Used Machines

[Jimmykicker]

Where is the best place to sell your used machine for the best price? This has been an issue I've been wondering about for some time. I mean, I always want to upgrade, but am never willing to just let my current 18-month machine just sit there and collect dust...where does everybody else do with theirs???

[Solarjetman]

You could donate it to charity and take it as a tax deduction. I am no sure how good of a deduction you get though. I have never done it.

EDIT: at least in the USA you can

[The village idiot]

I tend to hang on to my old machines. You never know when an old part will come in handy.

But if you must get rid of it, charity is likely your best value. While it doesn't give you an immediate gratification, it will in the long run. If you live in the US, you can deduct the donation from your taxes. It will also give you a measure of self respect that no one can take away by helping those less fortunate than you.

[gmatov]

For most of us, the deduction wouldn't work. Must exceed 2% of adjusted gross. ( I think, might be higher.)

And, too, the OS CD has to go with it, or restore disk. That can be a problem. Unless the disk goes, you are legally obliged to remove the OS.

In my case, I'd like to give some of my antiques away, preferably to the local grade school, but that would mean they have to spend money for an OS disk.

I build all of my own, so don't have a disk for each machine. But, MS says you can have it on multiple computers, so long as you can't or won't be running them simultaneously.

Here's where, as I mentioned elsewhere, those remaindered OS disks from the shows come into play and protect what's left of my retirement fund. You can buy a legal, shrinkwrapped, licensed disk for 50 bucks or so, rather than 129 or whatever is the going price..

Now, if the buyer has the OS already, you can, I think, leave it on, provided he proves it to your satisfaction.

But then, you would wipe the drive anyway, wouldn't you? And you better arm yourself with a GOOD eraser. Millions of people are getting rid of machines that have all their personal data still on the drive, thinking a quick format made them safe. It didn't.

Man, talk about rambling.

Cheers,

George

[subclubkid]

As a good rule of thumb I dont think I will ever get rid of any of my hard drives, if I dont want them anymore I will just destroy them.

A lady at work sold me her old computer, and because I was curious I ran some software on it to recover all lost files...and...well that was a deciding factor in my stance on getting rid of hard drives. Also a deciding factor in realizng that girl was a freak!

[Solarjetman]

Also a deciding factor in realizng that girl was a freak!

Dang it, I told her to make sure those pictures of me were gone

Seriously though, subclubkid has a point, if you do get rid of a hard drive, get a program that will erase it accoring to DoD standards. IIRC that means it will make the entire disk 0's, then all 1's, then all back to 0's. That way you would need multi-milion dollar machines to retrieve any data.

[The village idiot]

PGP has a feature that will allow for beter than DOD erasures.

[flaninacupboard]

I never sell old parts, they get seeped out to friends and family, and as they're on permenant loan, you can always have them back when you have a crash!

[Jimmykicker]

Well none of that sounds too promising...I want to keep the OS, so no charity deal here...what is a good disk formatter that is cheap or (preferably) free? Has anyone ever successfully sold their used computer???

[Solarjetman]

Has anyone ever successfully sold their used computer???

Got five dollars for a Radio Shack TANDY 102



I miss it

[The village idiot]

If you are going to sell it. Then you need to get PGP (it's free) And set up a computer that you can use to wipe the old hard drive! PGP7 allowed this, as does PGP8. Just do a google search for PGP.

[subclubkid]

what are the specs, and how much are you looking for on it

[BJ_M]

........
But then, you would wipe the drive anyway, wouldn't you? And you better arm yourself with a GOOD eraser. Millions of people are getting rid of machines that have all their personal data still on the drive, thinking a quick format made them safe. It didn't.

Man, talk about rambling.

Cheers,

George

good advice -- i bought a used sgi system on ebay from a company and they left EVERYTHING on it (a senior sales manager quit they and didnt know the password to get into the machine)

i got 4 years of very personal letters and memo and emails and company letters and tonnes of stuff on it that she had written ...

it was from autodesk in fact, which makes it odder ......

[rkr1958]

Has anyone ever successfully sold their used computer???

I sold my Kaypo 1 on ebay back in 1999 for $65.00. Just hold onto your old computer long enough until it becomes vintage ... you should be able to sell it then.

[g_shocker182]

I dont know if its just me but all of a sudden I really want to buy some old hard drives.

[gmatov]

I think one is called "The Shredder", but it might just be to wipe particulr files.
I have one other, run from floppy that will write 1's and 0's, alternately, but that does not do a complete job. It has to be a random write. The DOD says do this to make it unreadable, but the recovery services can recover from that, so that's no good. I think DOD says 3 writes. And, a large, strong magnet won't do it either. I have tried that.

I had one in for repair, and the lady's son ( I think it was the boy, could have been her ) had some randy stuff on it. Was still under 3 year warranty, so got an exchange. At the time, news had a court case of a tech at one of the biggies who turned in an owner who had sent in a machine for repair, the tech browsed the HDD, found "smut", called the cops, he went to court, probably cost him tons to get out of it, if he did.

You know, we have a whoe bunch of holier than thous in this country, and probably other countries as well.

Watch your ass. Don't format, wipe to the extreme. Or sell it without HDD, smash it with a sledge and disperse the parts.

I'm not paranoid, I KNOW the bastards are out to get me.l

Cheers,

George

[gmatov]

Jeez, I type slow!!

