Community poll forum: What did you do with your last old computer?

I donated it to my local FreeGeek operation.

They test everything that's donated to them, carefully erase any working harddrives (much more thoroughly than merely "formatting" them), and either re-sell or give away the working items (computers, peripherals such as printers, etc.). With non-working electronics, they recycle as much of the parts and pieces as they can in an environmentally friendly manner (usually breaking down components and selling the sorted materials to various specialist recycling organizations).

FreeGeek is a non-profit and at least 90% of their staff is made up of non-paid volunteers.

I live in Portland, Oregon, but there are FreeGeek "nodes" all over. Check 'em out if you get the chance!

My husband and I keep all of the useful working parts of old computers and use them with other computers, not only for ourselves but for friends and family. My husband loves putting them together!

Well, I come from a family that all my brothers and relatives do not have the cash to buy a PC at all. So as they are going off to College and trying to get their lives together. I want to keep in touch with family. I give them the Extra desktop. Although I am nice I take the old Hard drive out and keep it and charge them for the shipping but hey they get a new PC out of the deal. People really need to understand that a very old PC with a sempron or celeron CPU in it may be garbage to us but to someone with out a computer it is brand new to them.

well believe it or not you guys do not have an idea how much it means donating an old computer to us from Africa, im not sure of other countries but as for us Zimbabweans its one of the best gift or early christmas one can get,
you said you got a P4 lying in your garden, my folks wont even believe this when i tell them. Pliz forward it to me, i do computer repairs, with a proceessors like that and such huge ram , bro i will be personaly happy to recieve that one, its very expensive for us to buy coz a P4 machine now costs half the price of an ordinary 2nd hand car and less than 40% people of most African countries own cars, then you know what this means

pass me your e-mail pliz and for any one who thinks can make my day pliz use these contacts
TONEO
toneo.neo@gmail.com
1682 142 close
budiriro 1
harare
zimbabwe

Don't most people have relatives with kids that will want a computer sooner or later? Maybe the only shortcoming of the computer as far as kids are concerned is when they find out the graphics card doesn't make the grade for the latest and greatest games! Oh well. It cost $56 to UPS the 2 boxes! Fortunately, I still had the original boxes & packing material - I move a lot.

My Mac friends have liked receiving my PC's. They say it makes it easier to communicate with other PC users...but now that Mac is more compatible with PC I may have to find another solution, especially with Vista and Office 2007 about to arrive.

G'Day All: The website above explains a lot about what we do with old PC's and associated gear.

This non-profit organisation provides a "Shed space" for retired blokes.

The main part deals in mostly wood/metal work but I convene a pc recycle project that helps accomadate the more technically retired as well as any one else who wants a new challenge.

We accept Pc's from corporate to Govt. departments . Refurbish them and donate to kids and families that can't afford one, to elderly retired and immobile seniors. All with tuition and back up/support.

Further we also provide equipment to other volunteer organisations with limited funding.

Within the Mens Shed we provide education to all our members who may want to know any aspect of computing.

Further we provide Power Point presntations on Workshop Safety.

These short courses are also available to the wider community.

We also recycle old printers and scanners by salvaging components and creating "new " projects from them, eg: forever torches, garden windmill generators.

Water wheel generators, Camping and outshed lamps(ccfl fluros from scanners). Small scale solar ovens and water heaters to name just a few.

These activities keep the senior's active. viable and contributing in a meaning ful way to our local communities.

This allows bond of mateship to develop and provide a "bloke space " where men can discuss and just BE, with support for all types of problems men experience in retirement.

Regards...Chris frangoff
Robertson, Southern Highlands
NSW. Australia

I put it, the mouse, and the keyboard into two Macy's shopping bags and left them in the elevator of the highrise I was living in. They were gone very quickly. That also worked with an old vcr on another occasion.

When I got my new laptop, I still kept some parts of my old PC. For instance, I've kept the monitor (and the computer table) and occasionally hook it up as a second display - useful in some areas of work, or if you just want to expand your desktop. I've also kept my old hard disc (even though I've taken the important data out of it). I had some pretty new parts (like an NVIDIA display card) on my desktop, which I sold off. And as for the other parts, I just gave them away to friends who needed them (like the SD-RAM).

Me? I have at least 6 old computers. And out of the six, I make at least one out of them. Guess you could call it recycling. I fix & repair computers. When someone doesn't want their old one anymore, they give it to me. So, that is what I do with old computers.

What I did was clean it up inside and out, formatted the HD, and set the machine up as an off-site storage system for all our digital images and other important data. This is an older E Machine computer that's totally dependable and since we don't use it that much will most likely be fine for the forseeable future.

Recycled the old computers at www.freegeek.org in Portland, Oregon. They try to re-use the better parts and install Linux on them, then return the usable computers to charities, nonprofits, and those who cannot afford them. Many are shipped to schools in less developed nations by various groups that contact FreeGeek for help. On any day 200-250 volenteers are busy recycling old computers at freegeek. And there are several new freegeeks starting in other cities.
John Warzynski

There are some pics. http://www.flickr.com/photos/blogi/301854550/in/set-1457089/

I started out with the intention of upgrading my computer. As it turned out through many iterations I could only save the power cord and the video card.The rest was replaced by the able computer tech squad at the high school where I worked. The left-overs from the original were converted to a server that handled a bunch of printers. When I went to a flat screen monitor I found a friend who happily adopted my 17", 3 ton monitor.It seems I deal with pieces and not whole packages, never sticking more than a toe in the water at any one time.
Bernie