Old Hardware

[BackwoodsBob]

Exactly my point. And a very small niche market too. So if you have an old Commodore to sell, you might get lucky and sell it for a good price. But then what? Can you then retire? Does that pay your rent, car payment and insurance for that month? What about next month? Do you have 100s more to sell to keep your income coming in? Are there 100s more buyers ready to pay your next car payments?

I am not trying to pay the rent or make a car payment, I am trying to make a buck. No reason to be negative.

My point is about making a living by selling used computer parts. To make a living, the supply and demand has to be sustainable. The supply may be there, but not the demand. Even as a type of supplemental income, it just isn't sustainable because there just are not that many buyers.


Again, my point. That said, I don't know of any place in the developed world where parts are so limited you can make a living selling used parts.

Not trying to make a living selling anything. I don't know why you make that assumption.

Of course! I agree completely. That is exactly why I used to take old computers and computer parts, refurbish them into working computers and donate them through a local church to needy families. But I could easily have 50 - 100 working computers but not find 5 families that could use them. Why? Because they didn't support W10, or their performance could not keep up with needs. Or because they needed a portable computer, not a PC. And if they did support W10, I could not afford to buy legitimate Windows licenses for each one. I could put Linux on them, but the school system required Windows.

Trying to avoid scraping computers is exactly why, when XP became obsolete for the Internet, I used to repurpose XP machines, including my own, into NAS computers for use on "local" networks. This kept them (and a lot of old hard drives) out of the landfills (at least for awhile).

There are 10s, perhaps 100s of millions of old, used computers out there that still run, but don't support W10 , today's apps, or meet today's performance demands. So again, the supply is there, but not the demand.

I have some of those as well. Maybe I didn't state clearly when I said a product key is $110, but these machines do in fact take win 10, otherwise I wouldn't need a product key.
You may be accurate that the market for these parts is small to minuscule. Clearly you have been down this road yourself.
I built one of these machines. Quad core 8 GB RAM 500 GB HDD. New windows 10. Sold it in an hour for $200.
With the parts I currently have, I could build 3 more of these machines for about $150 each. $50 profit per unit isn't great, but they cost me nothing to get the parts I have. I can hang on to the parts I have and gather more parts thereby making my total invested per unit even less, but I am moving soon and trying to downsize, not spend more money on stuff.
Last, if you have to be negative all over my post, do us both a favor and put me on ignore.
Thanks for your input.

 

[claes]

Two things:

First, you are paying way too much for Windows keys. You can go to the front page of this website and get keys for ~$10.

Second, and with respect, I think you’re taking advantage of your customers... I’m assuming that quad-core is from the Nehalem days? These day’s you can hop on dell and get a much more capable (and upgradeable) computer for not much more:

Dell Slim Desktop | Dell USA

Shop the Dell Slim Small Form Factor AI PC with Intel processors, AMD/NVIDIA graphics, and Edge computing features.

www.dell.com

The used market is over-saturated:

Robot or human?

www.walmart.com

Robot or human?

www.walmart.com

Robot or human?

www.walmart.com

 

[Bill_Bright]

I don't know why you make that assumption.

While you are the OP on this thread, do note my comments that you quoted were in response to others, not you.

Clearly you have been down this road yourself.

Multiple times over multiple decades with multiple generations of computers, TVs and monitors, audio reproduction gear, networking gear and all sorts of other "high tech" consumer electronics.

The "state-of-the-art" keeps advancing. And when new generations come out, older generations become obsolete and more importantly, unwanted - even though it may still work just fine.

 

[BackwoodsBob]

Two things:

First, you are paying way too much for Windows keys. You can go to the front page of this website and get keys for ~$10.

Second, and with respect, I think you’re taking advantage of your customers... I’m assuming that quad-core is from the Nehalem days? These day’s you can hop on dell and get a much more capable (and upgradeable) computer for not much more:

Dell Slim Desktop | Dell USA

Shop the Dell Slim Small Form Factor AI PC with Intel processors, AMD/NVIDIA graphics, and Edge computing features.

www.dell.com

The used market is over-saturated:

Robot or human?

www.walmart.com

Robot or human?

www.walmart.com

Robot or human?

www.walmart.com

Are those windows keys any good tho? If Microsoft is selling them for $110, how are folks selling them for only $10? That smells fishie AF to me. I have researched this last year. I understand that while the key may work for a while, it is equal to you selling me your windows key. At some point it is going to get discovered that two computers are running the same activation key and the one that was activated second gets the axe, which doesn't do anyone any good long term, especially the guy who lives in BFE(google it if you don't know).
As far as taking advantage of customers, the guy who just bought the computer I sold with the quad core, he had plastic covering his car window, he couldn't afford the $350.00 for the cheapest Dell on the site you listed. I let him talk me down to $175 because of it. I made $50 and the guy got a pc for his kid or his job search, or to cook meth with. (joke). That guy couldn't afford $350, he probably couldn't afford the $175.
Used market absolutely is oversaturated with $500.00 computers, at least around here. $200.00 computers, not so much.
Personally, I wouldn't but a computer on line for any kind of a great deal. Your results may have varied.

