the only components he bought were the power supply and RAM
April 15, 2023 8:23 AM Subscribe
This PC Gamer Built Their Rig After Dumpster Diving For Months [Kotaku] “Dumpster divers find all kinds of things in the trash. From a full pallet of cold brew coffee to hundreds of metal tins for Yu-Gi-Oh cards, there’s no shortage of cool stuff buried in the heaps of garbage you’ll likely find in the bin. But while some of it may be useless, redditor Rydirp7 took the saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” to heart and built a whole PC out of discarded computer parts.”
“Building trash PCs is one way for combatting the roughly 70 percent of e-waste that Americans produce, Rydirp7 said, acknowledging the frequency with which most people’s old electronics end up in landfills. “This tactic of building trash PCs from garbage components keeps perfectly usable electronics from going into landfills,” Rydirp7 said. “It can be easy for someone to build a computer with little to no money invested in it.” As far as the viability of the trash PC, well, it depends on what you can find and how you’re going to use it.”
“Building trash PCs is one way for combatting the roughly 70 percent of e-waste that Americans produce, Rydirp7 said, acknowledging the frequency with which most people’s old electronics end up in landfills. “This tactic of building trash PCs from garbage components keeps perfectly usable electronics from going into landfills,” Rydirp7 said. “It can be easy for someone to build a computer with little to no money invested in it.” As far as the viability of the trash PC, well, it depends on what you can find and how you’re going to use it.”
Rydirp7’s trash PC specs below:
• EVGA GTX 570 Graphics Card
• Intel Core I7-3770 Non-K Processor
• 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM at 1600mhz
• 750-watt Corsair Power Supply
• iBUYPOWER Snowblind Element Case
• Dell OptiPlex 9010 Motherboard
This is a neat idea! The hardest part, I imagine, is knowing where to find other people’s e-waste.
posted by gofordays at 9:16 AM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by gofordays at 9:16 AM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't doubt this at all. It feels like "serious gaming" is just an excuse to spend more and more money on computer hardware, instead of actually playing games.
I recently purchased a refurbished Dell business laptop for what felt like a steal. To my surprise, it can run a AAA game (Genshin Impact) on its integrated graphics chip that was designed for Powerpoint presentations. Can it run the game on ultra graphics quality, 4k, at 144 Hz? Of course not. But computer performance has been plateauing for almost a decade now.
posted by meowzilla at 9:20 AM on April 15, 2023 [7 favorites]
I recently purchased a refurbished Dell business laptop for what felt like a steal. To my surprise, it can run a AAA game (Genshin Impact) on its integrated graphics chip that was designed for Powerpoint presentations. Can it run the game on ultra graphics quality, 4k, at 144 Hz? Of course not. But computer performance has been plateauing for almost a decade now.
posted by meowzilla at 9:20 AM on April 15, 2023 [7 favorites]
To my surprise, it can run a AAA game (Genshin Impact) on its integrated graphics chip that was designed for Powerpoint presentations.
To be fair, Genshin is incredibly well optimized to run on older hardware (as a primarily mobile game, I guess it has to be?). Doom Eternal was the first game I ran into which was unplayable on my old 2013-era desktop, and as of late last year, I've built a new rig; nothing bleeding edge, but it'll last me a good while.
posted by May Kasahara at 9:26 AM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
To be fair, Genshin is incredibly well optimized to run on older hardware (as a primarily mobile game, I guess it has to be?). Doom Eternal was the first game I ran into which was unplayable on my old 2013-era desktop, and as of late last year, I've built a new rig; nothing bleeding edge, but it'll last me a good while.
posted by May Kasahara at 9:26 AM on April 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
I’m actually cleaning out a deceased relative’s house right now and there’s a ton of old computer stuff . I’ve recycled a lot but I wonder if some of it would be of interest to a hobbyist. There’s a teal SGI Octane workstation circa late 1990s that so heavy I can barely move it (50 pounds or so). That sort of stuff .
posted by caviar2d2 at 10:45 AM on April 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by caviar2d2 at 10:45 AM on April 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
caviar2d2, I subscribe to a mailing list called Sun Rescue just for people who collect and run old computers. They would probably know what to do with that old stuff -- and an Octane would get lots of attention.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:13 AM on April 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 11:13 AM on April 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
I first became politically active when our dump banned residents from entering the electronics scrapyard to pull components, allegedly because of liability.
Our crew of activists were largely teen dorks who met through LAN parties. Central to this LAN party scene were computers assembled from a mixture of scrapyard components and dumpster finds from the local colleges.
TL;TR, everything I know about influencing bureaucracy happened because of Team Fortress.
posted by Headfullofair at 11:15 AM on April 15, 2023 [23 favorites]
Our crew of activists were largely teen dorks who met through LAN parties. Central to this LAN party scene were computers assembled from a mixture of scrapyard components and dumpster finds from the local colleges.
TL;TR, everything I know about influencing bureaucracy happened because of Team Fortress.
posted by Headfullofair at 11:15 AM on April 15, 2023 [23 favorites]
One day at work about five years ago, I happened to look into the electronics recycling bin and noticed a small pile of GPUs. I picked them up, took them home, and thought 'well I guess I do deep learning now.' Since then I switched to working on deep learning on audio full time and have a few well-regarded papers published. Dumpster diving FTW.
posted by kaibutsu at 11:56 AM on April 15, 2023 [27 favorites]
posted by kaibutsu at 11:56 AM on April 15, 2023 [27 favorites]
It's such a shame that we're no longer allowed to put trash (other than household garbage in bins) outside where I live. In the name of recycling, we're obliged to bring it all to a central place where it gets separated out. In itself, that is of course fine. But no one is allowed to take anything away from there. Such a great potential for immediate reuse, wasted.
