Discussion on:

10 things to do with old computing equipment

I work with an educational charity and frankly, some of the stuff we have been given is absolute garbage. A charity is not a cheap disposal service that also gives you a tax write off. Five years ago I spent many hours trying to get some donated computers working that still had "Certified for Windows 2000" stickers on them. That was 2008 making these computers dinosaurs. In then end, many had to be disposed of on our dime as they just could not be made to function well with Windows XP SP3 running antivirus software.

If the p/c or Laptop you are donating would run Windows 7, then why in the world would you be getting rid of it?????
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever!!!!!
OLD equipment is the topic.
I think that means it is most likely has an older slower CPU, smaller capacity HDD, maybe 1 or 2 GB of RAM. So, it could possibly be upgraded to run WIN-7. Maybe not cost effective to do so, so you donate it.

The charities who won't accept a system that will not run WIN-7 (out of the box) are not going to get many, if any donations.

Who are these charities that will not accept anything less then WIN-7 machines???
I will avoid wasting my time going to them with my donations, and continue to donate perfectly acceptable machines to the charities who appreciate it.

I'm in a big city, and I like using Craigslist. First off, we use the gear until well past its 5 year depreciation, so it has nearly zero donation value, and generally has little useful value to any nonprofit organization. Second, if we send it to e-waste, it'll be parted out and recycled, which kind of offends me, because the computer still works.

What I found is that there are a lot of poor people who are refurbishing computers and selling them for around $50 to $75 for complete systems, usually with CRT monitors, and usually with a desktop Linux or Windows XP (maybe cracked). As you can guess, they sell to other poor people, and seem to provide a little tech support. This is a market that exists below the level of thrift stores and Goodwill, believe it or not.

My employer doesn't like this, so what I do is take the gear home, prepare a receipt so I can verify it was disposed to someone else, and then put up an ad on Craigslist "free" section. I leave instructions about filling out the paperwork (leave your name, email and phone on the receipt), and leave the equipment out on the porch. They show up and take it away, usually within a day. Around half the takers are refurbishers, and the other half are hobbyists.

In fact, I'd put myself in the hobbyist class, because I take these old machines and turn them into NAS boxes, backup units, servers, etc. too.

What to do with them? Give them to me . Seriously, the machines I'm using at home are probably equivalent to something the rest of you got rid of 2-3 machines back...

In Vancouver, BC, and hopefully other large cities too, volunteer organizations have been set up to educate new users about computers while re-using old computer equipment. It's absolutely worth checking to see if there is any kind of organization like Free Geek (http://freegeekvancouver.org/) in your city.

...and put them back to work.

After removing the hard drive, we take PCs and also CRTs, printers, etc. to our local Goodwill (by the truckload). They do not charge to take them (call ahead first) and they rebuild units from all these parts. I assume they are sold to make money for the organization.

I keep hearing about "power hungry" old computers, but the current multicore computers use more power. The CPU alone uses more than 100 watts for most processors. I got a quad core that advertised as low power at 95 watts, and the computer burns 140 watts. The old P3 uses around 40 watts. So the computer probably burns no more than 100 watts. The only new PCs that use less power are the mini itx computers and laptops.

I collect everything until there is no more space, have all data wiped by my helpdesk staff and then donate all the equipment to charities that provide computers to the underprivilaged.

I tried the Sell/Give to staff thing, however I found they then assume it means they get free helpdesk services for it for the remainder of its life (even if told this is not the case). It just causes difficult situations and wastes a lot of time.

Employees usually prefer different configurations for their PCs since their family use is also for multimedia, games, etc They would - in my view - prefer to get a good piece in consultation with their adult family members and without being obliged to the organisation.

Part of their reasoning is explained in point no 9. Nobody likes hand-me-downs and that too from a quasi-official list. It's a different matter that the same employee will pester the IT-techs with problems on their personal machines all the time.

OK

Don't
Some schools just can't say no to obsolete computers. They then get stuck with a mismatch of equipment to support and eventually dispose of as well. Now, if your local school has a technician program, there may be something, but after 15 years of dealing with other people's obsolete computers, no.

2: Work with local schools

Corporate IT can partner with local schools by donating good but used equipment that they can use for technology projects. Some companies take this goodwill effort even further by partnering with schools in tech development programs that include student internships with the company. Proven interns from these programs can make excellent IT hires. The company also develops a great reputation in the community.

We tried just about all of these when we were purchasing PCs. Boy! What a headache. The company kept everything in service for as long as they could. Listening to users go on about wanting better and better resources, every day, made "service with a smile" harder each day. Schools didn't want our old junk -- Some even told us that. Who could blame them? They were upgraded to the max years ago, and simply couldn't support the newer software. At first employees jumped at the chance to buy their own office computer. They were used to it...Until Legal came down, waving software licensing agreements in our faces. What were users going to do with a 7 to 10 year old PC with no software on it?! And of course, the Techs took the heat on that, too.

We lease now. Everyone gets a new PC every 4 years, and only by divine intervention did management finally say, "Wait your turn, no skipping." Because those with clout were grabbing the new stuff, leaving the Admins and lower ranks to fight over the better hand-me-downs. I had one guy skip ahead to get the newest PC. Two months later, the specs changed, and now he wanted that one! Dude spent 75% of his time out of the office...Just plain greedy.