Shocker,

At your age you're turning into a dirty old man!!! You shock me!!!

Cheers,

George

[g_shocker182]

Nobody knows my age here!

I make sure of it!

[Jimmykicker]

I've decided not to sell now because of the realase of new generation processors very soon (AMD64, Prescott). I think the time to upgrade will be when they come out with the new socket 775 specs. The specs on my comp were as follows:

ABIT AT7
Pioneer 106
Toshiba SD-M1612
Teac 540E CD-RW
HP L1520 Monitor on DVI
AMD 1900+
Radeon 8500 64MB
2 40GB IBM 7200RPM on Raid 0
512M Samsung PC2700
Microsoft Office Keyboard
Logitech Optical Mouse
Creative Labs V.92 PCI
WinXP Pro

A few people asked me about it at $1200, but I was selling it for like $1050-1100....which may be too expensive, I don't know...but I'm not selling it now, so it doesn't matter...

[pixel]

Good for you. You'll never realise how invaluable old parts can be.
You get a new setup, and all of a sudden, something goes wrong, like a hard drive crashes (happened to me) but as long as you have the old one lying around you can remove the parts you need.

Also invaluable is the fact you can give parts to other memebers of your family if they suddenly have a failure (with the price you could resell it at its cheaper to keep it for spares instead of buying new parts at a loss).

The motherbaord and components are probably the only parts you will never be able to use in another PC. If you can find a buyer for the mobo, cpu, RAM and fan all as a set, that would be worth it. (All the other parts could be used in another PC in case of a failure.)

Even better, you could simply buy a new mobo, RAM, cpu and fan, and not have to buy anything else if you use all your other parts.

I don't know why you might want to go getting a new one, unless you are wanting very fast encodes or are doing real-time encodes. I have seen computer specs on this site with people having lower spec setups than you.

[Jimmykicker]

Fast encoding is exactly what I want. It IS a good computer, but loud and a little slow on the encoding end...I also need a bigger monitor...the setup I want has water cooling to get rid of the noise, more hard drive space, faster processor and FSB, AIW video card....just better overall -- a do it all system that will last a long time....

[pixel]

If you're wanting that, maybe you should just sell the old system.

I mean, if you're wanting such a high-spec system, you won't want to end up using parts from an old PC in it then.

If you can't sell it, it might be worth giving it to someone you know for their birthday/xmas or something if you can't get a good price for it. (Anyone would still love a PC with those specs.)

Remember water cooling is expensive. If you decide against using it, remember the fans for a new CPU will be even noisier, because as the speed goes up, the heat will go up.

I guess it is the new AMD you are waiting for. The new Intel is simply a budget processor being swept in to replace the Celeron I believe, but the P4 will still be Intels main project.

[Jimmykicker]

Yeah -- I figure that AMD might have worked out some of the major issues by next April or May -- and I figure Intel may have some good new stuff out by then (to counter AMD), so that is the time to buy -- plus I want to get the new technology of socket 774 and hopefully water cooling will be cheaper by then...so that will be the time to sell...

[pixel]

As the new technology comes out the price will drop rapidly for yours. Probably any offers you had for your PC at the moment will have gone down to a half, or even a third by the time you build your new system.

I don't know what you mean by Intel countering AMD. Intel already has the P4 running at 800MHz FSB and hyper-threading (makes the processor act like a dual processor system), and the P4s already have a bigger memory cache than the AMD's.

Not to mention that Intels are best for laborious taks or being constantly left on due to the safety feature built in (it divides the multiplier to give a slightly lower power on the processor), which AMD's do not have.

But anyway, AMD or Intel, I hope it turns out good for you.

[Jimmykicker]

I was talking about 64-bit technology in a desktop scheme -- but the truth is that I was going to buy an Intel anyway -- should have one with a 1066MHz FSB by that time...I bought my AMD last time about a month before Intel started killing them -- I think Intel is the way to go now for any video related issues...HTT is definitly a bonus.....anyway...

[pixel]

I don't see 1066MHz FSB's that far off. In fact P5000 RAM has just came out, so Intel will want to match the frequencies for this too.

If I was pushed an AMD would be OK because the most expensive AMD's clock in at around £200, but the most expensive P4's clock in at around £500.

You seem as if you will be upgrading your PC a lot, and, frankly, if you kept upgrading P4's you would soon empty your pockets.

[Jimmykicker]

Actually, I've never upgraded...last time was my first attempt at building my own system...I didn't really know what I was doing, but I think I still did a decent job...now after looking around for a couple of years, I think I know exactly what I want and wouldn't plan to upgrade for some time after that...anyway, yes, Intels are more expensive, but worth it to me in this case. Latest US prices on AMD 3200+ is about $480 and P4 3.2GHz is about $639 -- so $200 difference is not a whole lot and can be afforded in my opinion...anyway...

[pixel]

I wouldn't go for the 3.2GHz yet.

Many people follow the two step down rule: buy the third newest part out.

eg: instead of 3.2GHz, getting a 2.8GHz. or instead of a radeon 9800, getting a radeon 9600. You find you can save $$$ by doing this.

And when a new part comes out, you can buy the part you originally wanted because it will come down in price within a few months.

[RabidDog]

and the money you save can be spent on important things like beer or food.

[pixel]

and the money you save can be spent on important things like beer or food.

I like how you put beer in preference of food.