eBay, FB marketplace, any other equivalent sell old junk site.
No, not really. Business stopped using machines not capable of running windows 11 almost 5 years ago. The end user who cares about it being EOL will install Linux. And the average user who doesn’t even know what EOL means won’t care.
If you’re looking to buy in bulk:
Buy? That’s garbage. Look in garbage places. Used shops of any sort.
I like the college junk store suggestion. I used to do that.You better watch it. You will shortly have a closet full of junk computer parts.
I already do 😂
Unfortunately goodwill does not sell computers but they do accept donations, so idk what they do with them.
There is one used computer store in town, but they have some kind of license agreement where they are only allowed to sell to people on food stamps or Medicaid or whatever. You can’t just go in and buy stuff.
Hmm. I used to volunteer with Free Geek in Portland OR. It was essentially that, an e-disposal site and we made refurbs for community organizations. But they did have a store for sale to the public.
I have so much computer junk. I got rid of most of it, but then I got a bunch more when we closed the company office. Got at least 10 monitors, 5 PCs, a mini, couple laptops … and a storage shelf to put it on.
Any UK suggestions?
In the Netherlands: https://www.marktplaats.nl/
I’m assuming you live where I live.
Thank you!
Ebay, Amazon, Facebook. If you are looking for a lot of conputers look into Thinkpads. Generally they have a 3 year lease. They are spectacular and run Linux well.
it’s crazy that the most reliable laptop I own is more than 10 years old
I have a 15 year old mac laptop running as a 24/7 homelab server.
2011 MacBook Pro 15” I’m still using, too! Mostly for just web browsing and picture storage. iPhoto is so good.
I did replace the optical drive with an SSD and maxed out the RAM, so that helps. My only complaint is USB2 is hella slow.
Keep that thing off the internet if you can. Security is kind threadbare on that abandoned macOS.
Fantastic form factor for non internet tasks though. The 2011 model is worse for thermal management and the fans work harder so may need replacement, listen for rattles or silence from one side. Keep it ventilated on all sides including bottom.
Debian should run very nicely on that if you want modern software features and low-worry internet security.
Thank you for the info! She’s being sunset for an air eventually here. Original battery, turns out she’s only got about 26 cycles—I thought her to bring to LAN parties with W7 as a dual boot and her video card kicked ass for that! Kept her plugged in all the time. Battery looks perfect, and on full brightness she gets through 1.75 playthroughs of Beetlejuice.
No rattles, always had a cooling mat with fans under her while I was playing games. Fans are all doing great!
Writing from a 7 year old Thinkpad I got this year as a backup computer. Could do with a RAM upgrade because I find it using swap often, but actually it’s still pretty fast. Best chassis quality I’ve seen outside of Macbooks - and I’ve touched thousands of laptops, I used to refurb them for a bulk refurb company. I intentionally got the first generation where Intel got their heads out of their asses and gave us 4 cores on i5 and i7 U-series, since it was a significant performance bump from the previous gen, but still very cheap compared to newer ones.
I use
ArchNixOS btw.
Find companies that resell EOL corporate
arrestassets like refurb.io“EOL corporate arrest”?
Assets. That’s what I get for trusting the phone keyboard.
Assets maybe?
This is a great idea, unless you want to game or worry about upgradability. If you want to watch videos, write, code, browse the web or just have a server. They’re fantastic. If you want to add in a GPU. Often you’ll be extremely limited to the rare low profile ones. If you are lucky enough to be able to use regular profile ones, you’ll often still be size limited due to component placement on the board or case internals. You could get a different case, but that often requires adapters too. Oh and you’ll need a new power supply, with more adapters.
If your application for the system goes anywhere near a GPU, such as a Jellyfin Server, spend the extra to get regular consumer parts.
This might sound crazy but discountelectronics.com is pretty solid in the United States. Maybe not be the cheapest, but they consistently have fresh inventory that turns over.
Whatever you do, do look at a few different options. Some refurbished computers can have huge price differences between sellers.
Friend that works in IT -> Dedicated Cyber Centres -> Auctions near offices -> FB or ebay
Copy pasting my reply from the last time this came up:
Check how nearby colleges and universities dispose of used assets. The state school near me maintains a very nice website where they auction off everything from lab equipment to office furniture. It’s also where all their PCs go when they hit ~5 years old and come up in the IT department’s refresh cycle. The only problem in my case is that they tend to auction stuff in bulk. You can get a solid machine for $50 to $100, but only if you’re willing to pay $500 to $1000 for a pallet of 10.
I would say this and also if you live in almost any medium sized place in the US, also try the local community college. You may have to bid on bulk lots but they sometimes sell individual PC hardware too. You may have to show up on a certain day that is usually advertised months in advance, online or on physical signage on campus. You might as well participate, since your county and local taxes likely subsidize the institution to begin with.
That’s a really good tip!
In Australia:
Depends on where you are in the world but Lenovo mini PCs and eBay will probably cover your needs.
Where in the world are you?
I guess eBay works in large parts of the world, and websearching for refurbished tech could yield helpful results.
FB marketplace and alternatives.
