[Advice / Suggestions / Free Hardware] What to do with older machines
by slackerDude from LinuxQuestions.org on (#5NEET)
I spent ~$1K in 2018 to build some new desktops for my wife's classroom - her old WinXP P4s were SO old, no recent build of either Firefox or Chrome would run on them, and the educational software she used needed a somewhat recent build.
So, I bought a bunch of Intel DH61 boards (DH61BE, DH61CR, etc) off ebay. Also bought some cheap Celerons (G645/G870/G640/G550/G540) and 2 GB DDR3 for each as well as new EVGA power supplies for most, and used 250 GB hard drives and new (used) cases for most of them. Enough to build 9 or 10 desktops, IIRC (I had enough spare parts to put together a couple more) - 12 machines total. I installed whatever Slackware was current at the time - 14.2, IIRC, but may have been 14.1. That was plenty to run chrome / KDE auto-login (these are 1st graders, we don't need userids / passwords to confuse them), etc.
Then, we got 4 all-in-one 24" i5-3470 machines from another classroom, so 4 of mine were put in storage (aka into the garage) - these machines have tiny 14" or 17" monitors, so 24" was a huge improvement.
Now, after 1.5 years of Covid and the school having bought a bunch of chromebooks, and social distancing required in the classroom (no politics here, please), there's no room for any of the machines, and most likely, they will never go back, as the students are now getting used to chromebooks, the school IT group is managing them with badge-based login, etc.
So, any ideas what to do? I know, donate, etc - but where? I'm in the Bay Area (CA), if it helps. I'd prefer to avoid recycling / e-wasting.
I know the machines are somewhat older, but Slackware people are great at using older hardware, and I've found the Intel boards to be solid. Can use up to 3570k/3770k with Bios upgrades (one such is running our fileserver Slack box, another our HTPC, another is running a family member's desktop machine). My kids are happy with laptops, so building each of them a machine is not really going to happen - they have the HTPC for general stuff as well.
I'm not tied to any one donation / disposal method. If anyone needs a box or 2 or 10 for some kind of valid use other than "I'm going to re-sell them on ebay", and you're willing to pay shipping, sounds good. If you can provide a donation receipt for tax purposes, even better. Heck, if you want to re-sell on ebay and give me some %age of profit, I'm in for that too - I don't have the time to handle all that and I wouldn't mind getting a few $$ back..
The most limited resource is DDR3 - I'm short one stick that I borrowed for home use (one stick died somewhere along the way), so one machine has no RAM. Other than that, I have some spare parts for everything else - way more than I'll ever need for personal use.
Just to be clear: if this helps you upgrade your current machine to something newer, or provides you with a 2nd "playing around" machine, that's fine too. I'm not insisting on charitable usage - I just don't want to have to e-waste everything. "Will be used" is a higher priority right now than "will get a tax receipt" or "will get me some $$".
Any input?
To summarize:
12 of: DH61 boards / Celeron 2-core CPU / 2 GB DDR3 (1 or 2 may be older DDR2-based 64-bit CPUs, I forget exactly)
-newish power supply (400W or 600W)
-some mini some tower cases
-250 GB HD
-keyboard, mouse, ~14" VGA monitors (mostly, 1 or 2 are 17", IIRC).
So, I bought a bunch of Intel DH61 boards (DH61BE, DH61CR, etc) off ebay. Also bought some cheap Celerons (G645/G870/G640/G550/G540) and 2 GB DDR3 for each as well as new EVGA power supplies for most, and used 250 GB hard drives and new (used) cases for most of them. Enough to build 9 or 10 desktops, IIRC (I had enough spare parts to put together a couple more) - 12 machines total. I installed whatever Slackware was current at the time - 14.2, IIRC, but may have been 14.1. That was plenty to run chrome / KDE auto-login (these are 1st graders, we don't need userids / passwords to confuse them), etc.
Then, we got 4 all-in-one 24" i5-3470 machines from another classroom, so 4 of mine were put in storage (aka into the garage) - these machines have tiny 14" or 17" monitors, so 24" was a huge improvement.
Now, after 1.5 years of Covid and the school having bought a bunch of chromebooks, and social distancing required in the classroom (no politics here, please), there's no room for any of the machines, and most likely, they will never go back, as the students are now getting used to chromebooks, the school IT group is managing them with badge-based login, etc.
So, any ideas what to do? I know, donate, etc - but where? I'm in the Bay Area (CA), if it helps. I'd prefer to avoid recycling / e-wasting.
I know the machines are somewhat older, but Slackware people are great at using older hardware, and I've found the Intel boards to be solid. Can use up to 3570k/3770k with Bios upgrades (one such is running our fileserver Slack box, another our HTPC, another is running a family member's desktop machine). My kids are happy with laptops, so building each of them a machine is not really going to happen - they have the HTPC for general stuff as well.
I'm not tied to any one donation / disposal method. If anyone needs a box or 2 or 10 for some kind of valid use other than "I'm going to re-sell them on ebay", and you're willing to pay shipping, sounds good. If you can provide a donation receipt for tax purposes, even better. Heck, if you want to re-sell on ebay and give me some %age of profit, I'm in for that too - I don't have the time to handle all that and I wouldn't mind getting a few $$ back..
The most limited resource is DDR3 - I'm short one stick that I borrowed for home use (one stick died somewhere along the way), so one machine has no RAM. Other than that, I have some spare parts for everything else - way more than I'll ever need for personal use.
Just to be clear: if this helps you upgrade your current machine to something newer, or provides you with a 2nd "playing around" machine, that's fine too. I'm not insisting on charitable usage - I just don't want to have to e-waste everything. "Will be used" is a higher priority right now than "will get a tax receipt" or "will get me some $$".
Any input?
To summarize:
12 of: DH61 boards / Celeron 2-core CPU / 2 GB DDR3 (1 or 2 may be older DDR2-based 64-bit CPUs, I forget exactly)
-newish power supply (400W or 600W)
-some mini some tower cases
-250 GB HD
-keyboard, mouse, ~14" VGA monitors (mostly, 1 or 2 are 17", IIRC).