Computers and parts for free or nearly free.

Ok, this is a short how-to on getting free or nearly free computers, monitors, parts, printers..whatever. It is fairly easy and a lot of fun. Ok, here goes.

1. There are many ways to go about getting free computers & accessories legally, one being simply driving around your town on trash day and grabbing the goods. In my hometown people will actually put their old pc and things in a plastic bag to protect it from the elements.

2. Take out a free ad in the paper offering to take peoples old computers off of their hands for them. Something like "Don't toss that box away silly one, donate it to me. Contact me at..." Offer to come to them and pick it up also. There are also some free online classified services for many areas also, this is a great way to get some gear.

3. Calling the specialists. Ok this one is so darn amazing that you will dance with glee. Check out your local phone book and look for network installation/removal companies. A simple call explaining that you would gladly take the trash off of their hands will usually do the trick. It goes something like "Hi, I seen you have a few trucks over at blah and I was wondering if I can have that nifty old Cat-5 and a couple of those old HP's you are tossing out? I could really use them." They will most likely just say yes OR they will give you a contact number to someone inside the company that they are removing the goods from. Which then you would just call them and ask. I have gotten SO much cable from this and even a few phones.

4. The Junkyard, yep...I said it. But fear not. You will not be jumping around in the junk my friend. This actually happened by chance. My friends and I where driving and we seen a pc tower sitting all alone behind chain link fence, so we drove around to the gate and seen that it was a junk yard. I asked the man at the front gate about the computer case and he said, "sure, I will get it for you, do you want the rest of them in the office?" WHAT WHAT WHAT!??..the REST of them in the office? It seems that most sanitary employees do not like to toss electronics in the back but rather place them safely in the cab and bring them to the yard, where I am assuming someone assesses the items worth and decides if its trash or treasure. It seemed that on that day no one was interested in a bunch of pc's without monitors so we loaded 6 towers and who knows how many keyboards into my trunk.

5. Ok this one may cost you a little something, but not much! Pawn Shops are known for ripping the common man/woman off. Often owners will throw an IBM PS/2 running DOS 6 onto their shelves and claim it to be cutting edge and charge an arm and a leg without really knowing anything about it. Some people assume that just because its a computer that it is worth a fortune. Ok, first check out the shops items, look at the PC, the specs and ask questions to see what the seller knows, ask them to fire it up and if at all possible see whats inside and finally the asking price. Now go home and do your research, find out the worth of the pc and go back and get ready to do some haggling. If need be arm yourself with some stuff you have been meaning to get rid of from your own home. See if you can't make a trade. And be nice, knowledgable and fair. Don't make them sound or look stupid. After all they are the owner and can kick you out as fast as you came in.

6. Ebay! Online auction services are GREAT for getting cheap computers and parts. Just look for what you want and bid as you see fit.


Well, thats it. I hope this was informative, and useful. Cya!

One thing about dumpster diving is that it may be illegal in some cities, provinces/states, countries so perhaps people might want to do this at their own risk.

in my country people buy those kind of pc, it is a good bussines here to sell the unused pc.
many student use them and install linux inside it


free ~ poverty ?

Wow, I never thought of some of those ways. Dumpster diving may not be legal, but it's not always neccessarly illegal either. My brother used to work for trash company and he drove a truck and picked up the huge dumpsters and hauled them off. This company would actually ask people if they wanted stuff they were throwing away, one time it was computers from a wood mill, and I got a couple Aptiva's with P3's and 512 MB inside running WIN2000 and some expensive wood manufacturing design programs like I used back in school. A lot of companies don't mind you getting in their dumpsters because they have to pay the landfill by the pound on how much they deposit, so if you take weight of their hands it actually saves them money. But given that if you get in McDonalds dumpster that would probably be illegal and nasty cause I'm sure they don't have anything of much value in there.....;) So if you gonna raid a dumpster make sure it's a trash company that is throwing stuff away for a business that's likely to have goods you want, and all you have to do for permission is usually just ask one of the workers.

[EDIT] I have found TigerDirect.com to be the best computer dealer I have ever found. I have rarely seen their prices beaten.[/EDIT]

A couple of schools around our area are getting rid of all their Pentium 1 300 MGhz machines. So schools might be another way to get free computers.

Wow! Pentium 1's! Your schools waited awhile to upgrade! ;) I'd like to have one just to mess with. In college some of the computer labs still had some Commodore's for typing on. Now that's old school! I think they just kept em around for just having because we had HP's and IBM's with P3's and Athlon's and the such.

