Good to see you around rivjay. I point new members to your thread when they ask what to do with their old pc's.

I consider your thread a asset of sorts even if 15 pages long. I figure if you are stuck running old gear. Then a little elbow grease and fortitude is required to get what you want.

Since limitations are encountered on the onset of peoples goals. Old gear requires work and patience.
Stay healthy, bro.

Thank you for your kind words, info. support and encouragement. Keep up the good work. :)

Recently, I installed some emulators, IDEs and a comic book reader on my old C2D Desktop. They don't occupy much space and are good to keep if needed.

On a different note, I saw two laptops without their LCD display on recycling day by the road side. I decided to let them be and now regret it in reflection. I could have used the Ram, hard drive and other parts in these laptops. Lastly, I could have tried to boot these with a monitor, KB and mouse attached. If this worked, then it would have been a good success. I already have a laptop/netbook multi adapter that I could have used with these. Next time, if in doubt must grab and atleast keep for a few days. The resource is presented in a different way each time, that I fail to recognize it and forget this rule. Still learning.

You can go wrong with this. I've just made a present to a friend of a desktop system made entirely of recycled components. The tower was the last bit I acquired. A couple of months ago, I thought I'd found a suitable tower for her and bore it home in triumph (wondering as I did so why it was so darned heavy). I found out when I examined it for the first time in my hallway. It had a sticker on it saying "4 MB RAM"!

I don't think you could run even Puppy on that. The weight of course was due to the fact that it was all ancient technology inside.

What I found was a laptop part and it was really easy to carry but I decided not to, it seems to be a P4. Desktops of the type you mentioned are very rare to find these days as most have been recycled already.

Stumbled across this site, I don't know if their pricing is on target or not, but fun to look over their stuff: http://abcresellers.com/store/page2.html

Fun to look, but some of those prices are WAY out of line. Where they can be found, many of those can be picked up for $25 US and refurbished from my parts box! Nice to browse though.

I have found old 486 and later laptops a treasure. Add a monitor, external keyboard and mouse, and tie into wired network, and you can run Linux, FreeDos, Win98SE. Shopping around for replacement batteries can be problematic, so I just run them form wall power when those go bad. I have been able to build mail appliances, firewalls, internal web servers, game servers, and other 'toys' with old hardware, but spending any significant money on it would take away from the fun.

Where to get Computer Screws, nice thread to learn from:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/631400

I got a huge collection of screws years ago when a local pc shop does a annual 'barn sale' where they sell all their junk. I asked them if I could buy a bunch of screws for a few $.

mcmaster-carr is a good place to order online. I've ordered screws for computers, bicycles, etc there.

Saw a used desktop tower computer Core2Duo outside and just got it back home. The plastic cover for one of the bays is loose and out of place. The part of the case that holds the cover is twisted and out of place. So, it doesn't close properly.It doesn't power on even, but everything is inside, so looks nice to use for parts, even the floppy drive. Will use it with time and see how it goes. It was at same spot as last time where I saw the
two laptops without the monitor. This time decided to grab it immediately and then reflect on it. Atleast the screws can be used.

Edited to add: It was not too heavy to carry home. I just returned home with it on foot. It was surprisingly light.

Hope this PC didn't have a power surge or didn't get hit by lightning, then even parts inside will be toast. Have to try a few parts and see perhaps. This is the thing with discarded PCs, one can never be sure if it works or what are the issues. It is like diving in truuk island looking for sunken treasures. :)

even if it is dead, floppy drives, cdroms, etc have nice little stepper motors. Always something that can be used.

Yesterday, I also found an old printer and took it apart. Lots of parts inside it, specially screws. Took a while but guess with time I will get faster. Screws are always useful, also cables. Some even take the capacitors off the circuit boards and use them when needed. Still have some more to go thru, got most of it torn apart.

I removed most of the printer apart. Got lots of screws and some weird special internal cables. The two most vital parts are the 2 motors one for the paper feed and the other for moving the cartridges. These two will not come off. There is also a power adapter but I didn't bother to get it. So lots of parts in there that can be used creatively, specially for engineers etc., Not all screws came off, I got what is possible and left the rest. Moreover, one tiny phillips screw will not come off, no matter how much I tried. Will try this again later a few times. Some of the parts like the scanner glass are actually glued and so need to be ripped apart gently. If you were to try this, if you wish, use a hammer and smash unwanted pieces, since they are no longer needed, it is not a biggie. After a few more attempts at the same exercise, with time I will get faster and more efficient. Look at this as a nice puzzle over a weekend or evening. I encourage all to try this safely and slowly. :)

Edited to add:
There is a power adapter also inside but I didn't bother to take it out and threw it along with a few other plastic pieces. The plastic pieces can be broken and thrown in ground to deter mice etc., Or those with creativity, skill can use them for other purposes.

It is hard to remove the screws that bind the motors and the cartridge holder together. They are screwed in really hard, as these parts move a lot and they didn't want the screws coming loose due to this movement. Will have to figure something out. Feels a bit sad but will be interesting to figure the solution out.

Came Across this to remove tight screws:
http://www.geeksonhome.com/how_62449...ht-screws.html

Don't think will help in this case, will think some more.

Repairing PSU Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF0Fc8pF7DU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLDJ1xc9Qc4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4jTHhXuKLA

This is good to know, have a soldering iron and solder.

On a different note, local store is selling P4 Laptop for 100 bucks with tax approx.
80G HD, 2Gb Ram and Win 7. This is an ok deal.

How to open a laptop from laptopinventory.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0k8LpYb_Io

This video teaches a lot of things fast and is a must watch. The main thing is the use of an electric screw driver. No wonder, some of the screws are hard to remove manually and damage the screw heads.

Also, this one, how to replace Laptop LCD Screen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyn1hZHeSXQ