EggXpert

lol I love playing with old mouse balls.

I love dumpster diving.   My old job I got a 22" sony trinitron monitor that worked for 4 years despite being dropped my the ex office It guy.   I'm still using the desk I got from my old company going out of business.   I have tons of keyboards ,  used to have some monitors .. but have sense sold those off.  I have no shame to my dumpster diving game!  LOL

With my electronics and IT background.  I can usually fix alot of those pc's I find with spare parts that I've upgraded through the years.   

Many major corporations have a storage room filled with obsolete computers (older than two to three years) including monitors, keyboards, mice.  It is cheaper to store them than it is to recycle them.  But it takes up space -- a lot of space.  But they will often give them away if you are willing to haul the whole lot.  They will not have hard drives in them, or you may be required to remove the hard drives so they can be destroyed, but a pile of hard drives takes up a lot less space.

 You can buy a 20 pack of hard drives.  And use what they gave you to construct 70 - 80% of the number of computers present into a working LAN for low end projects.  You really cannot get rich, but you can often make a charitable group happy.  The rest you haul to a recycle center.

 

I just found out my wife's company is getting new desktops. I want to get my hands on them soooooo bad.

Bumpage...

Roallin:

Once you leave something at the curb for trash pick-up, you have surrendered all property rights to it.  This has been challenged in court and upheld.  The outcome is that the police are free to go through someones trash to find evidence, without a search warrant.  Or, you are able to legally take something that someone has thrown out.

Exactly. There's nothing legally wrong with dumpster diving.

Deadstroke:

About 2 years ago I managed to snag an Asus 9900GT in an apartment clean out.  Still using that card in a back up rig

O RLY? I'm guessing 6600GT is what you're talking about

Moving out of my apartment a couple months ago, I didn't find much in terms of computers. I did find some furniture and whatnot.

 

Deadstroke:

About 2 years ago I managed to snag an Asus 9900GT in an apartment clean out.  Still using that card in a back up rig

I knew it NVIDIA was holding out on us damn it. . I want a 9900GT too.

Recently my company was getting rid of old pc's and parts.  We were welcome to take anything we wanted.  I managed to score 1 gigabit ethernet card.  I got a lot of other stuff (several 10/100 cards) but I was happiest to get that 10/100/1000.  My second fav save from the pile was the 2 CTX crt style monitors 17".  I think I'm going to use one of them temporarily to work w/ my laptop that was given to me due to a busted screen.  I'll have the display fixed soon enough.  Was thrilled that my cousin decided to give it to me rather than repair it. 

Also, I've been have having quite a bit of fun w/ the PS2 that was given to me that wouldn't power on or read disks any more.  Got it working now and so far am just fine tuning the lens depth.  Sometimes I love it when other peoples things break. 

I remember several years ago I went to a sale of surplus computer equipment by the Army at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.  They had a parking lot that had a MOUNTAIN of used computer components stacked up in back of the building.  The pile was at least 15-20 feet high and around 50' in circumference at its base.  You could pick from that pile for free.  Then they had a warehouse that looked like a mini version of the one in the Indiana Jones movies for of stuff that was for sale.  I don't know if they still do this but it is like going to an all electronics yard sale that is on more steroids than all the NFL players combined.

I've had some good exploits in the past.  I started in high school with a couple 486s and some awesome networking equipment:  72-jack 10Base hub?  SCORE! (haha, sort of joking.  I keep it around even mostly because I want to know more about the maker whose name escapes me at the moment.  Someday.), keyboards, a 40GB HDD from back when that was pretty large, mice, power cables.  I fished 237 power cables from a big dumpster on the OSU campus, a bunch of CRTs the art department was trashing, some tables, a large sheet of plexiglass,  four pounds of DVI cables from when the English department got new LCDs in, a pile of working 10/100 cards, etc.  My best finds were when a local company let me raid their server room and I lifted a couple rackmount servers.

Looks like it's not like that in Canada. A Wal Mart store was throwing away old stuff they didn't sell to the garbage. A guy working there took the clothes to give them to charity organism. Some time later, Wal Mart discovered it and the guy got fired o.O

I'm scared of dumpsters :(

I walk by one, and some crazed animal flies out at me (almost like they know I'm coming).

Yesterday a 2 cats jumped (FLEW) out of a dumpster as I walked by, and I about "shat" myself :)

 

ImChance:

I'm scared of dumpsters :(

I walk by one, and some crazed animal flies out at me (almost like they know I'm coming).

Yesterday a 2 cats jumped (FLEW) out of a dumpster as I walked by, and I about "shat" myself :)

 

 

LMAO.  Around here bums will come out 

well not really dumpster diving but I usually pick up parts and such that are on the curb on garbage day

thats how I got my current dell that ive using for 2 years 

including CRT's screens usually 15"-17"

also my school throws out a lot of neat stuff too

dvd-drives, tons and tons of computer book, hardware pci network cards and such, and tons of cables (especially power cables)

best find there was probably ms visual studio 6.0 pro, and a 2.1 sound system, and 4 microscopes + A/V tv jacks for them

I could have gotten a laser disk player, and 2  36" TV's , and a network printer but way to big to carry  :p

have yet to find them throwing out a comp though...

matter of fact i went DD the other day,,picked up a whole box of old toothbrushes,,,,so all my buds here on EggXpert,,,i got your christmas presents all taken care of,,,and y'all be gettin 'em with free EggSaver 3 to 7 days shipping,,,hey some of 'em ain't even got hardly any bent bristles,,,,remember, it's the thought that counts,,,,,,,

fatboyHD:

remember, it's the thought that counts,,,,,,,

really ?  and all this time I thought it was "fingers" that counts !

aesman:

lol I love playing with old mouse balls.

Yeah....forget them young ones !

so,,, what's your favorite color tallon,,,,

Plaid.......LOL     or Beige

you got it bro,,,,,  btw,,,iffen ya find any hairs in it,,just pick 'em out affore ya use it,,,,

A friend of mine found a HP Pavilion a705w he found put out by the side of the road. He gave it to me and I cleaned it out of spyware and viruses. It was so clogged it would barely run. I added 1 GB of RAM(had 256mb) also and it runs like a charm. It has Windows XP Home, 2.93 Ghz Celeron and 40gb HD. Not a bad find. A week or two after that I find a 15 eMachines LCD monitor by the side of the road. I plugged it in (it was missing power cord) and worked like a charm. Both are a little dinged up but work great. Essentially a new PC for $0.00.Using them both right now.