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What do you do with your dead or retired laptops?
- Thread starter coolwater
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Not a laptop, but with my old PowerMac G4 Dual Optical (Mirror Doored) I gave it away to music charity for kids with learning disabilities, I think they just use it for internet and garage band, I'm happy it went to a good home, instead of collecting dust in a corner.
And maybe I may have turned on a few more people to the joys of Mac.
And maybe I may have turned on a few more people to the joys of Mac.
I've never had a machine die out on me personally but my dad just guts them and keeps all the parts stored away. Most of it is junk (100mb HDD's, obsolete cables). But every so often we're thankful for them old bits 
I give old stuff to my dad and let him pass them on to others or to gut.
I give old stuff to my dad and let him pass them on to others or to gut.
Recycle them at my local electronics retailer. I don't have the luxury of space to keep old or dead hardware.
I gave my old pretty much useless notebook computer to a teenaged computer junkie. He took it apart and experimented with stuff.
Retired, depending on age, I give away or sell for cheap. I'm just not the type of person just to collect old stuff for the sake of stacking them up like old magazines. Plus, for me, it's just unnecessary clutter.
I took the hard drive out and put a Leopard install image on there, much faster than installing from the CD drive.
That was my solution, too. I had two old computers and gave them to a charity which reconditions/repairs them and then sends them off to the Third World.
Cheers and good luck
Yep. Fix it up and give it away. Clean it up, wipe drive, put an OS on there and provide the install disc as part of the gift, (sometimes involves buying an OS but I'm willing to do that).
I most often am giving an old laptop to some family I know or a friend knows, so I am also willing to help the recipients learn to use it if they're not computer-savvy or not used to Macs.
If the used machine is going to a kid, I always ensure the parents have a little insight into potential issues like the kid possibly getting into online activities that are not prudent, safe or legal, etc. After that it's their problem, not mine, but it's amazing to me how many parents don't have a clue what their children actually do and can do online.
Anyway I would not feel right about just giving the machine to a not very tech-savvy family without having a bit of a talk with the parents. I do always mention cyberbullying, and I say that to the kid in front of the parents so that the topic is out there from the get-go. Then if the kid is later bullied maybe he or she will phone ME up sometime, if unwilling to talk about it with a parent. That kind of stuff can happen and the only safe way to deal with it when it escalates to threats of physical violence is for an adult to involve the police.
Anyway I have given away a bunch of machines and I now know of at least two cases where not only did the recipient go on to buy other Macs but also got their friends interested enough to switch to Macs.
As for my REALLY old machines, the doorstops of my Windoze days, I think they are upstairs in a corner of the spare room, and I keep meaning to take them to a free e-waste recycling day. Maybe 2009 is the year to kiss that old Tandy box goodbye...
I most often am giving an old laptop to some family I know or a friend knows, so I am also willing to help the recipients learn to use it if they're not computer-savvy or not used to Macs.
If the used machine is going to a kid, I always ensure the parents have a little insight into potential issues like the kid possibly getting into online activities that are not prudent, safe or legal, etc. After that it's their problem, not mine, but it's amazing to me how many parents don't have a clue what their children actually do and can do online.
Anyway I would not feel right about just giving the machine to a not very tech-savvy family without having a bit of a talk with the parents. I do always mention cyberbullying, and I say that to the kid in front of the parents so that the topic is out there from the get-go. Then if the kid is later bullied maybe he or she will phone ME up sometime, if unwilling to talk about it with a parent. That kind of stuff can happen and the only safe way to deal with it when it escalates to threats of physical violence is for an adult to involve the police.
Anyway I have given away a bunch of machines and I now know of at least two cases where not only did the recipient go on to buy other Macs but also got their friends interested enough to switch to Macs.
As for my REALLY old machines, the doorstops of my Windoze days, I think they are upstairs in a corner of the spare room, and I keep meaning to take them to a free e-waste recycling day. Maybe 2009 is the year to kiss that old Tandy box goodbye...
I held onto my old Dell Inspiron 8600 for about two years and it just sat in the closet.
I recently decided to simply remove the HDD and sell it on eBay. Better someone else put it to good use and I have some extra cash.
I recently decided to simply remove the HDD and sell it on eBay. Better someone else put it to good use and I have some extra cash.
I keep my old Dell laptop in the closet as a back up in the event something happens to my Mac. It has seen better days, but it can get the job done (but at -3x the speed).
Wirelessly posted (Sausage: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)
Shoot 'em.
Shoot 'em.