10 things you can do instead of throwing out your computer now normally when
you're doing a new system build or buying a new computer it's customary
just to get rid of the old computer smash the hard drive whatever the case
may be some state laws that require you to dispose of it properly this may cost
you a little money some places give you rebates or coupons depending on the
rules. number one give to people in need ok so giving the people in need it's
very easy to format a machine or delete your user profile off the computer you
can then give it to a friend family member or even a child just load a bunch
of free games there are so many free games out there on Steam and there's a
lot of free dog games I'm sure they would enjoy it as a gaming machine. number two
format and upgrade formatting and upgrading it's not very difficult to
upgrade an old machine and keeping it as a backup for instance a laptop you could
add more RAM and even the desktop it's very easy to pop them all then see what
kind of RAM they take and max it out it usually only cost about 20 or 30 dollars
especially on an old machine so the parts are cheap
number three make a boinc server you can run it as a point server boinc is a
wonderful cloud computing platform where you can donate your computing power to
research projects for diseases mathematical calculations and other
great projects number four create a media server for your TV if your video
card has an HDMI out you can actually hook it up to a TV and use it as a media
server for things like Hulu Netflix and YouTube and the nice thing about that is
you can usually pick up a card with an HDMI out for about thirty dollars
depending on the card it may not do 1080 but it could most certainly do 720 many
people that also do this buy a wireless keyboard and mouse so they can be on the
couch and control the TV number five harvest for usable parts harvesting for
usable parts now this is something that I do whenever I'm doing a new system
build if the parts for my old machine are somewhat compatible with my new build I
may hold off on buying a particular part for instance if I do not have the money
at that point in time to buy the motherboard CPU RAM and a video card I
may pull my current video card out of the machine and use it in my next build
and the same thing goes for the ram ddr3 and ddr4 are the most common Ram at this
point in time my current machine does have ddr3 so if one of my older machines
as ddr3 I'll check the chips to see if one if they're compatible two if I can up
broadband internet connection and you know the machine is fairly decent you
can actually run in a game server on older games for instance I would
recommend Team Fortress 2 or even minecraft i myself have used old
hardware to run a team fortress 2 server of my own number 7 scrap and sell
scrapping and selling in the past I've actually scrapped machines for actual
metal for instance you have an empty case and sheet metal that you can take
to a recycling facility and get some cash for it now unless you have a lot
you're really not going to get to much but there's a lot of different things
you can do for instance the wire is on the power supply you can snip this and
this is considered low-grade wire also the aluminium heat sinks depending on
how big and how heavy they are they can actually worth something as well now
something that also coincides with scrapping and selling is actually
holding some of the parts and checking them on eBay to see how much they're
actually worth you can sometimes make some money just selling the actual
physical parts from your old machine for instance I have this ATI Radeon 84 90
that I pulled on one of my older machines this is actually worth about 30
bucks and also there's an older machine that I had
as an e 7500 that goes for about five to ten dollars and laptops as well if for
some odd reason the laptop doesn't work but you know that the screen works and
you have to know how to take it apart you can sometimes get anywhere between
twenty and forty dollars for the screen itself people crack their screens all
the time number eight donate for a tax deduction
you can also donate a computer or a laptop for a tax deduction there are
plenty of recycling facilities that will actually allow you to donate them for a
cause and get an actual tax deduct for instance when I was back in Chicago
there was a place called ATEN the assistive technology education Network
which would actually take the machines refurbish them and give them to schools
in need number nine make a steam box another great thing you
can do is you can use it as a steam box you can use it to actually stream your
computer games from your main machine to the TV for instance I have my main
computer in the other room that has a geforce 960 this computer in no way
shape or form can handle the higher end games however since it has a video card
with an HDMI out I can stream the game to the TV this especially works great if
you have an Xbox 360 controller or any other compatible controller
so it's actually really nice that my computer in the other room is running
the game and I'm able to do this on a bigger screen I can do it from the couch
and I'm actually still broadcasting live if other people wanted to watch and I
honestly notice no lag whatsoever between the controller and the computer
they really have this down to a 'T' so whether you spend a hundred dollars or I
think takes you on sale for $50 right now whether you buy the steam stream box
or use this method it's just it's a really great way to use an old machine
and number ten LAN machine test machine or render box last but not least you can
make a LAN machine test machine or render box what I mean by this is you
can make a machine just specifically for a LAN party a test machine in case your
machine goes down and you want to test parts and a render box so if you want a
network render for programs such as blender or 3ds max in conclusion there
are lots of things you can do with old computers and old hardware so before
throwing it out try to think of a way you can use it to improve your life or
somebody else's life and if you absolutely have to get rid of it please
recycle as always if you have any questions comments or concerns please