Hey guys, what do you do with your old and broken computer parts? Do you just toss your broken monitor in the trash...

Hey guys, what do you do with your old and broken computer parts? Do you just toss your broken monitor in the trash? Do you bring it to a store for recycling? Repurpose the parts?
I've got some shit to get rid of and I'm not exactly sure which method is kosher. I've just been holding onto this broken garbage for 3 years now.
I do still have my old consoles, even if I don't use them.

You dispose of them on the side of the road

What, like it's a piece of furniture?

Is it broken? Can it be salvaged? Is it just a matter of ordering a new part? Do I want it or need it to do a certain thing?

Most of the time I fix broken things.

If something breaks, I fix it, even if it means ordering parts. If it's really truly fucked, I take a screwdriver to it and see what the circuit boards look like before putting them on a shelf with the rest of the computer junk.

Where I'm from you get a couple dollars for recycling computer parts

How do you even know what to fix? I can solder, but I wouldn't know what I'm looking at on any computer part, not to mention that I'd be too scared to touch it.

its usually pretty simple shit like replacing a capacitor, or it may need to be reflown.

id like to recycle it but people make a killing recycling computer parts because of the valuable metals, why dont i see any of that money back?

because you aren't doing the hard work.

Why is one man's broken NES a $6 fix for me and a $90 profit after reselling it? Because I'm doing the hard work.

I'd like to fix them too, but I haven't got the slightest idea on how to actually repair electronic hardware.
I tried fixing a broken mouse once. Unscrewed the bitch open, dusted it off, and realigned one of the little tab things. Didn't work, but it was fun to try.
The problem is that I don't even know what it's supposed to look like when it's operational, I can't make heads or tails or most of this shit.

well then fuck them its going in the landfill

If its memory related like harddrive or flash drive, I smash it. if its anything else, sell it.

well recycle, not sell.

If it's an old console and a new one doesn't have backwards compatibility I keep it, if it does I give it away.
I usually give old computers away, but I have what's left of my first built PC for sentimental reasons. I keep my old pre-PC computers because Sinclair BASIC is neat.

you have to decide if it's worth it or not. Some fixes can be detrimental, like a broken PCB. Sometimes you're better off just trashing it. Many pieces of hardware have error codes, colors, etc. everything well documented.

Much of the time it comes to googling what your thing is, what it's doing wrong, and seeing if anyone else has had any problems. Some of it is more inherited knowledge you get after regular use and experience with similar technology. A lot of things are pretty standardized in this sense.

Some of the problems are also well documented by manufacturers. Often times, for popular things there is even youtube tutorials. Sometimes you just need to guess. Reflowing is one of those guessing things. "all the caps look fine, the connections are clean, the corrosion is gone, the batteries have been replaced, but it's still not working right. Maybe it just needs a reflow?" This is usually a scenario where it's a last resort guess. So you bake it, and if it works? Great. If not? Well, you can either take any parts you need or can be reused, or just sell it off to someone else who may be able to do something with it.

Just gotta accept sometimes, your time and even money are better off being spent elsewhere. I mostly focus on fixing consoles and simpler mechanical things, such as optical disc trays. I've thrown out a lot of things that I realize now I could have fixed or done something with.

I'd say the only thing that's broken was a really nice monitor I got on sale for Black Friday. I got two of them and brought them home to finally have a dual monitor setup, and the thing starts flickering to an unusable degree two weeks later. Several months later and the manufacturer hasn't responded to anything I've sent them.
So now it's been sitting in my hallway for a couple years.
Goddamn, was having two monitors cool.

This actually reminds me, and I'm pretty excited about this personally. We got a copy of Paper Mario in the shop the other day, and the customer that brought it to us said whenever they make a file, select it to load it, the game freaks out and displays some weird screen.

I didn't know what to think at first. So I took a look at it, saw there was no save data present, so the way the game saves data, I believe it writes it to internal ROM, no battery, so there is the possibility that is what went wrong with it. If the memory has went to shit, it wouldn't save, of course, so any files made separately wouldn't be maintained outside of RAM.

I make a file, select it, and just like the customer described, a weird image. I had an idea of what it was, it was dumping error information.

I plan on taking a look at it, it's a pretty good game and there's money to be made off of it, so considering how unlikely it is for the save memory to fail, I'll be cleaning it, and may end up disassembling it to check the solders inside.

Even simple things like cleaning the contact can fix issues. For this, I plan to use Brasso, which will leave a film layer over the contacts, but removes corrosion and dirt better than anything else. As such, after doing the brasso clean, I'll be using 91% alcohol to clean the cartridge to a desirable state. It won't surprise me if it works after even these simple steps.

