Tech Hording :(

[Tehkast]

2023 find myself after 30 years of being into Gaming / Computers etc having a ton of stuff I'm able to get rid of the odd cable but most end up in that "I may need this one day box" that is now rather heavy and full.

 

I've just counted and currently have 7 Desktops and 2 Laptops (all but 2 are used on the regular) but fear time has come my first full build PC is just not super useful and trying to do something about that to save him from being send to big skip in the sky.

 

Something that comes to mind is using him to render I'm looking to get back into making videos and remember rendering was always a slow task not talking anything fancy just low grade youtube bollocks odd cut here and there but wondering if I will be wasting my time even trying to get it set for that.

 

Its a i7 920 from launch week back in like 2010 i think it was maybe earlier. 

 

Would be using devinchi resolve and question is would this be able to even do the job or just use my NAS (Optiplex 3040 with a  i5 6500k)?

 

other question is when do you say goodbye to the old kit  its been a friend almost and around a long time.

[DoctorNick]

24 minutes ago, Tehkast said:

2023 find myself after 30 years of being into Gaming / Computers etc having a ton of stuff I'm able to get rid of the odd cable but most end up in that "I may need this one day box" that is now rather heavy and full.

 

I've just counted and currently have 7 Desktops and 2 Laptops (all but 2 are used on the regular) but fear time has come my first full build PC is just not super useful and trying to do something about that to save him from being send to big skip in the sky.

 

Something that comes to mind is using him to render I'm looking to get back into making videos and remember rendering was always a slow task not talking anything fancy just low grade youtube bollocks odd cut here and there but wondering if I will be wasting my time even trying to get it set for that.

 

Its a i7 920 from launch week back in like 2010 i think it was maybe earlier. 

 

Would be using devinchi resolve and question is would this be able to even do the job or just use my NAS (Optiplex 3040 with a  i5 6500k)?

 

other question is when do you say goodbye to the old kit  its been a friend almost and around a long time.

I've given up hoarding old stuff, for the most part lol. I still have a few pieces here and there from old builds, a motherboard, a cpu, a gpu.. but most is either sold or given away. Just do that. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

32 minutes ago, Tehkast said:

Its a i7 920 from launch week back in like 2010 i think it was maybe earlier. 

Very power hungry and you are better off reselling it

 

Only real use nowadays aside from being on so tight of a budget that you cant just drop in a cheap 6 core westmere is just screwing around overclocking it

 

 

imc is pretty good so you can hit 3000+ ddr3 on some of em but i only have 2 samples (an i7 950 that hardwalls at 2900 and this i7 930 that goes past 3200 ddr3 but sticks topped out so have no idea how far it overclocks), and you cant use an asus board or any other board that handicaps nehalem with that 1:2 uncore memclk bullshit like this giga x58a ud3r i have here

 

Havent tested cpu freq oc but probs abit worse than westmere and this cooler is gravity mounted so temps are gonna be pretty meh for oc

 

 

Aside from overclocking for shits and giggles you can also give some stuff away, resell, maybe even make a retro build if you wanna revisit old games

 

Just list the stuff you have maybe youll be able to cobble something decent out of existing parts considering you have an i7 920

[ItTakes2ToMango]

31 minutes ago, DoctorNick said:

I've given up hoarding old stuff, for the most part lol. I still have a few pieces here and there from old builds, a motherboard, a cpu, a gpu.. but most is either sold or given away. Just do that. 

I've been toying with the idea of breaking down some of my old tech - sticking the different parts in foam and getting them framed. At least for some of the more meaningful or cool hardware

 

Recently laid out an iPhone 11 in a way I like, and I thought it would be a cool way to "get rid" of some of my older stuff too so it's not just laying around pointlessly

[Tehkast]

6 minutes ago, ItTakes2ToMango said:

I've been toying with the idea of breaking down some of my old tech - sticking the different parts in foam and getting them framed. At least for some of the more meaningful or cool hardware

 

Recently laid out an iPhone 11 in a way I like, and I thought it would be a cool way to "get rid" of some of my older stuff too so it's not just laying around pointlessly

I like that idea could frame the CPU and first SSD (Was a 40gb intel cost £200 back in the day)

[Dedayog]

I used to have various generations of CPU's on a shelf, Pentium D, AMD's K2-350, Core 2 Duo, etc. 