Hi,

"Dumpster diving" :) I find the expression rather amusing, although MsMittens is absolutely correct in warning that you must check your local ownership laws. Sometimes you might have to go to the disposer first to get permission. They are hardly likely to say "no"?

OK I am a bit older.........oops "more experienced" :D than a lot here, so I go down the local bar/pub and buy a few beers for the refuse disposal guys and their foreman: result, they collect from and deliver to my house (deliveries are put in the porch, in case it rains)

This is IMHO an excellent form of recycling, as it is zero cost to the local taxpayer, and even saves the donor money.

I am not surprised at recent disposals of PI/300s. That must have been the absolute top of the range? Never even seen one, this is a PII/266, and I thought that was the tops at the time..........I did want MMX though :)

Nice post

Cheers

Wow, home delivery! That's pretty good, I should try this one. I wish I lived near some more bars than I do. I might have to try this technique. Thanks nihil.

Another comment on dumpster diving on the scrap yard. I have a friend that used to work in a scrap yard (I even worked there as an extra a few times and I tell you, you can find a lot of cool stuff there, not just computers). At least in Sweden it's illegal to do as many people do. They go there after the scrap yard is closed and snoop around for interesting stuff. As a result, many of them get caught by the security who requently patrol the area. Not an impressive thing to put in your resume, "NN was cough breaking in to a scrap yard" :D.
The thing is, if you go there during their opening hours you are allowed to take away anything you like (well, maybe not asbestis (not sure of the spelling but it's a poisonous material)).

The electronic gadgets are all gathered in one place for recycling and is easy to find. Just browse trough the piles of old computers and kitchen fans and you might find something you fancy.
A little reminder though! Stay away from the "cadaver pit" where butchers and fishsalesmen dump their leftovers. This place doesn't smell to nice, you've got my word on that :p

Our landfills here in the US aren't that organized I'm afraid! I wish they were. Asbestos is what used to be used as an insulating material and it is nearly fire proof. It's not a poison but rather the particles it is made up of are so small that none of the natural filtering devices in the human body, nose hairs, cillia, can capture it so it goes on to become en-lodged in the lungs thus causing cancer. Asbestos is not a threat until disturbed when it creates dust and is inhaled. Most houses built up until around the 1930's and 40's incorporated asbestos. The removal for it is extremely expensive because none of it is allowed to leak out into the environment, therefore the house must be completely sealed for it's removal and the workers are at a high risk for inhalation even with protection, so it's expensive. ;) They just have it in your landfills in Sweden? In case your curious about it: http://www.epa.gov/asbestos/ashome.html

Do not trust computer shows! I found out that the saleswomen was hot and so was the pc.

here in lebanon..... if u want free PC's...... u must be realy lucky......coz... the oldest pc's r P1... & r usualy.. keep by the Admin.. for spair parts..... since some companies ..... HUGE 1's still use em... & the old pc's r the only way that the Admin.s & technichens can get the parts. they need...

This looks a cool idea but not here where i live. Even if u have a 386 machine, you will find someone to buy it.

:)

I went to the local Computer Shops and i asked the manager's if they had any old computer boxes that they wanted to get rid offf?
After 30 minutes of some severe ass kissing, i finally walked out of the shops with arms full of equipment.
Fine the stuff wasn't state of the art. But hey i now got 5 other machines running different Operating Systems, and i even had enough parts left over to make a Warserver for me and a few mates.

Anyhow even though you will run across stingy Bastards you will always find a Manager who will fall for the sob sob story..
Just bring your missus with you, get her to flirt with him, and your set.

Cheers


And that Dumpster Diving routine is dangerous i did that once, and i got bashed by some dudes who were out bashing up homeless people.
So stay away from those Dumpsters at night!
No matter how tempting they might seem don't do it it hurts to much...


Goodnight!

i have to agree i work for a company in the uk and every so many years they replace every computer and strangly enough put the old ones in the dumpster..needlesss to say we take them out as quick as they put them in ..but its hit and miss one bloke managed to get a 21inch mointor and a 600 mhz box thats the best find up to now ......but i can wait till there next computer binning as they have just purchased tft mointors so hurry up and bin them pcs........we also have a lot of dumpster raiders which they dont seem t mind...one mans junk is another mans treasure

If you go to a school or a college try this: High school down, try to talk to the tech people, they usually store everything (they can't throw it away until it has passed the boards approval) and they will usually just let you have what you want. Next, try the board of education. Everything from every school in that buildings district will be sent there for storage or approval for tossing. Talk to the tech person working there and they will give you anything that is cleared and sometimes stuff that isn't.

