I’ve got a problem. I’m a technology hoarder. I still have the first PC I bought myself some 15 years ago cause “I might use it for something!”
My desktop after that one is an unRAID box. The one after that is my “lab” PC (3d printing, embedded projects etc) and then finally, my current generation main PC.
I want to upgrade my main PC soon (can’t run new games, CPU and GPU limited), which means potentially kicking everything else “down the chain” to a new purpose as it gets a slightly better version of itself. I find the thought of this exhausting though. So much configuration/setup to give upgrades to things whose existence is only because I didn’t want to part with functioning hardware.
My current thought is to “break the cycle” by condensing all non-primary functions to my current PC, as an unRAID box hosting everything other than main gaming PC. From there, the rule needs to be tech goes into one of those two boxes, or it gets sold/donated.
What do you all think. Is that reasonable? How do you manage your spare equipment post upgrade?
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If it’s no longer usable to you, either sell or donate it. Simply because you don’t have a use for it anymore doesn’t mean you have to make a new use for it.
Perfectly logical, but somehow difficult… “I might want to turn this into a media center PC” or “maybe I should put xp on this for old SecuDrive(sp?) games”. I’ve got a little bit of a hoarder mentality with things that could turn into fun new projects!
I hear ya, and I do a little bit of that. However, I’ve had to force change this habit slowly by throwing away anything without a functional need.
Unless I do look into the project and have a plan for it, then more likely than not I won’t make a use of it. :)
Yeah, I think I need to move that way. If it doesn’t fit in the unRAID box or the main PC. It needs to go. Whether that’s donation, selling, recycling or trash, I should just quit hoarding the parts. I’m one of those folks that saves the best weapons till the end of the game “in case I need them”, picks the neutral path instead of the dark/light path cause I don’t want to cut off my options, and would rather organize my 50 spare USB cables by size/type/length than throw them away. 🤣 It’s a thought process that pervades more than just spare PC parts after upgrade lol. Habit breaking is definitely the name of the game!
I usually sell my GPUs shortly after upgrading to the last one. Otherwise I usually keep them until they break
If you haven’t touched it or needed it after a few years, time to go.
I used to try and donate to hackers for charity but I wound up tossing most of it. I used to have fucking 5 ft tall boxes full of shit. Just gotta let that stuff go.
I like to think I sell them or give them to friends. Realistically I either put them in my server (started when I build a new PC) or put them in the way until my wife gets mad and puts them in the basement where I never remember them again.
*gestures broadly to the several stacks of psus and cases from the early 2000s in the corner of the boiler room* 🤣
d) I’m in this photo and I don’t like it.
You never know when you’ll need them. As soon as they’re gone a perfect use case will pop up.
I usually just give them to friends. The more friends I have who are into pc gaming the better, I think.
Let…go? No, I don’t think so.
I just built up a PC for my kid to play with while I’m gaming out of hardware I’ve had for at least 8 years so… I don’t.
I might suggest a few things you can do if you’re trying to dejunk. The first is to use your old hardware for stuff like a game server,Nextcloud instance, or any number of things you could do to improve your digital QoL. I’d also try and give away old gear to folks you know that might be in need. For instance, I gave my old laptop to a writer friend of mine who I kid you not was writing on his phone, so I gave him my old laptop with a copy of Fedora Linux(Which I daily drive too, so I can help him if he needs any help w/ stuff) on it and he’s been using the hell out of that thing. The third thing I’d do if you can’t figure anything out to do with it is just to make sure its being stored in a place that’s out of the way and won’t cause storage issues for other stuff. Then you can just sit on it until it finds a use and if you do not have the space, just go ahead and get them recycled or something. I would definitely caution against keeping too much stuff as well as it really does negatively affect mental health.
Hope these ideas help some, good luck!
See I keep telling myself that I will put that hardware to good use, but never do. And that is why I end up with a hoard of 5+ year old hardware in the basement or closet…
I hold onto to everything. Never what what hobby build I might try on a rainy weekend.
