Advice on selling / binning old PC.

kupocake

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I'm looking to get rid of my old (nearly 5 years old) PC now that I've upgraded, but I'm unsure whether it's worth selling on, giving away or simply chucking. Firstly, the specs:

- AMD Athlon XP 2600+
- MSI K7N2-Delta-ILSR Motherboard (Including onboard 6.1 Channel Sound, 10/100 Network, Firewire and USB2 Support)
- OCZ ModStream 450w ATX2.2 Power Supply
- Ati Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb (Crucial Mem branded)
- 1GB Ram (2x 512mb 3200 DDRAM)
- Seagate Barracuda 60GB (actually, this is older than the rest of the components)
- AOpen 16x DVD (I believe this is a holdover as well)
- MSI 12xDVD/8xDVD-R
- 3 1/2 Floppy
- Cooler Master ATC 210 Case

The Twist in the tale is that even if it's currently worth it, I can't simply sell this lot on as is, as it started to manifest a bunch of infuriating hardware problems in its final half year of use:

1) The Graphics card is almost certainly unsalvageable. It paints garbage across the screen even in 2D applications, and becomes some kind of experimental 80's electronica video in 3D, rendering the screen mostly unreadable, and all games completely unplayable.

2) The HDD occasionally locks up, probably due to something physically wrong with the disk itself, since formatting did nothing (and took several attempts because of the lock ups that access typically caused.)

3) With increasing regularity, the machine would just suddenly dump itself all the way back to boot up. I am unsure whether this was a PSU problem or something to do with the above problems, though it is notable that of all the components in the machine, the PSU is easily the newest, at under 2 years old.

What should I do? I suppose I have a few options:

a) Replace the GFX card and HDD in order to sell it all on (assuming that the PSU doesn't prove itself unreliable -The problem with this is spending money to make what will probably be very little money).

b) Sell all the components I currently have no suspicions about, hoping that they weren't actually responsible for my PC's failure. (I suppose what i'm asking here is: is any of the above hardware likely to be worth anything to anyone?)

c) Throw away the bad stuff and give away the good stuff (if someone can be found).

Apologies if this comes across as advertising, but I'd be surprised if anyone here wanted stuff this old :)
 
Depending on where you live, but if it's in the US, you might try placing it for sale on "Craigs List." ( http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites ) You could also place an ad in the paper, though to be honest, I would advise you to keep it to use as a backup or for parts if you ever found yourself in need. Also perhaps convert it into a project. Buy an old Jutebox & install your old PC in it to be used to play music. There is always a use for older PC hardware. While I was a room dad @ my daughters school, I built several older PC's and then game them away to under-privledged children or turned them over to the school to be given away to students that needed a PC for homework.

However, please do not simply throw it away, as i'll take it off your hands if you plan to do that.

-MRG
 
I'm looking for another PC, and I'd give you some money for it, but I'm not driving too far...
 
He's in Big Gay Bright Town. Which is basically your regular hang out. It'll be fine.

Don't throw it away, it's better than my computer.
 
No no no, It's 'Bright Town'. Brighton, UK. You won't be coming that far :p
 
i used all my spare parts and built my girlfriend a decent machine. Main motive: video games when I go to her place, muhahahahahaa
 
i used all my spare parts and built my girlfriend a decent machine. Main motive: video games when I go to her place, muhahahahahaa

You laugh now, but you better hope she does not read these forums or she will be :flame:

-MRG
 
If you'll post it i know a woman that wants one.

just for web browsing etc, she aint gonna want to play crysis!
 
I'm highjacking this thread so I dont have to make another one. Sorry :p


I'm thinking of selling my gaming rig and getting a workstation rig instead, so I'm curious as to how much I could sell this one for. I'm thinking at least a grand right?

Its got:

Intel Q6600 Quadcore 2.4ghz
ATI Radeon 4850 256mb
4 gigs DDR2 800
Gigabyte Motherboard
A little over 600 gigs HDD space on 3 drives
Viewsonic vx922
Wireless Microsoft mouse
Zboard Keyboard
Logitech 2.1 speakers.
500 Watt PSU
16x DVD RW
 
what's a workstation composed of and why can't you have both on the same PC (probably 2 birds with 1 stone answer)?
 
My work station would be a dual quadcore setup, with 16 gigs of ram, Quadro FX1700 graphics card, and a couple terrabytes of storage haha.

I cant have both because I dont feel like spending two grand on it out of my own pocket, and selling this would shave off a good chunk of it.
 
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