wheedling through it and tossing out some of the old, old stuff.  Yeah, right!!  I had no use or a 939 socket mobo and dual core AMD CPU, and figured nobody else would, either.   Wrong!!! 

A guy I'd never met before and I struck up a conversation about PC's and he revealed that he'd like to lay his hands on a 939 socket mobo, which suited me as I had one... and the CPU to go with it.  Now you just can't buy these things new anymore, and he offered me $200 for them both.  Well I wasn't expecting to get that much, and he did explain that he was happy to pay it, given his lengthy search, so I accepted his offer and used the cash to purchase anther SSD to pair up with my existing one in a RAID 0 array to increase capacity and performance.

Hmmm, so all this old, old and obsolete stuff... it does have a use, if not directly to me.  It seems people who can't afford to update to the latest and greatest are quite willing to pay for older parts that are in good condition, and I can fulfill the needs of some with the stash I have accumulated.  You see, it's not just the left overs after my own upgrades, or Shaunna's, the whole family bring their rigs to me to fix/update, and whatever parts leftover they leave for me to do with as I please because I never charge for labour or the parts I already have.

Throwing stuff out, eh!  Looks like I might be hording it a while longer, given what happened the other day.  It's not the first time, either, so if my trash can be another man's treasure I'd be f**kin' nuts to toss it.

Orright, so who else has a large stash of old PC parts laying around and what sort of stuff is it?  That's right, fess up to being a hoarder and let us know the extent of your pile of stuff.... just how high is it?

I'll start!!  I got a couple old 486 mobos, CPU's and RAM to go with, some Intel P4 related gear and bits out of a couple of old IBMs that came out of the Ark.


Comments (Page 1)
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on Aug 24, 2012

I used to, then one day I got tired of all of it and pitched it in the trash.  It was all antiquated anyway.

on Aug 24, 2012

My brother inlaw accumulated a fair bit of stuff when he had a '42 WLA single and an outfit as well....eventually he sold the single and gave the outfit to his son....then looking at the bits left over they simply bought another frame from the States and now have a nice new third WLA.....

Not computer bits...but bits all the same...

 

on Aug 24, 2012

I did have an enormous stash. I received 11 dead, dying or unknown condition PC's in one batch, 9 in another and a big box of parts to boot in the last 18-24 months. A big pile of monitors, kb's and mice came along with everything.

I've since pulled most of the working parts. and used them to either build working rigs out of the pile (5 total)  to give away to those in need of one or to fix units for friends and family. I think I'm down to a few fans, some CD and floppy drives, a PSU and a lot of SD and DDR RAM.

Everything else, including 5 CRT monitors, 6 kb's and the cases and mobos went to  recycling.

I can't wait to get some more. It was loads of fun.

on Aug 24, 2012

I have quite a bit of old parts... forced myself to pitch a few things here and there, but I likely could build 4-6 computers if I wanted... granted, 1 of those would be good...

on Aug 24, 2012

I build new arrays with the parts, keep the ones that aren't too long in the tooth and give away the ones that are.  I also always have two spare, ready to go older units for things likee catastrophic lightening strikes.

Several years back we got hit by lightening and it took out all six of our computers.  I had enough parts ion hand to build three more the next day.

I did get rid of the "junk" though.  One thing I always keep is screws and the like.

Business people with older custom built rigs will often pay for old if its an exact match.  Some custom software is out of date but horrendous to upgrade.  I recently helped rebbot an old system for a man who does motorcycle diagnostics.  To get a new system and the upgraded software needed to run it would have cost him $25,000.  He got his old one fixed for $300.

I admit I almost shed a tear though when I threw out my IBM PS-1 with the 50k cpu.  My first baby.

on Aug 24, 2012

I can get kind of crazy but my dad has a full room full of old computer parts.

on Aug 24, 2012

Moderate/small parts collection, except for 2 whole intact retired PCs  (win-95 and win-98se).  Would be 3 but my first XP box found a second home a couple years after retirement.

on Aug 24, 2012

I have a whole closet full. Actuall still have a P100 processor and the old memory chips that came with it. Even have a ISA SoundBlaster16 audio card. Still even have MSDos on floppys. You name it I probably have it somewhere. My wife calls me a horder and she's probably right.

 

on Aug 24, 2012

I use the tried and true hand-me-down system where each new bit displaces older bits down the 'computer line'... eg my 240gig Sandisk SSD went into my machine...and the existing OCZ 60 went into my laptop [doing that now]....and the old 160g platter will go into a semi-retired laptop to replace its 40.

Things didn't quite go so well with the GTX590.....as that displaced the XFX 285 ...but I haven't got another machine that can take it...so it's back in its box....

on Aug 24, 2012

...and the existing OCZ 60 went into my laptop [doing that now]....

Just checked....the WEI for the drive went from 5.0 to 6.8 ....not bad 'for nothing' ....

on Aug 24, 2012

Starkers - do you have a voodoo1 card?

on Aug 24, 2012

And you now have an unused laptop platter drive, another good spare part to have . 

on Aug 25, 2012

Skarny
Starkers - do you have a voodoo1 card?

I have an old monster add on graphics card.  Cutting edge = pacov.  I think I chose to skip voodoo1 for some reason.

on Aug 25, 2012

Side note - You fellas should really be thinking about us creating a giant robot using spare parts to destroy some segment of the world.  I shall provide the torso.

on Aug 25, 2012

I shall provide the torso.

Don't you need it...to keep your bum away from your head? ....

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