I know this is kind of an odd post on a flashlight board but I have seen several computer geeks like myself on here and figured what the heck, no harm in asking.
Long story short, my computer was top of the line…. 10 years ago. Back then I would build a new computer every year or 2 since the 90’s. It has held up amazingly well, I am a wholehearted believer in Asus that is for sure.
Running a Q9550 overclocked to 3.8ghz most of it’s life until I turned it down to 3.6ghz when my power supply died a few months ago and I had to replace it with one that is too small.
It is starting to really show it’s age now as I start to deal with bigger and bigger files / software. I have some old computers laying around I hope to sell for $100-150 that I want to put towards an upgraded machine. Yeah, my budget is real tight.
So anyone have older computer components laying around you are interested in getting rid of?
Not looking for anything high end, just something noticeably better then what I have. A I5 2500k / I7 2600k P67/Z68 setup as that is about the best bang for the buck I have run across in this price range but open to other options for the right price as well.
Also could use a cheap secondary computer for my parents that doesn’t need to be as good but still needs to be able to handle lots of office/productivity work.
Individual components are also fine, I always build my computers so piecing it together is fine with me. SSD’s, hard drives, Ram, power supplies, something like a GTX 650 ti ect.
Yeah, I’m in a similar situation with mine. It was nearly top-o-the-line when I built it several years ago. I thought it should decently meet my computing needs for well over a decade. But I failed to take into account the wear-and-tear of daily use. One RAM stick has developed an error, and so needs to be replaced. I’m hoping that’s what’s causing the sometimes sluggish and erratic behavior. My 3.8GHz Quad-core Phenom processor should be plenty still for what it’s used for. The Hard drive still checks out fine in S.M.A.R.T. utility, though I could possibly use a bit more capacity now. I’d love to be able to upgrade the DVD burner to Blu-Ray in the future as well, but it’s not a necessity really. My power supply seems to be okay. In the past, that’s always been the weak spot of every system I’ve built; always the first thing to break. I guess I’m not spending enough money on those. :person_facepalming:
I do have lots of older components, but most of them are VERY old and probably not useful for modern computing at all. I still have those components I got from Old Lumens a while back. His thread should be around here somewhere…
Edit: Found the thread. Boy, it was such a while back! 2014! The stuff is really old now. Here’s the thread if you wanna see it. But, for reference, the CPU he was getting rid of was an Athlon 64 X2.
Yeah, I hear all of that. Lots of stuff I would love to upgrade as well, a better SSD, blueray even just a basic USB 3.0 port would be fantastic. I am still stuck with USB 2.0 and SATA 2 but I am also reasonable and those are not in the budget I am afraid.
Although sometimes I dream that the magic computer genie drops off a nice 8th gen I7 based machine with an NVME M.2 drive, 16-32gb ramp, GTX 10 series a few matching HDD’s for a raid 5 setup, maybe a thunderbolt port and some new monitors to replace mine that love to fritz in all sorts of new and strange ways as they age. Dreams are fun lol.
Power supplies are always my weak link as well. I learned fairly early on there are places to buy cheap and places to spend the extra. Power supplies are where I spend extra. The one I had in this computer was an 800w really nice unit that lasted 9 years, very impressive.
My other systems usually get around 3-5 years max from a power supply.
I also splurged on a nice ASUS board and it was worth the money, so stupid stable all this time.
I also got ram with heat spreaders before they were cool and have good airflow to keep everything cool, I think this has helped a lot in the long term reliability.
Sadly even buying the best will only take you so far. Just nothing to upgrade on this machine for any worthwhile improvements.
I used to shop an online-only store that sold old stock and gently used components for really cheap. But they went out of business, blaming Newegg for eating their lunch. Newegg.com has some decent prices for new components, but mostly, they were better at advertising. I can’t even remember the old shop’s name any more.
Yeah, I had a similar local place like that I used to get all sorts of stuff from. They have toned things down a lot now though and don’t really sell parts anymore, mostly whole systems.
10years ago they were THE place to go for used electronics, they would get pallets of electronics of all shapes and sizes in every week.
I hit the jackpot one time and picked up some digital camera docks for like $200 thinking I could resell them for $10 each, turned out I made around $10k off those all said and done. That money actually went to buying the computer I am using now actually (and a few others, loaded up my family that year for Christmas).
