Has anyone here ever done anything daft with hardware??

[phill]

I just wondered whether or not anyone has been a little daft with things like myself as aside from not really wanting to throw out or sell older hardware, I've always managed to try and keep it...
Since also starting to work in IT, the company I work for gets rid of hardware (as you'd expect them to) and I'm always the first to say, I'll have that!!..

Well I wonder if I've gone a little bit too far this time...

For my home network, I had started off with this



As work was getting rid of some of their unwanted items, I managed to pick up this...



So my home network went from this...



To this...



I did have a Draytek router instead of the Plus.net home thing, but I wasn't so impressed with the Draytek unit so I took that back, another thing that work was not using and going to just get rid of...

And then this was getting recycled, so I thought, I could do something with that... So I brought this home...




I had also been working in the Engineering Stores when a new server rocked up for a new line that was going into the factory, so naturally I was interested and intrigued and I was told that they were just going to throw out the rack in came in as it wasn't needed... So after a long time (about 8 or 9 months of waiting) I was able to finally get it home...






It's nicely fitted in the R710 Dell 2U server I had brought back a month or two before hand... I'm rather pleased I must admit as at the moment it runs VMWare, Server 2012 R2 and Linux as well, all done through VM software (something I'd never used...) I'm hoping to try and get Synology running on it as well so I can try and attempt to get a backup running from my server upstairs.. It's a little smaller than this one but...
Today I've asked about some extra RAM for it and with a few 2Gb sticks no longer required I've brought those home, so I hope that I might have a few spare for my SR-2 setup upstairs that I can get working at some point in the future




So I'm not sure that working in the IT department will be a good thing for my me or myhome, I think I will be ending up with more hardware than home soon enough.. But I guess I might be already there....

I was just wondering if anyone else was like me or even worse??

 

[jboydgolfer]

I would say a large part of the population are "pack rats". You have to learn to draw the line from what you require, and what you want.

If you're at a point where you're bringing things home with the notion in mind of "I'll find a way to use this", then you're on the wrong path. You're better off seeing something you already needed and taking it home ,or something someone else may need ,and taking it home and giving it away. Otherwise you're just going to end up being a repository of trash ,which at the end of the day is exactly what outdated or unneeded HW is, trash, or scrap. It's something that'll wear off, if you're new to the field ,it's not uncommon to take junk home. but then you'll realize what you're taking home is trash and you'll stop doing it, unless there's an intended purpose for it or use that wasn't created by the availability of the item. Just like someone who starts working at Burger King or McDonald's ,and eats nothing but big Macs for a month. they get tired of them and then they end up eating them less often than a normal person after.

I did IT and fiber optic installation, as well as some other things for casinos and resorts in the Bahamas years back, and I ended up with a ton of "Surplus" cable in my garage, among other crap i didnt need

 

[natr0n]

Got any spare ddr3 lol

I tend to keep - hoard my computer stuff. If it's functional it's good for something.

 

[Vayra86]

The teddy bear just finishes it off, brilliant

I also much agree with @jboydgolfer in the stance one should have with regards to 'stuff'. I find it much more pleasing to buy something that has an actual purpose, or shows an actual, useful gain in performance. If it doesn't do that, I really feel I'm pissing away hard-earned money. About keeping old stuff... when i t really has no foreseeable future purpose, and this does happen alot with hardware, I try to either sell it off or just toss it out. Not so much with random parts like cables, connectors and nuts and bolts, but actual components, definitely. Its just going to be collecting dust. Now, some really good looking hardware I might not part with, and actually use as a decorational piece, but that's another thing.

 

[Solaris17]

sure

This is before the new switch and a whole new mess of wires. Ill clean it up after the inlaws this week and show you guys when its re-done.

Spoiler

then on it. lets take a look at Hyper-V manager

As you can see in RoyalTS I actually handle alot of different connections. However my homelab primary host is a supermicro board with a E3-1241v3 with 32GB of ram and multiple RAID arrays. The VMs are hosted on a 1TB SSD RAID array using Micron enterprise drives. The OSs are a mix of Windows server 2012/R2 and Unix and Linux depending on what its doing. With the host server running Server 2016. The webhost and router are running FreeBSD.

All of these are running bonded on dedicated gig ports courtesy of a few Intel PRO/1000 PT Quad Port PCI-E nic cards.

I also have an AMD Ryzen 1600 build on the opposite side of that room I leave on and RDP into to run tests or long term projects so I dont bog my main machine down.