Really, if you're ever working with anything that relies on slots and contacts, try out Brasso. Works amazingly, you'll notice that you're removing a ton more dirt and crap that shouldn't be there. Just don't go crazy with it, it can polish away some contacts too, such as aluminum ones, so clean it off with one application, rub away with dry side of Q-tips, and then clean the remaining brasso with alcohol.


You can probably look up the monitor and find out what kind of video board it uses. These are usually more standardized pieces of hardware. Even looking up simple things like monitor serial/model no. flickering should yield results, you'll get the usual junk results like "hurr update your drivers" which despite you probably going from 2 or 3 different GPUs since and several graphics architectures and drivers - but you're bound to find more to the metal results on what the issue is. You may end up disassembling the monitor, taking the video board out and finding what to fix. Even then, it may honestly have a really stupid, simple fix. I've found simple & stupid is usually the most common fix. There's also great resources like ifixit which has plenty of things well documented.

I've found it to be very rare that something is completely fucked.

This was an interesting read, user. Do you work in some kind of hardware repair shop? Do you wind up fixing old games like that very often?

Outdated? Into the closet. There's always something to do with functional PC parts.

Broken? Into the e-waste pile to be recycled.

Well since we are talking about broken computers maybe some kind user can give me advice? I recently acquired 2004 desktop. There is important files on it I want. I was told it was infected with a virus, but when I found the right cables and turned it on. I was greeted with blue screen of death. I can remove viruses easy through safe mode, but this is complete system failure. The computer automatically turns off after one minute or so. I tried everything besides taking the computer apart. I don't want to damage it anymore. This computer is a gold mine for me. It has some really classic weeb stuff on there that is no longer on the internet. It is so old. Can anything even be recovered?

You know if you do get it fixed you'll have to upload that shit here, right?

It's mostly really old doujinshi, some classic fan made dating sims ( classic for me at least. I still listen to ost from them, which are unbelievably good for fan made. ), and lots and lots of anime pictures. I talking about every single picture from animevisions.
Some of those dj haven't even been translated.

If it's just the files you want take out the hard drive, put it in your computer and copy them. Alternatively boot the 2004 computer with Puppy Linux or something, and copy them to a USB stick.

USB stick.
Thanks user. I will try this.

I don't know about taking apart the computer. I rather hire a professional do it. I am terrible with stuff like that. I once tired taking apart my ps4 controller and replacing analog stick with xbox one analog sticks. It works. One of online friends did it. I just ended up ruining my controller.

It would be incredibly easy to just remove the hard drive. Have you never seen the inside of a computer?

If it's old and functional I either try to sell it or just keep it lying around if I can't find a buyer. If it's broken I recycle it. I've never really been sure what the generally reasonable markdown for a used PC is though. Like, say it's a tower I originally spent $900 on between two to three years ago and everything still works, what should that be worth?

On a different part-related topic, it feels like my current monitor I've had a while is ghosting more than it used to. Like I can see a slight but noticeable blur just scrolling webpages that wasn't there before. Is this a thing that's known to happen as monitors age? Will it probably get progressively worse over time?

I dunno what the hell to do really and the stuff just sort of piles up. I'd heard you're not supposed to throw electronics away and looked up what you do instead and I see some nonsense like "Well you can take in 10 small items to places like Home Depot but for more than that you get charged fees.". -and so I'm left thinking "What the shit?" because really there's no option in that. I don't even have a car but let's say I did. What, I'm supposed to spread my time out and take a trip out day by day and bargain on what they'll take from me? I gotta pay to get rid of a broken TV probably? Why the shit is there no apparent system in place for this? I mean I'm the kind of person who might grab a plastic bottle off the top of some garbage can and walk it to where it goes but there's a point where I have to stop giving a shit like everyone else and it doesn't take much when it's such a damned lost cause.

So many goddamn Xbox controllers.

Well, I just happen to have a computer with a broken power button, a R7 265 GPU, and four DDR3 rams. What should I do with them ?

donate them to indians

run a shitty imageboard

smash them with a hammer, then upload on youtube, to bully super-poorfags

i've been running on the same toaster of a laptop for the last 6-7 years
it hurts

Example

I keep SATA cables and fans

If the parts are functional but merely obsolete, you can't find a buyer but still don't want them to go to waste, try donating them to a Goodwill or a friend or whatever. Some colleges run a program to redistribute old computer pieces for poor students. IIRC there's a subleddit precisely for that.

I donate to Gears for Queers.

I do alot of repurposing with PC build parts, they pretty much now make up 4 different builds for LAN play

recycling is the biggest scam ever because they don't pay you.

you do it for free

yeah, feel good about yourself for giving jews a free source of money and raw materials so they can build more cheap chinese shit to make them even more money.

only do free recycle if it's poisonous like mercury in CFL bulbs.. otherwise fix, or store it until someone else can fix/use

what shithole do you live in pleb? I get like $5 for an old monitor

EU, we have to pay to give our free shit away.

