OT: where to source cheap used desktop PCs?

[Part Timer]

The WEEE directive killed off a lot of trade in ex-corporate boxes for not much more than postage money and eBay isn't what it once was. Does anyone know any good sources?

I'm after a desktop to run XP for a relative, Word and Irfanview are the main uses. The recipient will manage with XP with classic settings without too much retraining on my part.

Current box is a tired P3 550, 128MB RAM running Win98SE, obtained ex-corporate in 2003 and it's soldiered on since (makes me wonder why people buy extended warranties). Not too bothered about HDD size or inclusion as I will buy a new one, existing optical drives I plan to re-use since they work.

Not fussed about tatty cases if the replacement is standard ATX stuff. I understand Dell is abnormal with mobo/PSU/case designs, but they are most common.

Thanks in advance

[dom]

Budget?

[John MacLeod]

Most computer repairers have piles of working machines that they've a problem disposing of. If you let a guy who works on his own know, I'm sure he might let you know when there would be a working, albeit slightly outdated computer sitting somewhere and he might be quite glad if it were taken away.

Otherwise you could go to a firm like Morgan Computers and buy a "refurbished" model with a 3-month warranty for a very small sum.

[Ron Lowe]

freecycle.

Plenty of XP-generation clunkers going.

[Andy Dingley]

Talk to someone who runs a small consultancy doing jobbing admin tasks for medium sized businesses. My BiL does, and he's always trying to re- home ex-business kit that's a couple of years old. I saw him at a car boot recently, flogging Dells Optiplexes for =A32 each, just to try and get them re-used without going for landfill / export to Chinese landfills. They still make perfectly good network routers or CNC routers.

[Bob Minchin]

I've just bought a couple of 2.8GHz P4 Dells from ebay one £19, the other £28 Both work fine and came with win Xp pro SP3 which to my mind is a perfectly adequate OS for normal use.

Bob

[Andrew Gabriel]

I have bought quite a lot from computer fairs in the past, although not so recently, so I can't tell you what current prices are. I was using Compaq Deskpro EN's as remote managed integrated routers/filewalls/fileservers, as they're pretty silent, 22W running including stealing power for an external ethernet switch and WiFi access point. They support up to 512MB memory and 1GHz processors, and cost about £25 5 years ago.

As routers/firewalls/fileservers, they were all running unix (Solaris x86). Mum is using one with Windows XP on it, and it runs fine just for email, web browsing and the printing she does (and I don't think hers even has the full 512MB of memory - most of mine didn't as it wasn't needed).

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Strangely, not in this part of London. And those that do come up - even older - get snapped up quickly, by the 'taken' posts.

CRT TVs of all sizes are ten a penny.

[Robin]

As I think someone (John Rumm?) commented recently, 512MB used to be fine for XP but is borderline now for SP3 plus security software and applications on top.

I'd not have stuck my head above the parapet if it were just email and Usenet but Word (depending on what version) can easily want >50Mb and IrfanView the same. So I'd have thought it not worth getting anything which cannot take 1Gb.

[Mike Barnes]

Part Timer :

Where are you? I have a couple of Dells that are free to anyone who wants them, in N Cheshire. No monitors, keyboards, or mice, mind.

I have tried giving them to charity, without success.

[Malcolm]

Talk to your local schools. They may be disposing of used kit, possibly even old laptops capable of doing what you want. Staff & students want the latest kit even if they do not need it. I have just retired from a primary school and we disposed of a number of Elonex boxesrunning 98 but capable of running XP. We had to payabout £70 for the pleasure to a firm of re-cyclers

Malcolm

[Dave Liquorice]

And location.

I took an old Pentium machine (ISA and PCI slots on the motherborad) to the dump last week.

When have the time to wipe the hard disc there will be a 1GHz something that used to be the kids machine running Win2k heading in the same direction. Actually it probably won't, it will probably go to "Tools with a Mission"

Volunteer collection points all over the place, some of which will collect rather than you having to take stuff to them. The Epson Stylus Colour Photo 890 printer will head that way if they want it. At least the kit may end up helping someone or provide facilties in a school.

The three "spare" CRT monitors I had went to the dump as well (twam don't want CRTs, heavy and bulky compared to LCD.

[Theo Markettos]

Do you have a local 'Computer Recycling' place? Or a 'refurb computers' shop (usually backstreet sort of places)? Some small computer shops might know of a source, if you can convince them that there's no chance of you buying one of their new machines.

Gumtree is another source, but mostly home PCs.

XP licences can be a bit of a pain, significantly more so than hardware in some cases, as you may not get them on secondhand machines. And the cost of the machine may be less than the licence.

Theo

[John Rumm]

Yup, might have been me. XP SP3 + anti virus, is pretty much all of

512MB used before you do anything else - and that assumes you have not got a shared ram video card eating 64MB.

[John Rumm]

Drop me a line, I get a few from time to time. Might have a reasonably decent one coming up next week, although that will be probably pushing toward £100.

[geoff]

In message , Part Timer writes

I don't think anyone else has mentioned - go and have a root through the pcs they have down at your local tip and offer the man a fiver if something takes your fancy

[NT]

Put linux antix or puppy on it, it'll run better than xp and be very happy with 512M

NT

[Windmill]

I have a similar problem: I've never run Windows but have some old software (Quickroute) which says it runs on Windows 3.1 up to 95. Bought a 95 install disk, but it seems to want MSDOS 6.x underneath Windows, and I only have DROS. (Haven't tried that with 95, but will).

However rather than using one of my existing PCs I'd like to buy something secondhand to use as a Windows-only PC, maybe a 500 MHz CPU on a baby AT motherboard (I have lots of cards which could be migrated/cannibalized).

Wine _nearly_ runs Quickroute, but I can't print anything from Quickroute, though I can from Wine's Notepad. (The Quickroute is a legal copy bought from Maplin but at a knock-down price. They - Quickroute - are out of business).

So I too want a cheap old PC for experimentation.

[NT]

95 is a bit different to later versions of win. Max hdd size it can ever address is 32G IIRC. 95 comes with its own version of dos, I suspect either an upgrade only disc or a disc fault. You can always get it on floppies :) You might also find it runs on 98, which can handle 137G hdd and 512M ram without patching, or a lot more with free 3rd party patches. And 98 does a lot more than 95 - eg 95 has no usb support, 98 supports it flawlessly with the nusb3.1 patch..

NT

[js.b1]

Hmmm....

15" TFT... 50W Old PC.... 65W =3D 0.115kW @ 10hrs / day @ 12p =3D =A350.37

15" CRT... 65W Old PC... 65W =3D 0.130kW @ 10hrs / day @ 12p =3D =A356.94

Thinkpad X60 T1300 =3D 0.012W @ 10hrs / day @ 12p =3D =A35.26

Of course if the machine is only used 2hrs a day the comparison becomes void - just something to consider with cheap machines and cheap CRT (particularly larger CRT which can get quite power hungry).