College stuff is a little more remote. On campus when a computer goes bad, first it is raided for any good parts (usually sans motherboard) and then the rest is stored. If you get in with the tech people and you need specific small parts, they will hook you up with them. As for stored items, you can find many monitors, old fun stuff, and plenty of cases. Sometimes you will find some good stuff.

I had a friend who would do this and then ebay the stuff she got. She got 3000 dollars that summer to build a very nice system...FREE.

The magic password for all of these situations is "I am a student and am need of parts for hardware study or systems work." After that they are more than obliged to help you out.

some tips for dumpster diving:

1. do not run if the cops come , most of the time they are just curious and dont really care and you can cliam ignorance if they do . If you run though they know you know you are doing something wrong.

2. Carry all your loot in the trunk of your car not the backseat. If the cops come and see a backseat full of goods they will tend to be more suspicous and besides you dont want dumpster gunk all over your seats do ya?

3. do not hop fences. if it is fenced in there is a reason for it. you can not claim to not be stealing if you jump a fence.

4. keep empty boxes in your back seat. if a cop comes you can tell him that you are helping a friend move and need empty boxes. suprising how many times this will work.

5. most important of all do not dive anywhere with food.....trust me it is nasty to get someones 2 week old salad on your hands.

i have also found that cell phone stores are good places to dive you can find all sorts of cool cell phone accesories and such back there plus if get lucky you may get a working cell phone like i did =) have fun kids

Smart mnchur very very smart. What about locked dumpsters, I am assuming that you wouldn't pick them?

i would sugguest not picking locked dumpters ....what i would sugguest though is picking through home improvement store dumpsters you can find all sorts of odds and ends in those =)

Really...What interesting finds have you come across?

I remember attending a military base auction once a few years back... the auction was broken up into lots, one lot in particular I was checking out listed at <$500 and included the following items:

~20 XTS-300 tempest form factor systems, perhaps two years old at the time, their price new is ~$80,000 _EACH_.
About $200,000 (as is) worth of assorted RF test equipment.
A few office furniture items (a desk, a few chairs, and such)

And then... two 50 gallon drums of mystery substance that you needed to pay to dispose of.

Now I can't even comprehend what must have been in these drums, that 100 gallons makes up for the over a third of a million dollars.

So... cheap computers, but ya better read the fine print. ;)

catch

I think it cool to go on the scrapheap!
Lots of stuff to find there cuz people here recycle their stuff, it nice and not so messy!

But you dont find many rounded IDE cables there! =P

I like to go dumpster diving to get boxes to build club houses........just kidding....wanted to add a little levity.

You can trywww.pricewatch.com.They usually have a source of sites and they compare the prices when you search for products to.

Since this thread is already here, I thought I would list my haul that I picked up recently:

3x standard pci video cards
2x nics
5x cd-rom drives
2x ps-2 keyboards
1x old keyboard (I forgot what they were called)
8x windows mice
2x apple mice
3x apple keyboards
Apple Quatra sys
3x monitors
3x systems of various speeds uneer 500 mhz
many power cables
2x rj-45s
5x data switches/printer switches
4x motherboards
10x p3-p2 processors
1x ups
A few full sets of solaris 5
4x 5-7 g harddrives
An old laptop (that looks like one of the laptops in Hackers)
and one of those things that you use to project what is on you monitor over an overhead projector. You know those things that they had before projectors.

Isn't my college great : )

as touched on before your place of work can be a good place to get needed parts etc
even if your not working as tech support just get chating to them - show a little bit of computer knowledge....offer to help them out with little bits and pieces and your set

our work is about to replace all machines and I should be walking away with a couple of complete systems - woohoo!!!
one thing tho 90% of the time most machines you get will not have cd-drives (computers being used as terminals may not have them so that people cannot bring in and instal their own software) so always keep a spare cd-rom drive lying around :)
these I've found can be picked up from the likes of cash-convertor for about £8

v_Ln

Another great idea there Val..
I carn't wait until some of the Computer Shops in my area have there Throw Out the old Stuff Day.
This time i'm prepared, i will be parked behind the shop in anticipation. So when they start to haul there old stuff out to the Dumpster i will be waiting with my stun gun.
Once i've disabled the enemy, i will safely pack up my car with all the Goodies and drive home.
'And start my evil plan to take Over Bill Gates Home Computer..
I only need another 500 Machines and i should be ready for this Suicide Mission..
Or maybe i should just send him some Viagra with he's own Credit Card like that Cracker did awhile back..
Anyhow cheers

kris

I'm surprized that no one has mentioned thrift stores! I have found numerous good deals on computers there......including a 266mhz (IIRC) Pentium MMX computer that works great...

interesting ideas...perhaps you could also try call centres..around where i live large companies update their computers at regular intervals(rich bastards) however they are generous enough to give you their old and no longer needed stuff.Just smile and ask nicely and usually you will walk away one happy reciever... i guess some rich people are giving..yey to them i say..

