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You've been clickbaited! HA! I did buy a lot of ~400 Chromebooks, but it was absolutely intentional. These lots are available on every auction site I know of at insanely low prices (I'm talking ~$10 USD/unit base price), and I saw an opportunity. My idea originally was to fix and flip the laptops, after possibly flashing them with an up-to-date and supported OS. I even went as far as to sacrifice my dignity and post on Reddit to gather suggestions for alternative OS's with long-term support from the community. In some ways, Chromebooks are actually a great product for this kind of enterprise. They don't have hard drives that can be removed and destroyed, come with an OS*, and in addition to being steeply discounted second-hand, are physically very simple devices, making repairs fairly simple. The project essentially had a few core goals: Make the power of even basic computing accessible to more people Give Chromebooks new life Reduce e-waste Do some cool nerd shit It's been great to see more and more coverage of this kind of thing by LMG, and now that they've actually directly addressed the Chromebook issue on WAN Show, I figured I'd post here and gather some feedback and ideas from this incredibly creative and eco-conscious tech community. There are a few specific things that I'd love to get some others' thoughts on - There are obviously many options for alternative OS installations, but the main issue that I keep running into is long-term support. Projects like GalliumOS, a Linux distro specifically designed to be installed on EOL Chromebooks, are no longer supported, while Neverware's CloudReady was purchased by Google and killed (shocker) in favor of Google's own ChromeOS Flex. ChromeOS Flex is currently my frontrunner as an alternative, because it's the most likely to support Chrome hardware, preserve the Chromebook featureset and experience, and extend their life. Testing, fixing and flashing Chromebooks is super tedious. Because of their locked-down nature, automation is basically impossible on any level and Google's own documentation recommends using a Rubber Ducky USB to automate things like domain enrollment. That's not even broaching the complexity of flashing a new firmware and operating system. One possibility that I've considered foe the long-term is the "Uber Eats" model - crowdsourcing labor to fix, flash and test the laptops from university compsci students or high school techies, passing the cost to the end user while still undercutting new low-end laptops. I've considered the idea of selling refurbished laptops back to school districts or refurbishing their existing Chromebooks as a service, but this would require some kind of reputation and relationship with school districts and probably include some super duper fun government contracting gymnastics. For some reason it seems like the chargers for second-hand laptops disappear into thin air. It's very rare to see a lot that comes with them. Compatible chargers are available from Alibaba for as little as $4/unit, but I'd like to avoid any unnecessary new goods. A substantial number of them actually use USB-C charging, which led me to consider buying USB-C chargers for all of them and outfitting the rest with USB-C-to-barrel-jack adapters as necessary. I'm not sure if this is actually a better option. USB-C chargers are arguably more future-proof and widely compatible, but the adapter introduces more points of failure. Pretty much all of the laptops have considerable cosmetic damage caused by long-term exposure to grade-school children. I've considered painting them, covering them with stickers or vinyl sheets dbrand-style, or just putting them in laptop cases to hide the scratches (see the next bullet). I've explored the idea of not using any shipping materials, instead opting for a reliable laptop case and bag. My thinking is this - if a laptop case is sturdy enough to handle drops in daily use, it can handle shipping. Along with the bag, these will also have some real value to the end user, rather than creating more trash. I've also considered recycled shipping materials as a fallback option. I know this is a lot and I hope it won't be interpreted as me asking the community to do my homework! I've already invested a fair bit of time and effort into this project and only want to find the best possible approach with the assistance of other like-minded people.

To my understanding, a Franken Cluster is a cluster of dissimilar devices used to run server tasks but because of their lack of uniformity making it work is harder & less out the box. Has anyone made a franken-cluster/server? Would those who have recommend it? When I finish building my PC I'll have a dual Xeon cpu tower with ECC ram, an old laptop with just 1gb of ram, an old Android phone, & possibly a few other used computers. Is there a worthwhile way to tether such an amalgamation? This is a curiosity question

Listening to Linus on a recent Wan show I feel he hits a good point when it comes to E waste just wondering what people repurpose their old electronics for ?

