What to Do With Your Old Computer

After working in the computer repair business for almost ten years, I have seen a lot of old computers come and go. My old office had a ten foot pile of old computer parts I called the “PC Graveyard” with much glee. The question got asked a lot “what do I do with my old computer?” I am here today to give you two good options.

1. Donate It
Although I would agree this is the least profitable of your options, in my opinion it is the best for everyone. There are thousands of homes without computer, kids that need them for homework, and so much more. When I say donations I don’t mean to a place like Goodwill or St. Vincent De Paul’s, I mean a church or some other group that is going to give the computer away. Now I don’t mean to say that these places don’t do good, it’s just from my experience when they get something like a computer they price it where the people who really need it still can’t get it, even from a thrift store. If you absolutely need to take it somewhere you can get a tax write off, that’s well and good, and it’s still helping people.

2. Sell It
It’s easy to think that your old computer isn’t worth much, and sometimes that will be the case. In other cases It will be worth more than you think. What I always suggest is to find out for yourself, sign up for an account, put it up there, throw it up on craigslist, or even post it in your local paper. For little to no cash you can find out if your computers worth any of its own. From my experience, there are a lot of people out there looking for a lot of different things; odds are you will sell it.

Craigslist

How To Get Your Computer Ready For Sale

Now that you are ready to unload that old computer the same question always comes up, how to erase all your files. In most cases running a factory restore CD will be just fine. If you have word documents saved with your credit card numbers on them or something and you are worried about people getting that there are some utilities out there that will wipe your drive clean. For the overwhelming majority of people you have nothing at all to worry about. If you don’t have the factory discs, or you really are worried, sell the computer without the hard drive in it. Simple take the old drive out and then sell it. The computer will still have a lot of use, the next user can just buy a new hard drive and be up and ready to go. Like I said though, most people have nothing to worry about at all.

To Our Members
Selling used computers is a huge profit center. The whole reason I kept that pile of carnage was because every once in a while a customer would come in with a older style computer that needed some random part that wasn’t for sale anywhere else. In most cases you can accumulate parts and even old computers when customers bring in pc that they decide not to fix. Usually there is always at least something that you are able to salvage on a computer so I would suggest keeping most things. I would usually take them apart and try and organize it, but either way keep it. The other great thing is in the event you would ever need some random part off the pile, you can give the customer a great price on it, and whatever you sell it for will be 100% profit.