Hey Look, it's Me! I figured this might be a useful little guide, and as I was recycling my old laptop anyway, I thought I might show how easy it is to sell the bits and pieces. I have indeed sold everything off, and got about $200 bucks total, not bad considering the laptop is six years old and I only paid around $1,000 for it in the first place.
The gist of the video, if you don't want to watch it, is that you can and should recycle your old machines when they've reached the end of their useful life. But you should also scavenge any working parts and sell them (or use them) before giving all those valuables to Dell.
I sold the RAM and the screen and put the hard drive in an external enclosure and I use it to carry media around the house. It doesn't need anything more than the USB cord to power it, so it's far more convenient (though smaller) than most externals...totally sweet. I got the enclosure on EBay for around $10.
Sorry if I'm not overly charismatic...I am, after all, still just a geek in my basement.
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written by weee recycling, September 28, 2007
Great video - well worth watching. Be interesting to see how many more laptop parts there'll be on Ebay as a result...
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written by Pelle, September 28, 2007
Charmingly geeky, liked it until that very last second when your body made a little weird sound ;)
Reusing is really the best thing one can do for the environment, for the economy - for everything. By not destroying value already built up there's an opening for adding new richness upon the already existing rather than replacing old richness with newer richness. Well, something like that at least.
Made something similar with a 133 mhz 32mb ram Dell Laptop. I got it for free from one of my relatives and ir worked nicely with an old Word on it, I even successfully installed an old null-modem cable and was able to proxy some MSN Messenger on there and installed Doom. Worked flawless and did certainly not deserve to be thrown away.
One day it didn't start any more. I thought - what the heck - I disassembles this so I can se how it looks insides and maybe reuse some components. When I have the while computer alyed out on my desk I plugged the power in and tried to turn it on one last time before I threw it away - and to my suprise it started - it was the power switch that had failed - everything else worked!
I reassembled it and made a whole in it's body so I could bypass the body's power switch (perhaps not the right terminology - but you get it I think - you're also geeks). Now I yet again had a working low power low noise old computer. I picked up a pcmcia network card for it and voila - I had myself a low power server. I downloaded Winamp and voila - I had a low power internet radio.
In the end although I didn't have time to put it to use myself so instead I found someone else who really wanted a portable computer and gave it to her. This computer is still living and is frequently used as far as I know.
That's another way of saving an old computer - checking it for small easy to fix errors which often occur - like power switch failures - and fix those. Can save a lot of money and a lot of environment also. Unfortunately most fixes require quite some knowledge whereas others - like reinstalling Windows or defragging it rather then throwing your computer to the garbage is easy. (Really - some non-geeks believes that when the computers starts getting slow it's time to replace it's hardware and not it's software!)
Reusing is really the best thing one can do for the environment, for the economy - for everything. By not destroying value already built up there's an opening for adding new richness upon the already existing rather than replacing old richness with newer richness. Well, something like that at least.
Made something similar with a 133 mhz 32mb ram Dell Laptop. I got it for free from one of my relatives and ir worked nicely with an old Word on it, I even successfully installed an old null-modem cable and was able to proxy some MSN Messenger on there and installed Doom. Worked flawless and did certainly not deserve to be thrown away.
One day it didn't start any more. I thought - what the heck - I disassembles this so I can se how it looks insides and maybe reuse some components. When I have the while computer alyed out on my desk I plugged the power in and tried to turn it on one last time before I threw it away - and to my suprise it started - it was the power switch that had failed - everything else worked!
I reassembled it and made a whole in it's body so I could bypass the body's power switch (perhaps not the right terminology - but you get it I think - you're also geeks). Now I yet again had a working low power low noise old computer. I picked up a pcmcia network card for it and voila - I had myself a low power server. I downloaded Winamp and voila - I had a low power internet radio.
In the end although I didn't have time to put it to use myself so instead I found someone else who really wanted a portable computer and gave it to her. This computer is still living and is frequently used as far as I know.
That's another way of saving an old computer - checking it for small easy to fix errors which often occur - like power switch failures - and fix those. Can save a lot of money and a lot of environment also. Unfortunately most fixes require quite some knowledge whereas others - like reinstalling Windows or defragging it rather then throwing your computer to the garbage is easy. (Really - some non-geeks believes that when the computers starts getting slow it's time to replace it's hardware and not it's software!)