This, except the rainy weekend happens and I rarely look to my pile of old equipment as the time filler 😅
My dad used to have some really old hardware, and he ended up getting rid of it after we convinced him to because it was so outdated and there would never be a time we’d actually want to use that.
I kind of regret that now. Some of it was broken and a lot of it was outdated, but I could really use a dedicated machine for older software and games. I’m sure if I look online, I can find that stuff. But not that long ago, there they were, in the garage, about a half-dozen old enterprise machines that between them probably had enough to run an XP machine for some old games and other programs.
I’m in the process of upgrading to a whole new computer and putting my six-year-old tired prebuilt to more relaxing work. My dad and I are discussing what to use it for. We can hook it up to get games and movies we have on its hard drive on the TV. Or, my dad hasn’t had a desktop of his own in ages and he’s considering turning it into a Linux box for his own projects that just can’t be built comfortably on a Pinebook.
It sounds like you’ve considered doing that kind of stuff, finding the right job for the tool. Well, here’s what I, someone who often doesn’t finish what they start, did to finally kick my own train into gear. I made a plan. And I’m sticking to it. Hell, my parts got here early and my plan still isn’t to start building until Thursday because it’s all part of the plan. My old PC will be put to use, one way or another. He’s still got a lot of fire in him. Runs a hell of a lot better than a machine of his specks and age has any right to! There’s no way I’m junking or scrapping him or leaving him in a corner to collect dust. But without a plan? Without a plan, he’d be piled up like the 16-year-old hard drives my dad will never throw away.
So if you don’t want to give your machines to people who can use them or otherwise get rid of them, but you also don’t want to start up your own personal museum, then make a plan. All the work to get everything running sounds like it sucks before you do it, hell, it might while you’re doing it, but it’ll be over soon enough and you’ll forget all the trouble you had with it.
If I don’t use the parts for another server or something, I will donate or sell at a steep discount to friends.
Although it’s probably not great for me to be seeking out new excuses, another server implies you might have a few… Any cool uses you’d like to share?
Nothing of great importance; nfs, jellyfin, proxies and tunnels, docker containers with a variety of self hosted apps. I’ve been getting into infrastructure monitoring with Prometheus, grafana, some databases, syslog, etc.
I have a supermicro frakenserver with a couple xeon that I use for net sim and vm.
Ive also got an old repurposed HP thin client runnin home assistant, too. That wasn’t really leftover PC parts though. Just cheaper than a raspberry pi, lol.
I don’t rebuild all that often though. My last three main builds were phenomII to 6th gen intel to 12th gen intel.
I’ve still got all my old GPUs from my GTX 260 onward sitting in my basement (even came with me through a move), so I’m probably not one to provide input. 😬
If you can’t install it into the new system or have beyond 1 or 2 parts in a category only existing as a backup it’s probably junk. If you have old ram or something that could still work on the newest board it might be useful but you probably don’t need 5 builds worth of ram. Especially if 95% can’t even be installed on to the new board.
If you’re updating parts to have the latest all the time you probably need to sell your old parts just to afford new parts. And sooner the better to maximize the sell price. Personally I’m still using 6 year old hardware and will probably worry about upgrading when it bursts into flames or windows stops pushing security patches to the OS supported by the hardware.
Drives would probably be based on size and age if they aren’t already in the system or on a NAS.
Drives thankfully can easily have extended utility, I don’t feel bad about those cause I haven’t hit my bay limits yet. Using them in the unRAID box also means I don’t really worry about them dying and losing anything valuable.
Speaking of 5 builds worth of RAM… I found and disposed of a couple 128MB sticks the other day. Progress 😅
Every time I’ve gotten rid of hardware, I end up wishing I hadn’t. So now I just don’t get rid of hardware.
I just built my daughter a PC out of mostly spare parts. There’s be some other use case again for more of my junk too I’m sure.
I just keep stuff until its not useful for anything i could be doing with it any more. I have few extra computers kick’n around that can still play some of the games every one is playing for extra lan systems or as a backup in case my main rig kicks the bucket.
i have a bunch of laptops kick’n around that are kinda old and really need to be disposed of, i’ll probably just take them to a recycle place when ever I get around to it
