[Chester LUG] What do you guys do with old hardware

Thu Oct 26 14:29:21 UTC 2006

Looks like I'm too busy to come tonight, but as some of you may have 
gathered I'm involved with a Chester charity, CHAPTER, and having been 
offered very cheap legit Windoze software at charity rates, am resigned 
to sticking with MS XP for now as that is what the 'workers' 
understand.  However, any hardware capable of running XP Office at a 
sensible speed with a centrally networked file system to allow hot 
desking, I would collect tomorrow, and system administer myself.  I 
understand the problems of big CRTs, but then desk space is often 
cheaper than slim screens.  And on the subject desks or filing cabinets 
'a bit too scratched for posh offices' are also in demand.  I've got a 
van!  Maybe I should come tonight.  Roger.

Stuart Burns wrote:

> Hi Les,
>
> Yeah, The thing as a group as sounds good because I have tried before 
> to try and get the local council involved, wrote a nice letter to the 
> local council and MP to see if a) they could help or b) donate to a 
> worthy cause. It was a big fat NO from both of them, but I really 
> think it could be a good idea. For example I know a lot of colleges 
> are paying "scrap merchants" to take away fully working P3 1GHz 
> machines every term end when they get the new 3 GHz dual core machines etc
>
> I'd be interested in doing it and if it works, it would save this 
> company at least a few hundred a year in "landfill fees" not that it 
> would end up in the landfill, if you get my meaning.
>
> I mean, on top of all that kit, I have 3 17" crts that are going in 
> the bin so to speak, and its just wasteful ! And just think, if our 
> 100 person company has these machines kicking about a lot of others 
> must have an even bigger amount. ie Octel, Shell, all the financial 
> service companies in chester and the like (although I have no doubt 
> that they have removal mechanisms in place)
>
> Only problem I forsee that would be a pain is when they try and 
> install "Need for speed 3" on the linux boxen ;)
>
> Interesting thought though!
>
> On 10/26/06, *Les Pritchard* <les.pritchard at gmail.com 
> <mailto:les.pritchard at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Stuart,
>
>     There's several things you can do with old kit like that.  As you
>     say, they're not bin jobs yet - far from it.  There are charities
>     that will take the boxes off your hands and pass them on to
>     community projects.  I could see the laptops being particularly
>     suited for that, but the server boxes would also work well as
>     terminal servers.  What I sometimes do is just pass them on to
>     local non-profit organisations I know of.  Perhaps this could be a
>     worth while thing for the Chester LUG to consider doing -
>     collecting kit like this and donate it to local causes....complete
>     with Linux / BSD installed of course!!  That could bring publicity
>     for Linux, Open Source and the Chester LUG as well as helping out
>     these people.
>
>     If your company would go for that - would anybody else be
>     interested in doing this kind of thing?  If we share it between a
>     few of us, I'm sure it wouldn't be too bad.
>
>     I know several people on the list (me included!) and other friends
>     wouldn't mind some of the kit to play with themselves...but I'm
>     just trying to think of this from the good cause, Open Source
>     style approach of benefiting the community as a whole.  (Plus the
>     Techies Against Sleeping on the Sofa issue many face when bringing
>     back "another box" ;-) )
>
>     Thanks
>
>     Les
>
>     On 10/26/06, *Stuart Burns* < stuart.james.burns at gmail.com
>     <mailto:stuart.james.burns at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         Seems a simple question really, but where I work I we PAY some
>         person to take away all our "old" machines.
>
>         I currently have a few knocking round and it seems a pity for
>         them to go into landfill because at the end of the day they
>         are still good machines, but they have gotten bit rot etc and
>         slowwwweeeed right down. Nothing a format and a light windows
>         manager wouldnt cure
>
>         The specs of the machines that I *may* - subject to company
>         approval be getting rid of are:
>
>         4/5 Compaq Ipaqs, ranging from P2-450s to P3 800s with memory
>         and hard drives
>         1 HP P3 450
>         1 PowerEdge 800
>         1 PowerEdge 450 with ~30 GB RAID array
>
>         There may even be the following depending if our upgrade over
>         the next few weeks goes to plan
>         1 Dual Xeon 1 GHz/1Gb RAM/19GB RAID 5 array 2u Rackmount
>         1 PowerEdge 800
>         1 PowerEdge 4300 450Mhz with ~30 GB RAID array with tape drive
>
>         Problem that I have is, i use freecycle for most stuff, but
>         unfortunatly with the PCs you either get a) well intentioned
>         newbs who doent understand IT at all and feel they have a
>         right to phone you up at 9pm because program "coolgame.exe"
>         doesnt work or b) people take the stuff I gave for free (ie a
>         few p3 machines, printers etc ) and sell them on ebay !
>
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>
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