Question

I have several old computers.

1. Home built Althon 64 3000+ with Ati Radeon Xpress 200 mboard [1gb,300gb]
2. Apple PowerMac G4 (the blue grey handled one) [512mb, 80gb]
3. Apple PowerMac 8500/120 (with a XLR8 G3 cpu upgrade, and PCI IDE controller) [384mb, 40gb]
4. Toshiba Laptop (Pentium 100, winNT 4) [128mb, 400mb]
5. Toshiba Laptop (Pentium 66, win95) [64mb, 200mb] with external floppy drive.

So the question is, how would you value these? I have a big issue with declaring them trash. Also it's illegal to just dump them, and I can wait for ever for an official computer trash collection event (manhattan) and am limited to 1 computer at a time!

I've had limited success listing them on craigslist due to there being some 50+ adds a day for "new macbook Air only $287" from some questionable source, and partial success listing them on Ebay (only a 2001 ibook sold).

The issues seem to be that a buyer needs to know enough to be able to do something with these, they're not going to be running Excel 2007 or 2003 on any of these. They could disassemble the laptops to make a picture frame or fish tank animation, or run linux/netBSD on the others for fun only. But any buyer that knows that probably has access to other hand-me-downs.

How do you sell / give these to someone who wants them and remain honest about it in the process. I tried with a few models starting with a disclaimer of: $200 will buy you a much better machine, you only want this if you have nostalgic attachments to Apple or the PowerPC, or you have some programs or programming projects that only run on these.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I have used Craig's List and FreeCycle to some degree of success in getting rid of old computer/tech stuff I don't need. CL is spotty, and depending on your area can be useless as you've found.

Answer 2

One thing that I have done with success in the past is to donate the old (but working) computers to a charity that you support in town for them to do things with. Giving a computer to a small specialist library can help because they can use them as a card cata log reader or sometimes just for internet access while in the library. I would suggest you look at sites such as Computers With Causes to see if there is something in your area that you can help by donating.

Answer 3

My rule of thumb for the value of old computers:

The value drops by half every 18 months from time of purchase.

After 6 years a $1300 computer is worth $80. After 6 years a $2000 computer is worth $125.

It's a bit aggressive, but the machine is way less reliable by then. Also this helps break your emotional attachment to the big wad of cash it represents.

Answer 4

For the most part, computer really don't hold any value once they are about a year or so old. Something you might want to consider is going and seeing how much the cheapest computer you can buy new is (i.e. a new laptop from Bestbuy for $400) and making sure you are asking much less than that when you sell the equipment.

Also, you could try listing them up on eBay as lots (i.e. the two laptops together and the two Apple computer together) and put a really low starting bid on them. If you go that route though, make sure the shipping is accurate or you will end up taking a loss.

Generally though, one of the best ways of getting rid of older equipment is to make sure that it is usable (i.e. computer work and have an operating system installed legally) and donating them to charity. Charities are starting to get a bit more picky about what they will or will not take, but in most cases, you can give them computers that are about five years old or newer and as long as they work.

Answer 5

The precious metals in them are worth more to a refinery or extractor than you could get reselling them I think?

Some brakers will send working stuff to third-world markets where they get an OK price, break generic spares from the rest and melt broken/misc stuff into silver, gold and other metals.

Answer 6

As several people ave mentioned you can sometimes donate them to charity. I would caution you to make sure you have thoroughly scrubbed the hard drive to remove any personal information.

If you do end up trashing them, I suggest removing the hard drive and physically damaging it (big hammer) before scrapping the system.

We forget just how much personal information we put on to our PCs.

Answer 7

Best Buy, Tiger Direct, and a few other sites all go through the DealTree trade in program, which will evaluate your hardware and give you a trade-in value. The trade in typically consists of a gift card for their site.

From what I've seen, you'll have to wait a couple of weeks for them to get the hardware and verify it before you get your gift card, but it may be easier to go through that then trying to sell it all online. Or you can even use it to price out your systems as some sort of baseline.

Answer 8

Check what current prices are for the same (or almost same) parts, and then take out a good percentage (maybe 50% or possibly higher depending on condition) of that price to account for it being used equipment.

Answer 9

Look up a comparable new computer and divide by about 4-10. If you can't buy a comparable new computer or it's is over about 4-6 years old, I'd be very surprised if you could get more than about $25(US) for it.