Buyers regret or pointless purchases?

Ice Tea

Ice Tea

Ice Tea

Soldato
Joined
1 Nov 2004
Posts
5,186
I bought one of the USB powered DVD writers about 10 years ago and apart from checking it worked i've never used it.

I couldn't use it now even if i wanted too as i've binned all my disks a few years back so it will probably just stay in the loft.
 
Similar story, around 20 years ago I removed the Blu-ray writer from a a new laptop to install a second 2.5 HDD. Spent lots of time searching for an internal caddy which would fit the laptop and more time for a suitable external caddy for the drive. I should have sold the Blu-ray drive back then when it was worth something, but kept it. I still have it in a box somewhere and never used once, not even when it was in the laptop.
 
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Most of mine are just around size.

I moved from a flat to a house, and bought a load of things that normally I would never have done.

Amp and speakers for the PC and another set for the TV, stuff like that.

Then with kids suddenly everything is thrown into reverse and I'm trying to get rid of as much stuff as possible and compress what I've got to free up more space.

Thankfully though I never spent much money on any of this stuff, so it wasn't too painful moving it on.
 
Ice Tea said:
I bought one of the USB powered DVD writers about 10 years ago and apart from checking it worked i've never used it.

I couldn't use it now even if i wanted too as i've binned all my disks a few years back so it will probably just stay in the loft.
Click to expand...
Buy some discs
 
I brought an external bluray player/writer many many years ago as I thought it would be useful. It sat in its box for basically its whole life until I threw it away a few weeks ago.
 
Ooooh, a thread loathed in regret. Sign me up.

Xbox Series X for me. I already had a solid rig and everything ended up coming out on PC anyway. Pointless. Should've sold it during COVID for a profit, but ended up flogging it last year at a loss.

I also acquired a Switch 2 and several games for it. I haven't played a single one. They're still in the wrappers.
 
I recently bought two Micro ATX cases Fractal Pop Mini Silent and NZXT H3, three Antec Freezer 36 coolers and a load of Antec P series fans. Five P140, three P120 Slim, eight P120. One cooler and four fans went to a budget AM5 build ATX in a different case.

Most of the above was simply to try and rehouse an old Micro ATX 4770k system in a smaller cooler quieter, build. It all failed, system is back in an old Phanteks Enthoo Mini XL (a case I also regret buying years ago).

I should really be simply getting rid of old hardware.

Currently contemplating a Fractal Derfine series case simply for the 5.25 bay support. But hardly a great case these days and another possible regret if I do buy.
 
Being the ever contrary person that I am, I decided to be "smart" many years ago and buy litecoin instead of bitcoin.

Just realised the above isn't in keeping with the forum heading. So....

I recently bought a 100W solar panel, just cause I thought it was something I wanted to experiment with during the time we had really hot weather, and indeed did manage to get close to 100W out of it. I have a large faraday pouch with a wind-up radio, wind up/battery lamp that is USB powered, a couple of dozen duracell batteries, and some rechargable batteries and a USB battery charger (which can be powered from the wind-up devices). I thought the solar panel would be an addition to that, and they would all come into their own if there was an air based nuclear explosion that took out electronics.

What can I say, it was a phase I was going thru !

I gave up trying to find a faraday pouch big enough to hold the panel.

And looking at some of the posts above from the different angle, 25+ years ago my ebay seller name was "dvd_writers". imported them from the US and sold a host of them, both external and internal. As I recall at the time the external one of choice was by HP. I moved onto blu-ray writers and eventually widened my offerings a lot and therefore changed my ebay seller_id.
 
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Raspberry Pi(s). I've bought Versions 2,3 & 4. tinkered with them a couple of times then I've put them in a draw. I've sold Versions 2 & 3 on here but I've kept V 4. Mainly because I broke the memory card slot (of sorts) It still works, but I don't think I'd be able to sell it, so I'll keep it until I have time to put pi-hole on it and use it for that.
 
