What computer treasures have you found outside of the major stores?

[exploder]

There are no thrift stores for miles around here with used computers or parts. I have picked up bargains on craigslist though. My wife found a great deal on an 8 core AMD FX system on craigslist. We got the system for $100.00! The guy couldn't sell it because the case looked like junk! I could have cared less because I had a used gaming case sitting around to reassemble it in. Ebay is another great place to get a bargain! My desktop has all the bells and whistles and many of it's parts were found on ebay.

[poorguy]

Ebay is another great place to get a bargain! My desktop has all the bells and whistles and many of it's parts were found on ebay.

I agree and if one is willing to search the many ads of many pages one can find superb bargains.

[him610]

All of my excess, serviceable textiles, furniture, books, electronics, peripherals, network devices, and computers go to the local Goodwill Store. I don't know what happens to them after that.

[Shibblet]

I have seen some EVE online players utilize about that many screens when playing the game. Could have been a good time for you to try it out

Of 17" CRT's? Can you imagine?

Big ol' 1.5" off white bezels. All running 640x480 resolution on my 3dfx Voodoo 3... Listening to them click through graphics modes every time I start up the game...

How much power would that take? How could you stack them correctly? Did Windows even have multi-monitor support back then? This was definitely my pre-Ubuntu days. This would have definitely given my Pentium 200MMX a run for it's money.

[MoebusNet]

My best treasure find was 2 years ago; a dual-core AT tower in working condition sitting next to a dumpster. The video card was too ancient to be supported by any current OS, but a quick swap and it is still running Ubuntu today. Hard to beat free!

[Autodave]

My wife was walking the dog and it happened to be garbage day. She saw what looked like a very nice laptop bag and picked it out of the box of garbage. It was way heavier than she expected. She opened the bag and there was a Sony Vaio in it. She brought it home.

When I looked at it, I saw right away that something had been spilled on the keyboard. Several keys were stuck or sticking. I removed the keyboard and since I had nothing to lose, I immersed it in warm water and let it soak. I played with all the keys and then rinsed it off thoroughly and dried it. Reinstalled keyboard and pressed the power button and it came to life. Win7 was pretty much toasted probably due to the sticking keys and everything else that kills Windows. So, I grabbed the Xubuntu 16.04 and installed it. Now, for about 1.5 hours of work and no expense, I have a rather nice dual core 2.8 with 4G RAM. And a nice case to carry it in!

[poorguy]

[snip]
it happened to be garbage day.

I love big trash pickup day.

I've found all kinds of excellent finds that a little TLC made 100% working again.

[Tadaen_Sylvermane]

Several months this thread has been sitting. Just saying today I found a Samsung SyncMaster P2250 1080p monitor, using it now perfectly fine. 10 bucks at Goodwill. Damn thrift stores are addicting.

[Frogs Hair]

I just received 16 GB of memory for free, so I'm two components closer to building a computer out of spare parts.

Asus M4N78 PRO
2x8 GB Corsair Memory
LG 1680 x 1050 Monitor
Nvidia 8400 GS
Gatetway PS2 Keyboard/Mouse
Ultra 750 PSU
CPU Fan

Still Need:
AMD 3+ CPU
HDD
Case

[poorguy]

Still Need:
AMD 3+ CPU
HDD
Case

I've found excellent deals on eBay buried in the far back ads for next to nothing.

Unless you need a super big SSD / HDD Newegg has 120 GB SSDs for under $20.00 and they work great for Linux.