I have a Dell XPS 15 L502X and it's a decadish old at this point so I want to re purpose it. There's the standard stuff like storage and the RAM. The problem is I'm looking for some guides/advice/instructions on how to do it. I don't want to accidentally kill it. This Guide by DIY Perks is more focused on laptop displays in general but I'm looking for a disassembly/Re-purposing guide specifically for my laptop. Also where can I find enclosures? I plan on turning the laptop into a HTPC for my younger siblings. But I can't think of what to put it back in.

I have a collection of old hard drives with either bad sectors or have other problems making them unusable. They are all recognised still so the boards on the drives work, I have seen in the past listings on ebay selling boards taken off hard drives and wonder if this is viable and useful to do, while recycling the rest of the components. Or should I just recycle the whole drives including the boards? Are the working boards even useful for someone with an otherwise working drive but there board is faulty, can they even be interchanged if they are the same model? I vaguely remember an old linus video that visisted a data recovery place that could possibly benefit from these fixing drives, but I might be mis remembering. In short, I'm clearing out clutter and wondering what to do with them that would be the most environmentally friendly approach. Especially as boards aren't the easiest to recycle.

I thought I'd ask this, since my old job was getting rid of a ton of servers, desktops, hard drives, and switches that were perfectly fine. Luckily I was able to a lot of it since my boss literally couldn't care less where they went so my coworker and I were able to nab some of the stuff we wanted. I just want to know what kind of stuff people have thrown out that works completely fine once either fixed up a little, or just powered on. if any one is interested here is a list of stuff a was able to get: A few network switches Around 15 or so desktops (I sold a ton of them for gas and bills) 3 Servers 8 or so iPods (which I traded in for an Xbox) 7 or so laptops (I mainly sold them, I kept a few old ones for my collection, and I use a couple for daily drivers) 30 Raspberry pis (Half of them need to be fixed tho) 2 UPS stations

I think it’s incredible how much waste is produced from tech, it’s madness! Big companies throw out working monitors, pc’s, laptops etc. just because they have new ones brought in. Even the stuff that broken is full of useful parts, just because it’s cheaper to offload it. I want to know where this goes, if there ARE places to view this tech and buy it, or whether it is an area that could be pressured into doing so in this current climate. It opens opportunities for tech minded people to start new businesses and recycle the immense amount of waste brought about from tech. Thanks for reading technically three paragraphs now, it was tiring to write. *faints*

i have a very old pc is there any way to reuse it? not as my main pc

My question is up there so, are they? like.. if i buy 2 skins for my S7 Edge and i can peel of the black one and stick the white one on it and then peel the white one of and stick the black one on it again?

I am building myself a New PC, so was wondering what shall I do with my old one The specs are as follows: CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 Ram: 4GB (DDR2 I guess?) Graphics Card: Nvidia Geforce 210 Power Supply: 230W Generic 160GB HDD Motherboard: Some Asus, but cant confirm. This PC was bought MANY years ago prebuilt from HP. DVD RW 5.25 inch drive Using this as a Home Server/NAS is pointless, as I am the only user in house. My parents are quite happy with their phones and tablets. They have never used PCs in their life, and do not expect them to any time. Would love to hear your ideas.

Please move if I'm not in the right category. I have an old broken hard drive and a broken laptop screen that I have no idea what to do with. I'd hate to throw them away and I've looked around my area and I haven't seen anything about recycling them. I don't have any actual computer stores near me and Best Buy only recycles cords and other small things like that that I am aware of. Any help is appreciated.

Hi, this is the first time for me on this forum and i got a problem i can't figure out. so i just got a new PC, i got a new ssd in there on which I installed Windows. Now though I also put my old hdds in there to get my old data and also to clean them up. There were still Windows installations on those so i decided to use a Software called Unlocker to delete files like the microsoft folder in Program Data. That's where my problem comes in. I deleted lots of files with the unlocker without any issues but two folders named "System Data" and "Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection" are now stuck in the recycle bin. They were in said microsoft folder and are 0kb. Whenever i try to do anything with them like restoring or deleting it says (roughly translated because it's german) "you need authorization for the execution of this process". So how would i finally get rid of these? I dont really want to format/reinstall windows just for this but since its a fairly clean install i guess i'd resort to it if I find no other solution. (operating system is win 10)

List:Q8300(@450*7.5)+EP45-DS3L+2G DDR2 800*2+GTS450+LMT-32M3M+ WD 160G*2+VP450+S90D. I used LMT-32M3M to cache HDD. The system works fine.