In about 1999... maybe earlier, maybe later... I bought a SCSI slide scanner for about £500 from Jessops in Bromley. I had ideas for a website about my airshow visits. It was such a pain in the backside to use, especially getting the slides dust-free to scan, and then process the photos, that it gathered even more dust after only a few scanning sessions. Went in a skip about five years ago. What a waste!
 
Not hardware but Sonic Spinball was all of my savings and the worst game ever.

Hardware specifically I still haven't turned my Optiplex into a NAS / Plex server and it's been sat on my desk for 2 years.
 
Logitech G940 FFB hotas. Wires too short in the throttles, ffb overheating, hat switch and throttles had dead zones due to software filtering jitter out. With a bit of quality control they could have had a winner.
 
Great post idea lol.

I bought one of those mechanical keyboards on aliexpress that are just pre built custom ones. I swapped all the switches from blue to brown then installed rubber o-rings to reduce the noise so I could use it at work.

Damn escape broke ages ago... I'm still stubborn enough to use it, but man is it annoying!
 
Switch 1 OLED - barely played it, maybe half a dozen times
PS5 Pro - after playing it a few times, it was handed to my nephew.
PS5 Pro - Played once since setting it up
PS Portal - Once and never touched since
PSVR2 - played 3 times
Switch 2 - Got on release day, played Mario Kart a couple of Hours, then didnt touch it again until Donkey Kong came out, played that a couple of hours, and played less than an hour of Pokemon Violet.

Xbox One S
Xbox One S Digital
Xbox One X x2
Xbox Series S x 2
Xbox Series X - at least i play this on a daily basis

around 30 Limited and special edition controllers, all never played with, all boxed just on Display. I used my 3 Limited edition Elite Controllers.
around half a dozen of the PS5 special edition controllers again never played with

I really have a problem, a severe addiction some might say. i need to get rid of some stuff and try make some money back off it all, with all the dosh going towards building my own PC, or at least a couple of cracking monitors.
 
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Bought an expensive eGPU enclosure - rarely use it and by the time the purpose I bought it for comes around it'll be an antique :s

tangey said:
I recently bought a 100W solar panel, just cause I thought it was something I wanted to experiment with during the time we had really hot weather, and indeed did manage to get close to 100W out of it. I have a large faraday pouch with a wind-up radio, wind up/battery lamp that is USB powered, a couple of dozen duracell batteries, and some rechargable batteries and a USB battery charger (which can be powered from the wind-up devices). I thought the solar panel would be an addition to that, and they would all come into their own if there was an air based nuclear explosion that took out electronics.

What can I say, it was a phase I was going thru !

I gave up trying to find a faraday pouch big enough to hold the panel.
Click to expand...

Personally think it always worth having a bit of backup stuff and hopefully never use it - the odd time it is needed it can make a huge difference. Solar panel doesn't really need EMP protection it is the stuff which might be plugged into it which may be the vulnerability. If there is enough energy to damage [stored] solar panels probably talking about the kind of events where sub 1% of the global population survive.
 
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Small one but I bought two pairs of two different mouse skates for my mouse. I applied the control ones and was fine, but I wanted to try the fast ones and I didn’t like those, so I went back to the slow one but I took the second set off to try the stock skates.
Now I’m on the stock skates and I’m thinking of going back to the control ones but I’d have to get a third pair of skates. I’m a little irritated at myself for being indecisive and flip flopping around.
 
Rroff said:
Bought an expensive eGPU enclosure - rarely use it and by the time the purpose I bought it for comes around it'll be an antique :s



Personally think it always worth having a bit of backup stuff and hopefully never use it - the odd time it is needed it can make a huge difference. Solar panel doesn't really need EMP protection it is the stuff which might be plugged into it which may be the vulnerability. If there is enough energy to damage [stored] solar panels probably talking about the kind of events where sub 1% of the global population survive.
Click to expand...
This one has circuitry embedded in it's housing that provides direct USB-C and USB-A outputs amongst others, so I suspect this would be taken out in an event.
 
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