Take a button like pic related and solder on some female headers. Find where the power button plugs into the motherboard and replace it with your new button. Make a hole in the case and screw the new button in. Alternatively hook up a car ignition system, so you can turn the computer on with a key.
Then run a fileserver or torrent server or something.

If it's broken beyond repair, I take it outside and put it to a hammer.
It's pretty fun.

...

Lain? Is that you?


I like to make statues and shit out of my broken components.

You have to eat it to gain it's power.

EAT THE MACHINE, BECOME THE MACHINE

Tetsuo, pls.

Old computers are put to other uses. For instance i have a single core gen3 pentium with a geforce mx440 and 2GBs of ram running loonix, loaded with emulators, a blu-ray drive and a media server, It also has a second 120GB hard drive running/seeding torrents when my internet connection is not in use.

too human for me

I also give parts away to relatives or friends, and if all else fails i do sell. Although i've been holding out upgrading that media computer for too long as i want better emulation and maybe actual native video games

...

...

I removed the hard drive from my old broken laptop and plugged it into my xbox. And guess what? It worked. Even though M$ said that they don't. Saved me like $40.

you seem to be a smart fellow. i've always wanted to do a kinda mad max themed PC rig where the power, reset, CD tray and individual fan controls for my four fans were all wired up to switches like this, in a kinda rusty dull black case (i actually might use a couple pieces of metal from some rusty old muscle car from the junkyard and build my own case)

how feasible is this? gonna be more trouble than it's worth? machining the pieces for the case will be easy, but i am fucking worthless at wiring

Power and reset are push-to-make buttons. The motherboard and OS decide what it does, which is why you can set it to bring up the shutdown dialogue in most OSs. You could replace it with a switch by adding a rising edge detector of some sort, but then you would lose the ability to hold it down to force it to shut down. Alternatively you could wire up the on/off switch on your power supply and put it on the front of the case, but opening a power supply can be dangerous.
The reset switch should be easy, because you never have to hold it down. Hook it up to another rising edge detector. Either turn the switch off again manually or find a switch that flips itself off again when you let go.
As for the fans, they're much easier. Splice the switch in series to the live wire, so that the fan only gets power when the switch is on. This might cause issues with your motherboard complaining about how it's giving the fan power but nothing is happening, but I'm not sure. Alternatively hook the fans up to another power source, or to the power supply if you have old Molex ones.
The CD tray might be harder, but the OS is able to eject it so there should be a way. I'd hook the switch to a rising edge detector, and then make that send a keyboard shortcut to the OS that is set to a script that ejects the tray. It's convoluted, and there might be an easier way, but it should work.

As to what a rising edge detector is, it's a thing that gives an output for a bit when it recieves an on signal. There's a few Minecraft videos that explain it pretty well. Easiest way to make one is with a microcontroller.
There are two microcontrollers you should look at for it. The Arduino Nano and the Teensy 2.0. Both are easy to program, but the Teensy can spoof keyboard input. You'll probably need this one for the CD tray, and you could use it for making your own keyboard or something else. The Arduino is more expensive, but there are clones that are much cheaper and do the same thing. Also if you care about Gamergate the Arduino guys have published stuff about how nerd culture should die before, so getting a clone stops you funding them.

The switch connects to a 5v pin on one side, and an input pin on the other. The microcontroller connects to the motherboard through one pin connected to an output pin on the microcontroller and one of the two pins on the power button connecter. You have to test which one, by seeing which one makes the computer turn on when connected to a ground. Use the microcontroller's ground to test that.
After that you just write software that outputs an off signal for 0.4 or so seconds when the switch's pin goes from off to on, and an on signal otherwise. There's a lot of documentation for it, you don't have to know much about programming.
You don't need multiple microcontrollers for each button, just one should be enough. Just hook each switch up to a different input pin and each output to a different output pin, then make sure the program knows which signal to output depending on which switch is turned on.

In short, switch -> Arduino/Teensy -> motherboard, where the microcontroller reads the switch turning on and gives a small signal to the motherboard. If it seems a bit confusing try making simple circuits with the microcontroller first, so you get used to it.

chris?

I try to fix them with mixed results.
I have an original model 360 right now that works perfectly. however of course the disc tray is busted. I have taken it apart cleaned everything including that rubber band but I can find no reason why it should not work. everything works individually.
Right now im just using manual eject but it would be nice to fix it well enough to sell it.

how horrible. around these parts drug addicts or the particularly desperate can make enough money to stay high/ eat and sleep somewhere warm just from dumpster diving and recycling shit.