SO I built this machine, which is almost 2 (!) years old now, and I'm bored of it: CPU: Intel - Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£284.99 @ Aria PC) CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U12S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£51.83 @ CCL Computers) Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-Z170-HD3P ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£109.48 @ More Computers) Memory: Kingston - HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£119.99 @ Amazon UK) Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£131.94 @ Aria PC) Storage: Western Digital - BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£109.99 @ Amazon UK) Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 960 4GB Video Card (£149.99) Case: Corsair - 100R Silent ATX Mid Tower Case (£50.99 @ Amazon UK) Power Supply: be quiet! - 400W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£50.00) Total: £1059.20 I'd like to spend up to £750 (GBP) sprucing it up a little. The only things I'm absolutely set on recycling in this new build is the processor, the memory, & the power supply. I'm basically happy to get rid of the other parts. Parts I was thinking about & would like some advice on: - Most important: Less noise, preferably an inaudible PC. My WD Black 2TB is so unbearably noisy. I want to completely get rid of it & get a Seagate Firecuda or something. Unless anyone has other suggestions? - 2nd most important: New smaller/cube case under 420mm height (if there are any hot new small cases anyone's found lately, please send links!). I like the look of this silverstone case. - New micro/mini ATX mobo to fit in a smaller case. I was thinking of the Asus ROG Strix Z270I gaming mini ITX. Good choice? - Can someone please suggest to me a GPU (1060 or 1070) which is basically fanless/inaudible unless needed for gaming/rendering? (I have a 1080p monitor) So I'm sitting in my room now & while it's pretty quiet, I can really hear the general whirr of the case fans, CPU cooler, GPU cooler & PSU fans. And I don't want to hear any of it. I've worked a lot in recording studios & my reference point is the Mac Pro from many years ago, which, even if you go right up to it, it's still completely inaudible when idle. I'd like to get as close to that as possible. Maybe I sound insane but I basically want a PC which I can neither hear nor see. (as far as that's possible) thanks all

Let's say that like me the hinges on your laptop have separated the screen from the bottom half of your laptop, while you do have many ways to repair it, they will most likely be expensive or impractical. for me, the average, broke, high school/college student, replacing the screen would be out of the question. instead of trashing said laptop, I elected to open it up, remove the screen and use it as a makeshift desktop, sure it may not perform better than that first computer we have all had, but it works well under light workloads. This works with most laptops, My first attempt was with and Acer Aspire V5, which my brother had completely destroyed the screen on, another was my asus x200ma. For the convenience factor i first set up the laptop on a hp 2311x Monitor to correct scaling issues, connected some cheap speakers from insignia, and threw on a wireless mouse, no keyboard needed, because the laptop keyboard is the whole system, however i prefer a mouse, rather than the track pad.

For those of you who dont want to read the history it cost me $330 total custom case Specs are I7 2600 120gb ssd 320gb hard drive 8go ram GTX 750Ti FTW 500w hexa psu Windows 10 This PC took me just over a month to complete it started life as a school server wiyh a lga 775 motherboard and a pentium D cpu,it also sported a whole 512mbs of ddr2 ECC ram with a full 640gbs of storage.I got this for free because my mum works at the school and it would have been thrown away. I took it home and completely striped it and listed all the internals apart from 1 hdd on trade me for $30nzd which to my surprise sold this happened over Christmas so I got $300 from my family. I dedicated this money to this PC. Bought some spray paint and went to town with the black and white.then found some deals on trade me and grabbed them I also reused one from 2 of the 320gb hard drives.then through it in and cable managed. Lernt most of what i know from watching LTT. Thanks for reading I know it was long winded, I hope you will see more of me in the future.☺

I was wondering if anyone had any old parts laying around that they could pass offer to me thanks for your time ?

