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Should I repair or sell older Windows PC?

D

davidg4781

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 28, 2006
2,886
430
Alice, TX
My mom's PC died a while back. She replaced it with a MBP but gave me the PC to sell or do whatever with it. I have a feeling it's the power supply since the fans will start up for about a second, then die, and it continues doing this for a while, never fully booting up.

So, I'm not sure if I should sell this on CL as is, or try to repair it, or just throw it away/take it to a recycling place.

Looking through Newegg, it looks like I built this in 2004. It's an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ processor, along with MB and video card. Back then it was alright, but it was struggling running Windows 7 and I think XP before I upgraded. This may have been due to the graphics card possibly overheating. It was purchased used from eBay when the previous one died.

I've thought of upgrading it myself but I don't think I have a need for it. Is there a market for retro gaming PCs or is that basically taken care of through emulation?

And I know this is MACrumors, but this and an Accord board are pretty much the only ones I use.
 
davidg4781 said:
My mom's PC died a while back. She replaced it with a MBP but gave me the PC to sell or do whatever with it. I have a feeling it's the power supply since the fans will start up for about a second, then die, and it continues doing this for a while, never fully booting up.

So, I'm not sure if I should sell this on CL as is, or try to repair it, or just throw it away/take it to a recycling place.

Looking through Newegg, it looks like I built this in 2004. It's an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ processor, along with MB and video card. Back then it was alright, but it was struggling running Windows 7 and I think XP before I upgraded. This may have been due to the graphics card possibly overheating. It was purchased used from eBay when the previous one died.

I've thought of upgrading it myself but I don't think I have a need for it. Is there a market for retro gaming PCs or is that basically taken care of through emulation?

And I know this is MACrumors, but this and an Accord board are pretty much the only ones I use.
Click to expand...
I'd sell it on the internet as is. Probably not woth the time and parts to repair first.
 
Would CL be best? Sell complete or part it out? I wouldn't mind eBay but I think shipping would make it not worth it.

I'm going to clean out the dust inside and check to make sure it's not the battery (not PRAM, whatever it's called).
 
davidg4781 said:
Would CL be best? Sell complete or part it out? I wouldn't mind eBay but I think shipping would make it not worth it.

I'm going to clean out the dust inside and check to make sure it's not the battery (not PRAM, whatever it's called).
Click to expand...
I like CL personally. I have used them a lot to sell older electronics. Cleaning--good idea, then sell. :)
 
I would just let Apple (or someone locally) recycle it and keep the power supply, case, fans for building something else. Those parts are really old!
 
It looks like I'll take it to Best Buy. I'm pretty sure the PS is shot, and if I ever do build another PC fans are cheap and a lot more efficient now, and not full of dust. As for the case, it's nice, but newer ones are smaller and have a lot more features.

Maybe I'll put it on CL on the cheap, just to see what happens.
 
I dunno what kinda case it has, but I've used some dying PCs before as file servers. Crammed in a bunch of miscellaneous drives I'd taken out of other machines, installed Ubuntu, and set it up on the network so we could share media files and stuff. With VNC we could even run it headless. Once it died we simply yanked the drives and moved them to a new home.
 
Usually when it kicks on and off like that it is a motherboard issue. Sometimes the RAM.

The simple PSU test. To verify it will at least turn on and stay on. Is basically hotwiring it. You disconnect all the connectors inside the PC. Then on the main ATX connector (likely 20 pin given the age) look for the green wire. The green wire is the power on wire. Then take a bare paperclip and jump the green power on wire to any of the black wires (negative). If the PSU fan turns on the PSU is likely OK. I've done this countless times it doesn't hurt anything and the max voltage of any internal case line in a standard ATX case is 12v.

Actually you can leave everything else plugged in and just test the main 20pin connector and see if the drives will spin up. All the paperclip is doing is giving the PSU a manual turn on signal which is what happens when your press the power button.

Also for a lot less than Best Buy you can pick up a PSU tester from Microcenter or Fry's. You can also buy one off Amazon. They go more in depth testing the voltages. I use the Thermaltake Dr. Power II.
 
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Try to borrow a PS. Disconnect the one inside, plug, if the cables are long enough, the borrowed one in to board. If it runs, turn off and connect the other cables, see if it runs normally off the borrowed PS. If an older PC is faulty, its worthless, maybe $10. If no go, disconnect everything from the PS except the board. If Ok, attach one thing at a time, replacing with bottomed RAM helps. Isolate each part but in all likelihood its the PS or board but it could be faulty other part that shuts it off
 
I called an Altex in a nearby town. They said I can take it in and for free and quick they can test the power supply. Anything else there'll be a charge. The one in there now is a generic brand I think. I put it in when the original one died.

If it's anything more than the PS I'll definitely sell the smaller things and recycle the rest. I may sell the case on CL, it's a pretty nice Antec case but a few of the plastic clips are broken. I figure once I start replacing the MB or RAM I might as well upgrade it, and quite honestly I don't need it, other than maybe playing older PC games.
 
Alright, so I just tested it again to see what it would do. I think last time I checked it and found it not working, I took everything out, cleaned it up, then put it all back together. I couldn't remember if I tested it after that. I'm still getting the same outcome. When it's plugged in to power, the green light on the MB comes on but nothing happens when the power or reset (I wasn't expecting anything) buttons are pressed. When I unplug it, right before the MB light turns off, the CPU and case fan flicker on and off, for a microsecond.

I removed both sticks of RAM and swapped them around and nothing.

Now before I test the PS with a paperclip, I just want to make sure I understand this properly. I'm supposed to unplug the PS from the MB, grab a paperclip, and stick one end in the green wire one, the other one in the black wire one. And if the PS is working, the PS and anything else connected to it should turn on, right? Do I need to wear gloves for this? Will I feel any current? I'm alright with a small amount but don't want to get startled by it and kick the PC of anything.

Edit: This guy showed me what to do. Glad I did some searching.
 
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