What do you do with your old systems?

Shicky · 17 Apr 2015 at 08:36

Hi all,

random question but I'm curious what everyone does with their old rigs/laptops?

I remember building a rig which cost over £1500 when I was a kid and bought a £600 laptop and three years ago. I tend to use these things until they start to break and from that point they slowly work their way to the graveyard in my attic. Does everyone try to sell as things go obsolete, say every two years tops? Or do people do similar to me?

I figure I've wasted plenty of money this way

But I see no point resurrecting old rigs as I'm sure nothing could be reused.

peterwalkley · 17 Apr 2015 at 08:46

Generally keep until its broken beyond any point in repairing, then just take a hammer to any hard drives and take it all to local tip for recycling.

My girls get the older kit when I or missus upgrade.

stulid · 17 Apr 2015 at 08:46

Sell them while they are still worth something so that money can go to a shiny new item.

OLDPHART · 17 Apr 2015 at 10:20

Pass them on to my sons this goes for parts as well GPU, etc.

IvanDobskey · 17 Apr 2015 at 10:21

I upgrade bits when needed and sell the old.

Offsets the cost of the new stuff.

I hardly have any old PC bits lying around.

foster grant · 17 Apr 2015 at 10:22

OLDPHART said:
Pass them on to my sons this goes for parts as well GPU, etc.

+1

zophiel · 17 Apr 2015 at 10:25

IvanDobskey said:
I upgrade bits when needed and sell the old.

Offsets the cost of the new stuff.

I hardly have any old PC bits lying around.

This is what we do too. Can be quite costly otherwise, when the wife has to have the same.

hp7909 · 17 Apr 2015 at 10:53

Use to sell in bits to help fund upgrades but last few years have been keeping them & managed to put together some rigs for office use

stulid · 17 Apr 2015 at 11:00

Knowing when to sell is also key, need to try and do it before a release of a new item and before any performance numbers are out.

PurplePhoenix · 17 Apr 2015 at 11:07

My Laptop is round my sisters flat and my old gaming desktop is round a mates house.

other old parts has gone into the family pc.

philo-sofa · 17 Apr 2015 at 11:55

Only really had an 'old rig' when I moved countries (I sold the box and scren separately, kept periperhals) otherwise I've always upgraded piece by piece too quickly for a compeltely new build.

eldergeek · 17 Apr 2015 at 11:56

it depends. I gave my old quad core AMD to a mate that desperately needed an upgrade. I've sold my i5 rig to fund my DX racer chair.

FatRakoon · 17 Apr 2015 at 14:33

I went through a sort of show-off time in my life ,when I built my own gaming LAN room, a few years ago, and this is now not really used that much anymore, but the PCs are mostly still in there.

What I do, is simply keep my main PC in a constant state of upgrading, and so I dont really have a PC, as such, left over, because each time, I change this or that, the previous part goes into one of the LAN machines, so they too are in a state of upgrading for most of the time.

The only time I do have stuff left over, 9/10 timesI simply give it a to mates, cos mostly its a single part... The only time I can think when Idid do big swapsies, was when I was upping all my PCs to 64Bit, but again, it was done over a good few months, so again I was able to sort out a few PCs for mates, but only the basics like Mobo & CPU and RAM... in nearly all times of upgrades, the PSU, Case, screen, keyboard and mouse are kept the same... I always buy good ones in the first place so I dont need to upgrade that much. My main Mouse for example is my G5 and I love it so much, that I have 4 of the buggers, similarly, the basic Microsoft WebScroll Eye is a cheap tacky mouse that is just a basic mouse but tracks absolutel perfectly and has done for years.

Im waffling. Im stopping.

Shicky · 17 Apr 2015 at 15:40

stulid said:
Knowing when to sell is also key, need to try and do it before a release of a new item and before any performance numbers are out.

I think this is part of my problem, I don't need a great system as the most intensive thing I do is play pretty old games such as tf2. So I'm able to keep going until there's a real problem. I'm also fairly clueless on new items coming out so timing the market would be pretty impossible for me

CEUOTC · 17 Apr 2015 at 15:53

Sell new systems to work mates, rest goes to the family for free.

Rob Turbo · 17 Apr 2015 at 17:06

I usually donate my old stuff to family, mainly to my dad, his PC is 99% my old stuff! My younger brother and my niece get some bits now and then if they need it.

I rarely sell anything PC related, mostly because the PCs I used to build were all budget, by the time I'd finished with bits they weren't worth anything, now I have a more costly gaming setup and no console, when I upgrade this the parts will probably still be worth something, so I might start selling the old bits to help with the cost of new bits!

The-Fender · 18 Apr 2015 at 11:50

I move the parts down the line to second computer for my girlfriend to game on.

almoststew1990 · 18 Apr 2015 at 11:54

I usually get torn between funding an upgrade or gadget or something, or making a old PC to push to its limits. I'm currently torn between going xfire with my 7970 for GTA V (which would need a new Power supply) or making a matx or itx pc for the bedroom for gamepad gaming in bed.

geeko · 18 Apr 2015 at 15:56

Hang on to it all for spares until I run out of room, then have a clear out

Usher · 18 Apr 2015 at 16:07

Most of my old stuff is on the shelf in my computer room, several GPU's going back to the first Gforce up to a GTX580 are gathering dust.