I may have some stuff kicking around, but all I have is AMD stuff, and it’s mostly last gen stuff… May have a PSU, think I got some ram, dvdr… Got a stack of 2.5” hdds about 10” tall…
If your interested in an Asus motherboard and a quad core CPU, I’ll dig it out and get specs. Pretty sure the Mobo is faulty now though, it’s unstable on OC
I too had an old case lying around. I picked up a few parts from the this pc build at Tech News With Me and that did the job. If you have an older motherboard, better to get a new one or else you'll have to stick with the older cpus and other components. GT 1030 andd Pentium G4560 fit nice for a budget build.
Yeah, most of the offers from this thread fell through but with some horse trading on craigslist and some very nice people on BLF trading computer parts for MT09R mods in my other thread I have been able to piece together a fairly nice desktop for myself and my Mom at this point. Which I plan to give her in an unfinished state today lol.
2500k for her, 8700k for me that I actually got paid to take all said and done by trading an XHP70.2 GT on craigslist + cash. I was pretty happy with that deal to say the least. Until I realized it needed DDR4 and I caught wind of those prices lol. I managed to get 8gb of 2133 ram but I could really use more
The list of stuff I am still looking for breaks down like this:
Needs:
DDR4 memory
Hard drives / NAS, I need more storage and also backup drives for the storage I already have
Large SSD or NVME drive to use as a working drive for video / photo editing ect.
Nicer power supply, preferably 80+ Gold that turns the fan off at low loads for my Moms computer
140mm and 120mm fans
Would be nice to haves:
USB 3.0 hub and/or docking station
Nicer USB 3.0 SD card reader, I have a cheap one but the speeds are not the best.
Thin and light laptop
Nice router with wireless AC, I got 2 differnt ones recently but one drops internet randomly and the other has really bad wifi range.
Monitors, both me and my Mom run triple monitor setups and all of the ones we have now are 11 years old and showing their age Although these are hard to ship.
Power backups, same problem as the monitors with shipping.
I am also looking for another complete computer, my flashlight work desk is also the family computer desk. So we really need another computer someplace so that others can help with photo editing and such while I am using the family desk. It doesn’t have to be anything super fancy, 2500k or newer would be fine.
My Q9550 would work but it is outdated and uses more power at idle then the newer systems do at full load. It heats the room up noticeably when it is on all day.
If anyone has any computer parts laying around let me know, can possibly trade flashlights or services or pay cash depending.
For your mom’s computer, have you thought about using the Ryzen 2200G with 8GB of DDR4?
Would make for a very nice system. About as powerful as my i5 6500 from what I’ve experience(little brother’s PC), but has much more powerful integrated graphics, and is even more efficient on idle and under load compared to my 6500. And works nicely with GIMP and Krita.
Yes, I considered that option very very hard actually. The deal breaker was DDR4.
I already have 32gb of DDR3 sitting here, more then she needs but she can easily push past 8gb believe it or not. 40-50 documents + a dozen file search programs + dictionary / thesaurus + firefox with more tabs then I care to think about + music really puts stress on the ram and system in general.
The performance between the 2200g and the 2500k @ 4.2ghz I have for her now according to benchmarks was basically a dead heat. She would need a separate video card anyways to drive 3 monitors (which is something I forgot, I could use a semi-recent video card with support for 3+ monitors, using old cards right now) so that point was lost as well.
To make ryzen a worthwhile upgrade would of needed something like a 2400g, 1500, 1600 ect. Which I also seriously considered even up to this week had I been able to find a screaming deal I could not refuse but then the cost started creeping up to the point I just could not afford it even with selling the 2500k.
I was hoping to have the computer ready by mothers day, I got the hardware basically done at this point, just have to get the software installed and setup how she wants (not a simple task as you could guess with that kind of work load lol) and then transfer her stuff over.
With some heavy trading on craigslist I ended up with 32gb of slow cheap DDR4 for my own system for basically free if you don’t factor in all the time involved. Although that was not a normal deal to say the least lol.
Been watching for some more DDR4 but just can’t seem to find any good deals. The cheapest it seems to go for is around $8-10 a GB.
I do have some 120mm fans on hand, and other PC stuff, like a nice big CPU cooler and a GTX 680, but shipping from the US/Canada, as you said, is prohibitively expensive with these large components.
Edit: Removed it. I don’t think I need another light sorry.