Recycling options for old computers

[dougal2]

Hi,

I'm after some opinions about how best to recycle or otherwise dispose of old computer and electronic equipment.

I've sort of realised that half the computer equipment I have I don't use because it is either broken, obsolete, or just a little bit old - so it's time to move some of this stuff on.
(and I need to make some space for some new stuff too )

What do you guys do with your old stuff? Especially if it's not really of any use to anyone any more (eg, a working AMD 500Mhz Win 98 machine).
Ideally, I'd like to turn some of this stuff into cash, but I realise that may be wishful thinking for the really obsolete or broken stuff.
I've actually tried to sell some of this stuff on ebay already, and nobody wants it because it's too old

Any thoughts?

[MaRo]

Hi,

from my past experience, I have found that when the equipment is broken, it's almost hopeless. I don't know where you live, but here in France, you cannot throw this kind of material in a dump, you have to put it to special places where it will be -partially- recycled.

Other things I've done in the past when the equipment is still working/fixable: give it to schools (they always are in need of computers), or to some non-profit associations who will try to sell/refurbish them...

But as for getting some cash out of it... I've given up the idea, for anything older than a few years (say 5, 6 years maybe), you can hardly get enough bucks to cover the hassle of setting up ads, following questions/answers and sending the stuff...

Just my two cents worth...

[Lord Crc]

Here in norway they have this organization which accepts old computer parts (as donation) and rebuilds them for use in schools and such. Won't get you any money, but should give you a nice fuzzy feeling inside

I think they have this concept in other countries as well, I don't think they "invented" it here.

[binarycortex]

It's probably faster than my computer, you could ship it to me.

[Ze_Blob]

Broken computer gear can be sometimes fixed. I know two main sources of problems, bad capacitors (mostly the big electrolytic ones) and solder balls breakage on cms chip (typically the chipsets that reach crazy temps on use). I fixed once a 1gb/s D-link Ethernet hub that way, some caps were notably bigger than usual, i found some spares on an old broken mainboard. Quite a shame theses pieces or hardware are made with low quality componants ! The hub was just a few years old when it had the fault.

The second kind of problems leads me every 8 month or so to put the graphic card of my laptop in the oven at 250°C during 15 minutes, just to fix the solder balls because with the thermal stress and the low quality of the solder (some lead free stuff i presume), the graphic card develops after a few years some artifacts. This can happens not just with GPU, and you will find a lot of forum threads on the net about this way of fixing (try "oven+gpu" on google).

As for reselling, look on ebay to have an idea of your gear. As far as i am concerned i have given a computer to my relatives, it was a shiny and powerfull dual cpu AMD Athlon computer at its time, but is not so by today's standards. It's however perfect for googling and emails. But unfortunatly people tend to even refuse theses old computers, even if they can be usefull, because of the size and it's way too creepy when everybody has a little pimpy smartphone or ipad. You don't want to show to your friends that old noisy beige box.

People that would be happy with them are probably in Africa and various moderatly developped countries, but the gear would be somehow expensive to ship and not sure the guys there would have the electricity.

[alexjimmyss]

Then what do we do about the old computers? There are a number of options and the best option is to recycle the old computers. If you want to get rid of the old computer, then first try to sell your computer.

[Pilchard123]

Where do you live? CEX will buy stuff if you're in the UK and anywhere near one.

Although looking at it, an FX4100 will only get you £35 and that's if you exchange it. It's less if you just get cash. And in the UK you can't just dump stuff either. WEEE regs mean that you can't really even just throw away a broken pair of earphones, though I doubt that that really stops anyone.

[dougal2]

I think my local dump actually has a dedicated area for old electronics and appliances, I think that's probably the preferred option.