 

[phill]

Well I'm grateful for all the replies guys, thanks The teddy bear Vayra86 was for my daughter mainly I said to her that I have a sort of dolls house for her.. She just laughed at me and said that's not a dolls house!! I said you can hide in it though and do whatever you want with it

I must also add that all of this has been free, I've not paid a penny for it so I thought if I could at least learn something from using it or setting it up, it would be of value to me, even if the hardware itself might be a little outdated.. I can also use it for something useful such as the World Grid Computing, it might not be the most efficient of hardware but if its only on a short periods of time, I'm not so worried

I do plan on trying to get some other servers, hopefully newer models when work put them out to be recycled, as I'd rather be able to sell them on myself and make something from it than another company gaining something Plus if they can help with a bit of cancer research or something, I think it's worth it

Got any spare ddr3 lol

I tend to keep - hoard my computer stuff. If it's functional it's good for something.

I do have some standard Corsair DDR3 all of that on the table was server grade stuff lol I have a few systems that I just can't part with back from my Abit NF7-S Rev 2 board to my DFI LanParty 939 board and my EVGA Classifieds... Not to mention a few others.. I loose count!!

Solairs17, I do have 4 of those cards, but I think these R710's do come with 4 1Gb ports anyways, so if I could get those working in Synology, that would be rather good as I seem to have a few spare ports on my switch at the moment

 

[Beertintedgoggles]

I've been down the route jbodygolfer has described. I took discarded P4 and Athlon64 systems and doled them out to friends and family who were in need. Then there are all the "this will come in handy sometime" parts that do get used maybe once a year or two when troubleshooting. Then comes the disdain for all the space that is taken up and the push to finally get rid of the most outdated hardware. Eventually..... this happens:

Right now that's on my office wall at work.

 

[phill]

I'm not sure if I'd have enough wall space for all that I have floating about at home!!

I'd like to try and get a bigger home so I can get a purpose built place to put all this stuff

 

[Bill_Bright]

I have found the notion of "I might need it someday" Or "I might find a use for it someday" results in you ending up with a basement full of obsolete hardware nobody will ever use or want. Many say to treat old hardware (and software disks too) like clothes. If you have not worn it in the last year, get rid of it.

For awhile there, I was collecting old systems too then cannibalizing computers to make complete systems to donate to a local church for needy families. But in recent years, they would not take them because the old hardware (and old software and OSs that went with it) could not meet the demands for the school or work tasks the families needed. It was cheaper for the charities to buy refurbished systems from Walmart that already came with W10 on them - with a warranty too.

So I say load all that stuff up in a truck and take it to an electronics recycling center. These places are designed to dispose of the hazardous materials found in electronics in an environmentally safe manner. Many of these places will even pay you for the aluminum, steel and precious metals found in electronic devices! This is exactly what I did a couple years ago with a bunch of old motherboards, RAM, CPUs, cases, drives, home theater components (receivers, amps, cassette players, VCRs, CD players) and more. They paid me $80. Yeah, it was many $1000s (when brand new) worth of stuff, but it was actually worth $0.00 to anybody else, including me. So getting paid $80 to take if off my hands and clear out my basement was a huge win for me.

The only thing they would not take is 6 CRT monitors. This is because there is mercury (and often lead) in the cathode ray tubes and it costs too much for them to safely extract and dispose of the mercury. I would have had to pay them $10 each for them to take them.

So I brought the CRT monitors back home, printed a "FREE" sign, taped it to a monitor and lugged it out to the curb. By the time I was lugging the 3rd monitor out, some guy in a truck was taking the first monitor and he lugged out the last 3 too!

I now have a really nice guest "suite" in my basement.

Just make sure you "wipe" or destroy any hard drives before disposing or recycling.

 

[neatfeatguy]

I tend to recycle my old hardware to my kids or younger brother. I swear, without my old equipment, he never would have gotten into PC gaming and would still be swearing at his 3x RRoD Xbox 360.

I've been trying to get him off my old GTX 570 and into buying something new that would run circles around it, even if it was a GTX 1050Ti - cheap little punk won't budge.

 

[phill]

That's partly the problem, with some of the hardware I have it seems to be wanted and prices are not too far from what they were when I bought it I can't complain, I'm a collector of 'retro' gaming consoles as well, so things like that will still live on for me, I've just got to make sure that I next buy a house to fit it all in

The server rack I'm hoping to put into a utility room and run the server and such from there rather than a bedroom.. If I have to buy land, build a house from scratch, so be it.. I'm sure I'll enjoy doing it!! But still, I guess you could call me a hardware junkie, it's just my hobby.. I'm not sure its such a bad thing as I'm sure there's far worse options out there I could do....