I'll give the "calling computer retailers for their "trash"" a try. I heard that one was throwing out a Windows XP for some reason. Don't know why. Probably missing the motherboard or a drive or something.

I work in the equivalent of a computer pawn shop right now. The pay isn't the greatest but the benefits are great because we buy used stuff for next to nothing from people desparate to get rid of something for next to nothing. I have picked up tons of treasures including my Powerbook and a 9700 Pro that a guy needed to sell to pay his credit card bills.

well i guess there is indeed somethin' i can learn with all this... I've never done dumpsters before because i don't really know any in the soroundings of my hood but i managed to get 2 old boxes (1 even came with a screen) by simply mailing a known computer seller in my country and kindly offered my services to pick some of the things they couldn't manage to sell.
Try that and when they contact you try not to sound to knowladgable ( :confused: ), otherwise they might just give up on the idea ;)

Just after I read this thread, I decided to take a peek in a dumpster on my way to class. I now have a new 19 inch monitor that doesnt show the color red! Hooray! Its funny cuz a guy across the hall is colorblind and hes like, "what are you talking about i dont see anything wrong with it" so I gave it to him and people are like, "why's your screen all messed up" and hes like "why do people always ask me this"

So, this is the thread for dumpster divers to brag about their finds ?

I can't say I've gotten a lot of goodies by way of dumpsters, but I did get two 21' monitors from someone who noticed that the university was going to dump them. Only a good manual degausing was needed to fix them. Thank god I still had that bulk tape eraser kicking around. ;)

so, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to keep in touch with local college sysadmins for goodies :cool:

I got two PCs that way, from school when thay chage old PCs to new.
Both PCs was just around 200 Mhz and now I running Linux on them and other UNIX based OS, hehe.

-"Edit, Select All, Copy, Paste"

Thanks.... I can really use this. I acutally know of a company that does stuff like this for a living... they do all the dumpster diving for you, and sell machines for around 200$ canadian. I'm getting a 1.2Ghz 20GB 512RAM Wireless Notebook for 250$ canadian this week.

erm... I WANT that box... heh ima have to try this. i have in the past gotta alot of stuff off of my rich neighbors. kinda funny how dumb they are. They go out and get a 5K machine with SCSI RAID and use it to check their e-mail twice a week!!! &lt;--- really... anyway i have gotten a few good deals from my place of work (www.myfamily.com) like a 21" for $10 and 5 P1 200's with SCSI drives for 20 a peice w00t! good thread man even if it is old...

My friends called me the master of free, it's just the way I live. Just recently I picked up a 32 inch Sony Trinatron that just needed some fine tweaking with the verticle and horizontal sync.

I'm suprised that no one here has mentioned going to CompUSA. I get a lot of free stuff there, normally main in rebate stuff though. I know it takes a while, but I've gotten everything back so far. The best time is when they're giving out free RAM. They usually say only 1 per household, but that's not a problem. i just go around to all my mom's old friends and have them fill out the forms and submit them in. They're nice about it and give me the rebate when it comes in the mail.

Another good place would be from gamers. They're constantly upgrading their computers and with each upgrade they make, so do I :D i just picked up a a whole bunch of parts from a few friends and just put them all together. One friend passed along a 800mhzE P3 with mobo. The mobo sucked, but I was lucky that another friend dumbed an ASUS on my lap. Just took those two and put them together with my free PC133 ram and there's my core. LOL&gt;.I Ibetter make this short, can't write down all the free stuff I"ve gotten, so here's just a list of places I normally go.

1. I normally don't touch comptuers in the dumpster because they're normally filled with bugs, water and dirt. It's best if you get them right before they throw them away or earlier enough to where there isn't any damage.

2. Friends that repair computers for people. You would be suprised how many people drop off computers and never pick them up.

3. Gamers, man I should of put this at number 1.

4. Computer stores. With all that free stuff you can get, makes a pretty good trade when it comes to parts.

Anyway, I got to keep this short. My made an account to my LAN for my mom and now she's telling me that I changed her password for hotmail. LOL.....what is the world coming to!!!

Over here in the UK there are also some penalty's for grabbing what you want from scrap yards (or tips). People have been killed getting into the skips so they slap £1000 fines on you for it. If however you ask at the office politely you can usally get one of their men to fish out some stuff for you.

An interesting fact about asbestos, is that (the number might not be right) but it can take more than 24 hours for asbestos 8ft in the air, to drop to the floor.