I found I needed more power.

[Dennis N]

Thanks for the information.

OK, to use that one on Amazon as an example, I can look it up on the Internet and see it was introduced in 2011. Fine. I see the word reconditioned. What does that entail? I would like to have information on what parts were replaced in the machine, if any, so that I know what not to be concerned about as I start using my refurbished computer. Some components not replaced could pass functionality testing, but still be close to requiring replacement after 6+ years on the job, like a power supply, or disk drive. Will I need to buy a new one soon? Possibly I am being too cautious.

But, that aside, I'm glad you got something that does what you want. May it live on for many years!

[Dennis N]

This spec sheet for Optiplex 990 might be useful!
https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments...spec-sheet.pdf

[irv]

If you buy from Amazon you can always ask questing at the bottom of the product page, just before the reviews. I believe everything is tested and if they test okay they are not replaced. Power supplies are either good or bad. When they go they go. Memory and the hard drive can show a problem and might be replaced, the same goes with motherboards. Since the late 70's I have only had to replace 2 power supplies, 1 memory stick, and 1 hard drive. I have replaced hard drives with SSD but the hard drives were still working fine.

[Dennis N]

Good points. Did you see the spec sheet for Optiplex 990 I linked in post #12? I thought it might be informative.

[irv]

Yes, I did Dennis N, thanks a lot.

[mastablasta]

i was doing a bit of research and it seems refurbished here are quite expensive. if i check the passmark a comparable CPU (and usually better) costs me only 50 EUR more than the used one.
sure the used machines are inspected and come with a 1 year warranty, but still this is excessive.

for example:
HP Compaq Elite 8300 CMT Intel® Core™ i5-3470 (3.2 GHz / Turbo boost 3.60 GHz), 4 GB DDR3, 500 GB HDD, DVD-RW, Intel HD Graphics, Windows 7 Pro COA would cost about 250 EUR (let's say arround 280 USD)
passmark: 6718

i've setup a system with AMD Ryzen 3 2200G, 8 GB DDR4 ram, 1TB HDD, DVD RW and it would cost: 305 EUR (approx 340 USD)
passmark: 7314

so similar CPU, more powerful GPU, better/stronger PSU, twice the hard disk space and twice the RAM, and all for only about 50 EUR more. and it comes with a 2 year warranty. OK there is no OS pre-installed but since we talk about installing linux it doesn't matter. and win7 is nearly dead anyway.

something is really not OK here. i know business grade should be better made, but if you ask me such an old PC should cost no more than 100, maybe 150 EUR (approx 170 USD).

[lammert-nijhof]

This whole century I did buy refurbished ex-lease computers. I have been especially happy with the last two.

An 2008 HP dc5850 (DOP 8000/ US $ 160), which I used from early 2014 till May 2019. I upgraded the PC with 8GB DDR2, 128GB SSD, 3 HDDs (2 disks I owned) in total 1.82TB; two $8 Chinese PCIe cards for SATA-3 and USB 3.0; front-panel USB 3.0, 1GB GeForce 8400GS and an AMD Phenom II X4 B97 (3.2GHz). Only case, power-supply, motherboard and DVD are original.

An 2012 HP Elitebook 8460p (€194/$217), a laptop I bought in June 2017 with an i5-2530m, 8GB DDR3 and I replaced the 320GB HDD with a 1TB SSHD.

I never had any complaints about those PCs. They had good performance using Ubuntu Mate on ZFS. In my opinion 11 years was getting somewhat old for the 2008 HP dc5850 and 74 is a nice age to buy a new PC once again, so I did build a Ryzen 3 2200G with 16GB DDR4 in May.

I still had parts of a 3rd ex-lease PC I bought somewhere in 2009; a 2003 HP530 SFF and I used that HP-SFF till the power supply died on me in 2014. In 2019 I moved the motherboard and Pentium 4 HT (3.0GHz) to a Tower, put my IDE DVD and IDE HDDs in it and I use it now again as back-up server with 0.89TB