Hi All, Just a newbie looking for some info. Majority of you are in some technical line or are surrounded by technology. How do you dispose / recycle any form of hardware component be it from old switches to cellphones that aren't worth the selling effort? I am interested in any organisations / departments / countries efforts and how things are done all over the world (live in South Africa) even if you just chuck it in the bin

So essentially i want to build an itx build but at the same time i want a tiny monitor which i can carry with me incase i go on the road. I was wondering if i could create a monitor out from my old gaming laptop and still be able to use its 120hz and 3d capabilities (mainly 120hz), since it's size is perfect.

I wonder if anyone can answer me a quick question about this NAS. Now what im finding is if i move\delete files from the drive i dont get the free space back immediately, instead it sticks the files in a recycled folder in which i then have to go and delete manually. Is there a way to just get the files to delete first time and not mess around? Thanks

Apple has launched a new trade in program that gives customers store credit for their old Apple products. If you do not have an Apple product Apple will still recycle the device for you. This program is designed to encourage users to give their old devices back to Apple to give users store credit towards new Apple devices as well as tackle the problem of recycling. Apple runs on 100% renewable energy and, according to their PR, the environment is a top priority for them. This program will hopefully help Apple improve their ecological footprint by being able to reclaim more used devices and turn their old products into new ones. Something Apple has historically struggled at getting people do want to do. This program gives users incentive now. Users have options as to how to send their devices in and the choice is up you. This of course brings into question the security of user data. Helps non-Apple device users information stay safe and helps existing Apple users transfer their data over to new devices. Nice! Source: https://www.apple.com/shop/trade-in

I just had my Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 240 leak. Fortunatly I have a Thermaltake Core P3 so it didnt affect any other components, but still im pissed about it. I could determine the leak, it was definetly the radiator. I didnt have any warranty so I cut the tubes. Now I have the Pump/Block left over and I wondered if I could maybe start a custom loop with it. My questions are: - Is the pump strong enough? - Should I install a reservoir, or just a radiator, like the original loop had? Id really appreciate some help here, Im new on the topic and so really, if it doesnt work out, I do not loose a lot, I would have to buy a new cooler anyways. Thanks!

Okay, so I walked by the E-Bin in my school and decided to take a look inside, what I have found are an AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200+, ATI Radeon 3450, 80GB IDE hard drive, a stock CPU heat sink and a cable for the IDE drive. You may ask why the heck would I want to pick these parts up? Well, first reason being that my room mate actually challenges me to build a full PC with all the parts that are coming from the E-Bin, and honestly if I can build something that I can write some codes on, why the heck not? So if anyone knows an electronics recycling place, in Hamilton, Ontario, that can allow me to some parts up, not neccessarily new parts, leave a comment and I will go and check it out. I don't have a car, non of my room mates have a car either, so the only way for me to travel is by bus, and on foot, do not say a place in like cambridge which is no way I can get there. So the final goal for me, is to put up a working computer, which will hopefully allow me to write codes in arduino (I guess every computer can do that) for a electronic board, and that's it! The monitor will hopefully be a smaller one with an S-Video in, otherwise I may have to use the CRT which is not what I want to do...

I recently was informed of the death of my loved 4 year old Lenovo G575's motherboard. That left me and all of the other components so sad, that we decided to replace it. So I have an old Acer Aspire laptop I destr-disassembled some months ago, and I have its seemingly functioning Motherboard... Just no HDD or CPU. Lucky me, the G575 does have those! I plan to mount a simple computer on a T shaped wooden "case." Kind of a ghetto version of this: I would like some help with planning how to do it. I am actually gonna do this with a guy that works at a PC hardware and repair store, but I still want all the information I can get. I don't expect any sort of awesome performance or anything. I just want it to work and be stable. In fact, if anyone has a good idea on what to use it for, I would be glad to listen. For now it might just be a thing to show off at school. So yeah, my personal achievement would be to have something that works without major problems, and that is usable. I need the rest of the factors and suggestions Thank you.

So I was rather bored this morning and had a machine on hand that had rampant overheating problems. I decided to remedy this with some stuff I had lying around the house and the end result works surprisingly well considering what it is. No leaks....yet. My temps went from 190+ to sub 100 with this setup. This machine is by no means good, just an experiment if anything, specs are as follows: AMD Phenom x4 9850 Black Edition @2.5GHz 8GB DDR2 800MHz ASUS M4A785-M motherboard Random crap mechanical drive running Windows 7 x64 What do you guys think?