 

But a home sale, etc.  and just decide to minimize my life. 

 

It can be fun for a nice man cave type thing, but hoarding for the sake of "it may be useful some day" is incredibly insane.

 

Yes, I am judging hoarders.   

 

Interesting and sad show though.

[ItTakes2ToMango]

18 minutes ago, Tehkast said:

I like that idea could frame the CPU and first SSD (Was a 40gb intel cost £200 back in the day)

I used to service Fire systems and I have this really cool motherboard for a system initially implemented in 1997. Has the technicians name, date, and a little QC check still fresh on a sticker on it. It was a very interesting piece of tech, though nothing particularly special especially in the modern day. There are boards that do the same thing as it did, and more, at less than half the size and weight.

 

Now, it's a really cool looking board, but maintaining that thing in 2019, over 20 years later, was one of the biggest pains in my ass in my adult working life. I have a strong love/hate relationship for it.

 

I'm torn between framing it and smashing it to pieces

[Needfuldoer]

I'm trying to un-hoard my collection of tech garbage.

 

The main criteria I've set for myself is that every machine which stays in the collection has to have something interesting, unique, or sentimental about it. I'm done hoarding piles of old desktops and boxes of parts just for the sake of having them. Yes it's convenient to have a ready supply of parts to dip into, but eBay exists and I can get just about anything delivered in a few days. 

[DoctorNick]

5 hours ago, ItTakes2ToMango said:

I've been toying with the idea of breaking down some of my old tech - sticking the different parts in foam and getting them framed. At least for some of the more meaningful or cool hardware

 

Recently laid out an iPhone 11 in a way I like, and I thought it would be a cool way to "get rid" of some of my older stuff too so it's not just laying around pointlessly

Yeah that's a good idea as well!

[cmndr]

Everything needs to fit in a modestly sized box. I also ditch anything that's slower than a $150 mini-PC system off Amazon (roughly 3.5GHz i5 6500 with 16GB RAM performance). These are increasingly looking like 6C 8th gen i5s which fit in 1 liter. 

 

Just be glad you didn't go down the audiophile route. 4 subwoofers + their original packaging boxes take up a ton of space. Then there's 10 speakers on top of that... I'm fantasizing about moving so that I can get a bigger room that's more conducive to audiophile stuff. 

 

The next time I move I'm going to target having a 30'x20' room and I'll be building shelves for the top corners to hold subwoofers... 8 subwoofers in corners (ceiling and floor)... 

[dilpickle]

I made a rule: If I don't see myself using something within the next year then I sell it. If I need it again then I can buy it again.

[Tehkast]

29 minutes ago, dilpickle said:

I made a rule: If I don't see myself using something within the next year then I sell it. If I need it again then I can buy it again.

Selling is a option I wanna explore but now wonder what is worth selling what isn't etc.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

My "problem" is that I delay upgrading when I don't need to, which always take me past the time when my components have resell value. By the time I do, the market is far from liquid for the things I'm upgrading from. It doesn't help that I build with a role cycle in mind (so my PC today, or at least parts of it, will become the home's NAS or HTPC, etc.). Which I really like , although probably not the most energy efficient (and possibly not economical either).

[Kerrj]

I have a lot more tech horde than most... the last stuff I got rid of was everything pentium 4 or older.

 

I used to host large retro lan parties, where I supplied all the hardware. Like 16-20 people in my house all playing starcraft. None of these people brought computers.

 

It was actually a great source of entertainment, trying to cobble together another gaming rig when more friends of friends came.

 

There were systems sharing a single power supply... computers built into  pizza boxes... multiseat setups... one "gaming rig" ran off a car battery and a few wall warts. (Just need 12v mainly, then a little 5v and 3.3v to run)

 

And yeah... I still have most all of the stuff.

 

Your post reminds me that maybe I should purge all DDR2 and IDE stuff at this point.

[William Payne]

I don't hoard deliberately. However it is not uncommon to buy a basic part that is not worth selling but stays on the may use one day shelf. 

[8tg]

Only keep what is fully functional, and displayable, or is regularly used.

