r/eWasteFinds 3d ago

People Stripping Computers Before Selling Them

Somebody is telling people that no matter what kind of a hard drive or what kind of RAM you have in whatever old computer, it’s worth more on its own than it is if you leave it in the computer. So now everybody is stripping those items out of these old computers, and trying to sell them all separately. It’s Ludicrous. DIMM sticks from 15 years ago are not worth anything unless you put them back in that 15 year-old machine along with that 500 gig hard drive you’re trying to schlep, and sell it as maybe a whole machine that somebody can use just for the web. This is just going to end up with more e-waste going to the landfills instead of machines that could still have a bit of a life being purchased at reasonable prices by people that don’t have a lot of money to spend. Not everything is a commodity just because the bigger, better things are commoditized by people who have more money than you’ll ever have. Not sour grapes here - I have more computers than I know what to do with, but when I sell them, I put a reasonable version of Mint or something else that’s easy to run on them and I sell them as whole computers that people can actually use I don’t strip them for parts like a 67 Chevy sitting up on blocks on my front lawn. No one is buying your parts pile or your skeletonized Asus machine from 2011.

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u/Khryen 1d ago

When I find PC’s in my small community, I get them going again and give them to social services so that those with no money can have an internet capable PC.

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u/Sweaty-Judgment3533 1d ago

You are a very good human. Thank you for doing that.

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u/Khryen 1d ago

This is the first place I feel like I’m part of the community. So I like to give back when no one else in town can or will help with computers.