Useless Tech Pile?

[Jared_1]

Over the years of collecting/buying tech stuff, it seems that about half of it ends up going into my "awesome in theory but useless in real life" pile. I'm curious to know what you all have in this type of pile (if you have one ). My list contains:

 

• Wireless mice: mine refuses to work on any surface except for about 2 and they are a pain to lug around
• Webcams: I got one a few years ago for free at a garage sale and I was excited but no one ever uses Google Hangouts/Skype so I never used it
• PCI/PCIe network cards: I have 7 10/100 PCI network cards sitting around and I never use them. 99.9% of computers have some sort of integrated network. Heck, my Dell Dimension L733r from 2000 has an Intel 10/100 onboard ethernet chip.
• USB Bluetooth adapters: The ones I ordered were a pack of 2 (I seem to have lost the 2nd one ). I could not figure out why I could not pair the 2 together on 2 different computers until I found out they had the same MAC address. Bluetooth is slowly going away. USB is still faster and well used despite needing a USB cable and a free port whereas Bluetooth is slower but the one advantage is that most laptops have it built in.
• USB wireless adapters: Most of the time desktops are using ethernet and some desktops even have wifi chips on the motherboard. The adapters often get lost and often perform so bad. I have 2 both using the same Realtek chipset and the one I ordered, connects to our 300MBPS Wireless N router at 72MBPS which I guess is max for the chip and performs well. I had one come with my Raspberry Pi, it has the same chipset, connects at 72MBPS and performs worse than 10MBPS ethernet and has even worse range.
• Chromecast: I picked up the latest Chromecast in December and I set it up. It was quite easy to set up and downloaded an update in ~30 minutes on my really bad DSL line (I think dialup is faster that our DSL sometimes ). It was quite nice until I found out Google decided to be dumb and force 1080p resolution even if the display does not support it and then the Chromecast switches to using 640x480 resolution.

Do you all agree with this concept or even have a pile similar to this? Feel free to leave a comment.

[ian_stagib]

I've got the tech cupboard which gets filled with all the stuff I think I might need in future but pretty much never do. I also keep all the boxes for my equipment as it's nice to have when I sell my parts again in order to upgrade.

[comicsansms]

I have

6 dead motherboard, 2 I am going to try to fix.

1 Broken TV

2 5:4 1280x1024 Monitors without monitor stands.

7 LGA 775 CPU's laying around

3 PGA 478 CPU's Laying around 

1 Pentium 3 PGA 370 laying around

2 Socket 5/7 CPUs

Way to many shitty PC's

A pile of HP motherboard (That work)

 

And lots more useless tech.

[Virtual01]

I have this thing, maybe you guys have heard of it, it's called an Xbox One.

[GSTARR]

I have piles of computer cables that are old to the point that I have no idea what they go to. Older than ps2 jacks

[astranger200]

like 12 775 cpus,

bunch of 478 cpus....

heap of ram

bunch of gpus down to like a 6200

[paos]

I wish i could replace my monitor... good ones are so dang pricy though

[Ddave]

- Broken monitor

- AMD 64x2 CPU

- MOBO for said CPU that has a few bloated caps

- A generic 400 something watt PSU

- Another PSU previously thought to be broken (probably broken by now because of all the dust)

- A CPU Cooler that's incompatible with any CPU I have

- A torn apart case

- A GT210

- A couple DDR2 RAM

- An old network card (dial up)

- Two broken webcams

- Mouse/Keyboard with their cables cut/broken

- A bunch of cables and adaptors

[Tobleh]

- working socket 478 celeron
- 2x128mb 168pin DIMMs
- pci lan card
- dead msi a55m-e35 motherboard
- dead generic 400w psu
- dead 320gb hdd

[RahulR]

I have 2 old motherboards that are probably broken

A Pentium Dual-Core E5200

Bunch of DDR ram

3 PGA478 CPUs

an AMD Athlon XP 3200

3 sticks of laptop ram, 2GBs each

an ATI Rage 128 Pro

a floppy drive

an optical drive

2 broken hard drives

a broken dell optiplex 740

a 255w power supply

a bunch of IDE cables

2 40mm fans

2 PCI modems

and a bunch of other cables and crap

[ShadowCaptain]

I kinda use everything I have, I do keep OLD obsolete stuff (mostly like hand helds like my Nokia ngage) but everything does get used

[LukeTim]

• An old case
• An old G33 motherboard with a Q6600 in it plus a Scythe Ninja Mini
• Some speaker drivers (I was going to build my own active loudspeakers)
• A PIC 16F
• A couple of Arduino Unos
• A PIC based Arduino clone that I couldn't get working
• A couple of PCBs I made for my University final year project, including dsPICs, Zigbee Modules, a VGA camera and a USB controller. I had intended to finish the project.
• A crap ton of wires and cables

That's pretty much it. I really should throw a lot of it out.

[Jared_1]

I sure wish I had a pile of motherboards and CPUs. I only have one Intel Core 2 Duo and some ancient 2.0GHz Pentium 4.