 

[StrayKAT]

I would say a large part of the population are "pack rats". You have to learn to draw the line from what you require, and what you want.

Definitely not me. I just trashed a few old laptops. And I didn't like having them around in the first place. I almost want to just give away a 270 board I have as well... I already have one. Same with an SSD. Maybe family on thanksgiving.

 

[Jetster]

Keeping old stuff is a big waste of time and space. I guess I'm a minimalist. If I'm not going to use it I give it away or sell it. I hate clutter. I have a few old parts like a hardware 56 k modem I paid $90 for and a big foot hard drive but that's it

 

[IceScreamer]

I do have a storage space for older and spare parts. Tho it's not much, a cabinet of parts I mess around with when I'm bored.
It has not become a space problem, yet.

 

[eidairaman1]

@buildzoid @infrared @fullinfusion @cdawall are a hand of names that sometimes do soft or hard mods.

 

[fullinfusion]

@buildzoid @infrared @fullinfusion @cdawall @MrGenius are a hand of names that sometimes do soft or hard mods.

Only MODs I do I keep to myself... But respect to @buildzoid @infrared and @cdawall for what they do

But @buildzoid I'd like to PM you about something for my own curiosity.. Id ask cdawall but hes to busy mining shit and making me look bad lol

 

[cdawall]

Only MODs I do I keep to myself... But respect to @buildzoid @infrared and @cdawall for what they do

But @buildzoid I'd like to PM you about something for my own curiosity.. Id ask cdawall but hes to busy mining shit and making me look bad lol

Lol I PM'd your boy and never got a message back, figured he was super busy and didn't want to bother him further

 

[eidairaman1]

Buildzoid has his own youtube channel, might be able to reach him there...

 

[fullinfusion]

Lol I PM'd your boy and never got a message back, figured he was super busy and didn't want to bother him further

I was trolling you man lol... Let me but a bug in his ear and see what he said..

But yes very busy with.... well it's not a secret but Decembers gift for the AMD clan

 

[DR4G00N]

The only hardware I tend to keep around is stuff that still hold value because of their rarity or are relevant for overclocking. Mainly motherboards take up the most space but I have boxes of cpu's, gpu's & most types of ram kicking around and a few cases. I think I have about 50 various S478 P4's. (Most of which will be chucked later once I bin them).
For newer stuff I tend to sell or give away if I'm never going to use it again.

 

[cdawall]

I was trolling you man lol... Let me but a bug in his ear and see what he said..

But yes very busy with.... well it's not a secret but Decembers gift for the AMD clan

I only have a few AMD GPU's right now

and shoot me message on discord if you need something I have that on me like 24/7

 

[jboydgolfer]

Definitely not me. I just trashed a few old laptops. And I didn't like having them around in the first place. I almost want to just give away a 270 board I have as well... I already have one. Same with an SSD. Maybe family on thanksgiving.

some people aren't inclined to accumulate surplus items.

What I recommend if anyone ever finds themselves in a position where they have stuff (even if broken) that could be uuseful to somebody , create a thread offering it for free & taker pays shipping. I do it every few years, I offload my unused hardware or broken items ,to a member here on TPU, & they gladly take it. Sometimes the stuff is actually decent , & they could be sold if one was willing to go through the trouble. I've given away cameras, video cards, motherboards & All kinds of stuff even video games ...whatever gets it off my shelf and into the hands of someone who's going to put it to use. Unused HW or anything is doing noone any good

Even though the shipping or the thread creation can be a little more work than just simply throwing in the trash bin, you could be helping someone out big time, and it never hurts to be a little charitable . this is one of the VERY few times i am "nice" to other humans.....otherwise, im a miserable, toxic intolerant person

 

[fullinfusion]

I only have a few AMD GPU's right now

and shoot me message on discord if you need something I have that on me like 24/7

Don't have TPU discord channel sorry

 

[cdawall]

Don't have TPU discord channel sorry

TPU has a discord? Man I am learning all kinds of things today.

 

[Capitan Harlock]

I do have all my old pc parts from my first pc in 2002 .
A friend of mine gifted to me is 4 years old tv Panasonic 42" full hd that broke , got new led stripes and works like is new XD .