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written by Tom Konrad, September 29, 2007
I'm always having keyboards die on me on my laptops... Not always from spills. I usually go through 2 keyboards per laptop. They sell for around $25 on Ebay. Sell that too, if it's still working.
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written by Eric, September 29, 2007
hank, very nice!!! great video. i hope you opt for many more videos here. still loving the site. i might do this with the toshiba i'm working on right now. it's a 2001, pretty awesome for it's time but not so awesome for 6 years old. and i've got good ram!! if anyone will answer; will dell recycle a toshiba for free? i'll check the website...
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written by LittleJoe, September 29, 2007
I work for a laptop repair company and we often find ourselves with piles of old laptops hitting the ceiling as many people abandon or choose to recycle laptops with us. All of the broken bits are sent off to a no-landfill recycling programs. The whole units are sold on ebay for the most part. You would be surprised how much an old machine that you think is total junk goes for sometimes. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
We always encourage customers who find themselves not wanting to invest in a repair on an old laptop to get it to a usable point and hand it down to a young child. You're getting more life out of the machine while encouraging youth to get into technology. A win win.
We always encourage customers who find themselves not wanting to invest in a repair on an old laptop to get it to a usable point and hand it down to a young child. You're getting more life out of the machine while encouraging youth to get into technology. A win win.
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written by Ella, October 01, 2007
Not to be a stickler, but disasembling your old laptop doesn't decrease the carbon footprint, because now the parts must go on different trucks as you ship them to the luck bidders... plus ou have the actual time you've caused them to be on the internet...
It's still a good thing to do. Sometimes I find it very hard to ignore my inner quibbler. Details and misinfo... Sorry
It's still a good thing to do. Sometimes I find it very hard to ignore my inner quibbler. Details and misinfo... Sorry
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written by Tim Hurst, October 02, 2007
I thought you were reasonably charismatic...maybe the edits helped?
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written by fuser, October 02, 2007
Hi, excellent video... i enjoyed watching it and i might link it in my site.
Thanks, fuser
Thanks, fuser
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written by hanzo, October 03, 2007
Good guide! In fact I think I'll follow your advice.
If you're a bit into the matter you can also build a monitor for, say, your desktop machine, out of an old laptop screen.
It's just a matter of finding the right controller kit to have it get the right input.
Just one tip from a video professional, mount a light behind the camera next time, your face usually was dark and that doesn't help charisma ;)
If you're a bit into the matter you can also build a monitor for, say, your desktop machine, out of an old laptop screen.
It's just a matter of finding the right controller kit to have it get the right input.
Just one tip from a video professional, mount a light behind the camera next time, your face usually was dark and that doesn't help charisma ;)
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written by Nick, October 03, 2007
Great video. Easy to follow and can make a few bucks in the process, what more could you ask for.
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written by Emre, October 06, 2007
Dude,
Thank you for taking time to explain this stuff. Great video.
Thank you for taking time to explain this stuff. Great video.
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written by JP, October 08, 2007
I just posted this to http://GreenDealsDaily.com - I think it fits perfectly with the aim of our site - helping consumers find economical ways of reducing everyday environmental impacts. Thanks for a great video!
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written by Ranjit Thomas, July 22, 2008
I just watched this video via the stumble-apon plugin for firefox. and was surprised that you did not relize that the board on the 2.5 in drives pulls right off to reveal your beloved pins.
Making the drive suitable for any drive enclosure.
Of course not that I've typed all that I just relized that the video I saw must have been an older unedited version. Because you no longer even mention the little board.
Making the drive suitable for any drive enclosure.
Of course not that I've typed all that I just relized that the video I saw must have been an older unedited version. Because you no longer even mention the little board.
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written by Heather, October 22, 2008
I bought a Dell Inspiron 1525 in the beginning of June. There was some water spilled on it and now it won't turn on. I'm going to buy a new one, but I don't know what to do with the old one. Can anyone help me?
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written by web development, November 20, 2008
what about making an internet radio?
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