[ShadowCaptain]

I've still got a P4+Geforce 256 system that I want to find a use for. 

 

Would make a good noise when you fling it off the roof

[Mitko_DSV]

My useless tech pile is not technically a pile, it' many things in many places, but here's what it has:

- AMD Atholon XP 1800+ with a few bent pins (accidentally carried it in my school backpack, didn't know it fell in there)

- 2GB PC-5300s Samsung laptop RAM stick (dead) and a working 64MB PC66 RAM stick

- Seagate 250GB 2.5" SATA and WD 40GB 3.5" IDE dead HDDs

- old CD-RW drive I tried to take apart and broke

- a lot of old but working phones (Siemens from 2000, Samsung from 2001, Motorola from 2004, a Vodafone, another Samsung, a few Nokias and the newest one is a Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 with a dead battery)

- a nVidia 32MB or 64MB AGP graphics card

- Tenda WR311R with a dead WAN port

- IBM P50 15" monitor from 1996 (last time I used it it started smelling like it was burning and so I turned it off and later replaced it)

- eMachines eTower 466i from 1999 {Intel Celeron 466MHz|512MB PC133 RAM|ATi Rage Pro AGP 2x 4MB integrated|No HDD (moved to another pc)}

 

Actually I used the eMachines PC until June 2015, it had WD 40GB HDD and Windows XP (originally it had Win 98SE, 6.4GB HDD and 64MB PC66 RAM). I used it for playing music and occasionally watching movies if they actually played normally. In the future I may put a HDD in it and intall Win 98SE and old games, just for fun.

[GeekJump]

I have this thing, maybe you guys have heard of it, it's called an Xbox One.

 

I don't think the xbone is that bad but that still gave me the giggles lol

_________

 

I usually stress test the stuff I buy and if I don't think it can live up to my hype I return if before the window expires. If it's an item I can't return I do A LOT of research before buying it. The only 'junk' item I have is an old rosewill case I never used in my closet. Got it for $30 from Newegg new and it's just chilling in there (somehow I lost the hdd bay...)

 

But I (and I think 80-90% of this forum) have a HUGE cable collection. It doesn't even fit in the 'cable draw' anymore and half the cables I have no clue where they belong. 

[Gazmanafc]

I have 5 dead HDDs of various sizes, a couple of relatively small RAM sticks, a 1GB SODIMM and a 512MB DDR2 DIMM, and then there's the drawer full of USB, AC and Ethernet cables, and a component (YPbPr) switchbox of all things.

 

I also have a Virgin Media router that no longer gets used since I cancelled their service at the end of 2014.

[Mo5]

2x 17" LCD monitors

4x semi-complete builds (either missing HDDs, PSUs or something else but mobo+cpu+ram all work)

5x wireless mouse/kb

1x Logitech webcam (with no Windows 7 drivers)

and various other bits and pieces I don't even remember. A ton of old phones too if those count

[Jared_1]

Would make a good noise when you fling it off the roof

haha. I'd love to see that.

 

2x 17" LCD monitors

4x semi-complete builds (either missing HDDs, PSUs or something else but mobo+cpu+ram all work)

5x wireless mouse/kb

1x Logitech webcam (with no Windows 7 drivers)

and various other bits and pieces I don't even remember. A ton of old phones too if those count

You should finish those builds.

[Mo5]

haha. I'd love to see that.

 

You should finish those builds.

they're all crappy... one's a Sempron 3300+, one's a Pentium D and one's a dual core Atom D2500... plus I'd have nothing to use them for

[akio123008]

A load of old "pentium 4 age" stuff. And an old printer that doesn't even have a USB port.

[drc00k3]

20+ hard drives(80gb to 1tb)

An IDE PCI RAID card

A load of USB sticks

3 Raspberry pis

An old core2duo rig

3+ 17" square monitors

MSI h81 motherboard

Random AM3 motherboard with athlon x2 245 with 4 GB ram

A bag of old RAM(Some isn't even DDR)

A sound card

A ton of data cables

A 450 watt PSU

[Sir Asvald]

I have this thing, maybe you guys have heard of it, it's called an Xbox One.

Lmao. I used to be on consoles before I moved to PC. I still have my PS3 because of exclusives. Other than that, PC all the way.

[Sir Asvald]

I don't have anything anymore. Since I moved out from my parents home, I never took any of my hardware or spare PCs. I told my dad to sell what was left and keep the money. He sold most of the stuff which made around £550.

[cleb]

I have 3 dead motherboards, 2dead power supplies, a shoebox full of random pci du-dads, 4 or 5 VERY outdated video cards, a 6800gs(out dated but not as) that goes from garbage pc to garbage pc, various rams, a taken apart DVD player that I planned to make compact as a project. Never did. 4 working computers (well I only have 2 power supplies that I trust to put in anything so they jump around but otherwise they all work) an old compaq slimline case ect ect ect I could go on

If it doesn't work I save it until I can e-recycle it or whatever it is called. Which may be some time since I don't drive.

If if does it goes into a different pile and we wait.

Edit: I almost forgot, like everyone else, hard drives out the a**