I don’t keep anything else, if a piece of hardware isn’t in regular use or isn’t presentable in some way, I give it away, sell it or recycle it.

it keeps the collection of stuff down, everything I own works, but I don’t keep around old fans, psus, cases, etc

and if I’m not going to use it I don’t keep it, even if I may need it way in the future, I’ll get what I need then 

not gonna keep a core2duo around just because I might want to swap my Q8200 at some point, no I’ll just buy a core2duo for 3$ in 2035 when my q8200 dies 

[rikitikitavi]

Most are sold, given away or donated over the years.

 

Unfortunately some level of hoarding is still a thing, mostly out of nostalgia and maybe-one-day reasons.

 

Periodically regretting selling Nokia N-Gage QD and PSP 1st gen, oh and gifting my whole music CD collection...  

[Mihle]

When I got a new PC in 2020 I sold the old PC because I knew I could get more for it then than I would if I waited 5 more years before doing so.

[Tehkast]

On 9/15/2023 at 4:01 PM, 8tg said:

Only keep what is fully functional, and displayable, or is regularly used.

I don’t keep anything else, if a piece of hardware isn’t in regular use or isn’t presentable in some way, I give it away, sell it or recycle it.

it keeps the collection of stuff down, everything I own works, but I don’t keep around old fans, psus, cases, etc

and if I’m not going to use it I don’t keep it, even if I may need it way in the future, I’ll get what I need then 

not gonna keep a core2duo around just because I might want to swap my Q8200 at some point, no I’ll just buy a core2duo for 3$ in 2035 when my q8200 dies 

Is this hard to dust? 

[8tg]

25 minutes ago, Tehkast said:

Is this hard to dust? 

I keep dust in my home to a minimum to begin with but the strategy is to hit it with one of those handheld swiffer dusters which gets between everything, it just can’t do exposed PCBs 

[cmndr]

On 9/14/2023 at 12:24 PM, Caroline said:

I'd say sell, unless you're planning to keep it for +50 years until it becomes vintage hardware.

 Still not "worth it"

Let's say you have "trash" right now that's worth $100 used. And you wait 40 years. 

NOT Adjusted for inflation, it'd need to go up to $3200 to match the stock market. 

This assumes you can sell it without cost and that it's still sellable. It also assumes $0 for storage costs. 

[thewelshbrummie]

Just as a counter to this thread - having moved from the UK to the US pre-pandemic, I've gone without my old gaming desktops for 4+ years and both still booted reasonably well when I was in the UK back in July. I intend on moving them despite the newest being 10 years old, mainly as prefer to use a supported OS on supported hardware and I've struggled to get pre-2000 era games (especially Windows based 16bit games) to reliably run.

 

Where I've been good is with laptops and tablets - all bar my current Surface Go and HP Touchpad have been disposed of or donated and that's despite purchasing roughly 1 laptop or tablet per year between 2011 and 2018 (though most were ~£200).

On 9/16/2023 at 10:50 PM, rikitikitavi said:

Unfortunately some level of hoarding is still a thing, mostly out of nostalgia and maybe-one-day reasons.

 

Periodically regretting selling Nokia N-Gage QD and PSP 1st gen, oh and gifting my whole music CD collection...  

It's the reason that I still have my collection of Windows Phones, all of which are now in the US...

 

...& my Zune HD which is arguably more useful now that I can access HD radio with it! Perfectly happy keeping them around though as they still work.

On 9/14/2023 at 6:11 AM, Tehkast said:

I've just counted and currently have 7 Desktops and 2 Laptops (all but 2 are used on the regular) but fear time has come my first full build PC is just not super useful and trying to do something about that to save him from being send to big skip in the sky.

 

Its a i7 920 from launch week back in like 2010 i think it was maybe earlier.

7 desktops in 13 years does seem like a lot - I'm on my 3rd gaming PC since 2008.

 

I guess for a Bloomfield setup unless you need that for an older OS that's unsupported on anything newer (XP being an obvious example), it's probably time to move on. I've kept my Core 2 Quad build simply because it runs XP and I can use it for the really stubborn games (and some hardware) that doesn't work at all or significantly worse on newer hardware.