 

[Toothless]

Are those windows keys any good tho? If Microsoft is selling them for $110, how are folks selling them for only $10? That smells fishie AF to me. I have researched this last year. I understand that while the key may work for a while, it is equal to you selling me your windows key. At some point it is going to get discovered that two computers are running the same activation key and the one that was activated second gets the axe, which doesn't do anyone any good long term, especially the guy who lives in BFE(google it if you don't know).
As far as taking advantage of customers, the guy who just bought the computer I sold with the quad core, he had plastic covering his car window, he couldn't afford the $350.00 for the cheapest Dell on the site you listed. I let him talk me down to $175 because of it. I made $50 and the guy got a pc for his kid or his job search, or to cook meth with. (joke). That guy couldn't afford $350, he probably couldn't afford the $175.
Used market absolutely is oversaturated with $500.00 computers, at least around here. $200.00 computers, not so much.
Personally, I wouldn't but a computer on line for any kind of a great deal. Your results may have varied.

Keys work. Used three of them. You'll get sales if you price better than anyone else and that's just business.

 

[FireFox]

Are those windows keys any good tho? If Microsoft is selling them for $110, how are folks selling them for only $10?

I wont go much into details but wanted to let you know that i paid 5€ my keys

 

[8BitZ80]

Are those windows keys any good tho? If Microsoft is selling them for $110, how are folks selling them for only $10? That smells fishie AF to me. I have researched this last year. I understand that while the key may work for a while, it is equal to you selling me your windows key. At some point it is going to get discovered that two computers are running the same activation key and the one that was activated second gets the axe, which doesn't do anyone any good long term, especially the guy who lives in BFE(google it if you don't know).

Isn't that just a speculative opinion? I've bought at least a dozen cheap Windows 10 and Office Pro keys from various sources and have only had around a 10% failure rate (usually ones from the most shady sources). You soon get accustomed to knowing what is a legit source versus a scam.

Normally I get Windows 10 keys through VIPSCDKeys for $15 each. Cheap Office keys are much harder to find although I've oddly enough had good success with Ebayers who sell Office 2019 Pro at $5 each. Never had any issues with activated products de-activating themselves or any wonkiness.

 

[BackwoodsBob]

Keys work. Used three of them. You'll get sales if you price better than anyone else and that's just business.

Agreed on the pricing. I was looking at one of the sites. I will do some more vetting before I screw with it. Not overly excited to click on their "link" to get the download as well. I would definitely skip that step and download directly from microsoft. Something stinks about this whole set up.

Isn't that just a speculative opinion? I've bought at least a dozen cheap Windows 10 and Office Pro keys from various sources and have only had around a 10% failure rate (usually ones from the most shady sources). You soon get accustomed to knowing what is a legit source versus a scam.

Normally I get Windows 10 keys through VIPSCDKeys for $15 each. Cheap Office keys are much harder to find although I've oddly enough had good success with Ebayers who sell Office 2019 Pro at $5 each. Never had any issues with activated products de-activating themselves or any wonkiness.

Quick question, did you downloaded from the supplied link?
How easy, or hard, would it be to add a line or twenty of code that would log your key strokes? I would sell stuff at a 90% loss if I could steal your identity, if I were a bad guy. Then no antivirus in the world would find it.
I want to provide the best product I can at the best price I can. I have to be careful and consider my potential customers first.
Like me, I am hunting for Linux. I am not going to download Linux from any crackhead website, I am going to Linux to get it.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
I've used plenty of cheap keys even said to be retail keys for 20.us+- and they work and reactivate too after mother board swap and I've done that quite a bit even used some from ebay lol
You can buy from the MS store and it might not reactivate I've had at least one that didn't I'd rather try on the cheap than deal with MS.

 

[BackwoodsBob]

I think I figured out how these guys are able to sell keys. If they bought a volume license that they are selling off.
Searching around I found an article here: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-determine-if-license-oem-retail-volume-windows-10.
The instructions say to do this:

• Open Start.
• Search for Command Prompt, right-click the top result, and select the Run as administrator option.
• Type the following command to determine the license type and press Enter:
  slmgr /dli

Can someone who has gotten one of these keys do this and report back what they find? Mine says OEM_COA_ something. If they are indeed selling off a volume license, I am all in.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yeah mine states oem-coa-slp-channel 35.us retail

Did an old acer retail key and it showed retail-channel so something fishy with the above retail

I'll do my win-10 retail later still recording a movie atm.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
z490 win-10 pro is retail channel.

 

[freeagent]

Do you even need a key? I just reinstalled windows because it took a pretty good shit kicking with bad memory clocks. Actually, I have to do it again because I couldn't leave well enough alone. I chose the I don't have a key option, and did not log into any MS service and had full use of the OS. There wasn't a watermark, and it was just a few hours. But I had full control even after updating it. To be fair it was calling home often. I think.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Not really it gives you 20-30 days before the watermark appears.
Think we were referring to cheap keys and if they work rather than more expensive keys amazon/...

 

[Jetster]

Hi,
Not really it gives you 20-30 days before the watermark appears.
Think we were referring to cheap keys and if they work rather than more expensive keys amazon/...

Actually it will work beyond 30 days now. You just get a watermark and a reminder. The watermark is from day 1

I have a test bench thats been running W10 for 4 months without a license