I love garbage picking

**zmjjmz** · July 20th, 2008

Originally Posted by alienexplorers

80 Meg IDE drive.

Wow, that's an old computer there.
More RAM than HDD...

**afeasfaerw23231233** · June 12th, 2009

I love garbage picking too. Many years ago I picked a PIII 1G with 256MB RAM Compaq computer. At that time P4 was just announced so it wasn't bad at all!

I also got a free five-botton good mouse, 3com and Intel NIC, good linksys 100mb rouer, working 50m CAT5 cable, coaxial cable, electic cord, a big coil of solder, two power strips and a 10-inch LCD monitor from the dump site.

But I think that should be a bad habit for me to scan around the garbage site everytime I walk pass it.

**Rufus Cooper** · June 12th, 2009

I recently picked up an old (Windows 98 ) PC.
He said It would be unrepairable...
I didn't even have to buy any hardware, just formatted the harddrive, installed

UBUNTU

and everything worked just fine.
Now my little sister has got a PC for free.

**starcannon** · June 12th, 2009

I do this as often as it is available; its great, I get to geek out with some free parts, I then donate the new machines with Ubuntu loaded and working perfectly to a deserving family. I am also currently saving up some vintage parts; I'm working out an AMD K62 era tower for myself; not because its really useful for anything, but my first Linux box was a custom built machine Asus P5 A-B motherboard, AMD K62 350mhz cpu(later upgraded to a 550).

Anyway, I know what you mean, I get excited over tech-left-overs.

**The Real Dave** · June 12th, 2009

Originally Posted by alienexplorers

Today a neighbor threw out a computer because the processor or something on the motherboard died. Well I took it and stripped it. I got 3 working 256Meg memory modules, a working 80 Meg IDE drive, and a working 650 watt power supply. It was like christmas in July.

I've gotten over 6 computers from my current school, and five from my old one =] =] The IT guy was upgrading the server, and he gave me one of the old ones

Now its gonna replace my DIY server

(128Mb RAM, 450 Mhz PIII, W2K Pro)

**afeasfaerw23231233** · June 13th, 2009

However some people just feel us disgusting for picking old stuff. Such as some of my relatives always tell me not to do so. But everything I picked up from the garbage site has a practical use to me.

**Mehall** · June 13th, 2009

Whenever I can easily get it back home (no car/driving license, and PCs are damn heavy) I respond to any advert on freecycle offering any PCs.

I need an old laptpo though, and I also need a couple PSUs for the computers lying here.
I have a few things that need to go to the tip, but trust me: none of you will bother lifting anything out of them, already done and dusted