Some of the better things get offered in the charity shop. At least that's something.
In the past, we've definitely found a great number of fixable and usable electronics that others had thrown out. It's just ridiculous what people will throw out without a second thought.
posted by Too-Ticky at 5:42 AM on April 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
Some of the better things get offered in the charity shop. At least that's something.
In the past, we've definitely found a great number of fixable and usable electronics that others had thrown out. It's just ridiculous what people will throw out without a second thought.
posted by Too-Ticky at 5:42 AM on April 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
Color laser printer, working, with full toner cartridges
Just one?
About two decades ago, Too-Ticky and I were working on four large murals in Amsterdam, opposite a harbour warehouse converted to hipster offices. There wasn't a week when we didn't go home without at least one serious bit of computer hardware put out on the sidewalk: desktop computers (mostly Apple), laser printers, monitors. Nearly all of it was still working; I remember one particular laser printer fetching 200 Euro, and the guy buying it drove 150km to pick it up.
The project took half a year.
At work I salvaged a dozen flatscreen monitors (two still under warranty, and five 40" displays with just failed backlight, easily fixed), a couple of UPSes, laptops, a few small server systems and all kinds of other surplus hardware.
Despite not being allowed to take stuff out of recycling centres, I've managed to save two tube PA amplifiers, a few 1980's home computers and two or three PCs, fully working, by strategically positioning the car next to the container where I was putting stuff in. Also at least two WorkMates and some household stuff.
And one day near our then-home we came across a 21" Eizo CRT sitting on the sidewalk. This was when flatscreens of that size were just about getting affordable so it was still worthwhile to cart that beast home and test it. It was fine, and as one of our house mates, an always-broke AV artist, had his birthday that day we tied a ribbon around it and set it in the corridor in front of his room when he was out for the evening.
posted by Stoneshop at 6:26 AM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Just one?
About two decades ago, Too-Ticky and I were working on four large murals in Amsterdam, opposite a harbour warehouse converted to hipster offices. There wasn't a week when we didn't go home without at least one serious bit of computer hardware put out on the sidewalk: desktop computers (mostly Apple), laser printers, monitors. Nearly all of it was still working; I remember one particular laser printer fetching 200 Euro, and the guy buying it drove 150km to pick it up.
The project took half a year.
At work I salvaged a dozen flatscreen monitors (two still under warranty, and five 40" displays with just failed backlight, easily fixed), a couple of UPSes, laptops, a few small server systems and all kinds of other surplus hardware.
Despite not being allowed to take stuff out of recycling centres, I've managed to save two tube PA amplifiers, a few 1980's home computers and two or three PCs, fully working, by strategically positioning the car next to the container where I was putting stuff in. Also at least two WorkMates and some household stuff.
And one day near our then-home we came across a 21" Eizo CRT sitting on the sidewalk. This was when flatscreens of that size were just about getting affordable so it was still worthwhile to cart that beast home and test it. It was fine, and as one of our house mates, an always-broke AV artist, had his birthday that day we tied a ribbon around it and set it in the corridor in front of his room when he was out for the evening.
posted by Stoneshop at 6:26 AM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
I owe much of my first career in electronics to being able to play with discarded or recycled units.
As kids, we routinely hoarded and traded salvaged bits - speakers, relays, lights, switches etc etc. We practiced soldering by removing components from discarded PC boards and then went on to learn about, test and reuse the individual devices.
Just some of the stuff I have salvaged curbside or from dumpsters:
- Canon flatbed scanner (I still use it)
- monitors
- two working Mac SE computers
- an electric piano
- many printers, from which I extracted many parts, including stepper motors, power supplies, precision mechanical components (and I've saved a good cross-section of mostly metric hardware)
- complete power supplies
- innumerable cables, cords, adaptors
And from there, we often swap stuff with each other, or give stuff to others to learn on.
Like forest insects, we usually reduce a "dead" unit to sub-assemblies and bits, and what isn't immediately used or saved, is discarded into the right streams: metal bits to metal recyclers, plastic recycled where possible, and there's much less that actually heads to landfill.
I confess that taking stuff apart is still fun and therapeutic.
Headfullofair: I first became politically active when our dump banned residents from entering the electronics scrapyard to pull components, allegedly because of liability.
It's possible that the e-waste recyclers who cities contract with don't want the dropped-off stuff to be cherry-picked before they get it. Otherwise, liability is a manageable issue. Many recyclers already have areas where donated paints and similar can be grabbed by someone who wants them.
If governments are serious about electronics recycling, they need to make collected e-waste available to the most efficient recyclers!
posted by Artful Codger at 8:41 AM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
As kids, we routinely hoarded and traded salvaged bits - speakers, relays, lights, switches etc etc. We practiced soldering by removing components from discarded PC boards and then went on to learn about, test and reuse the individual devices.
Just some of the stuff I have salvaged curbside or from dumpsters:
- Canon flatbed scanner (I still use it)
- monitors
- two working Mac SE computers
- an electric piano
- many printers, from which I extracted many parts, including stepper motors, power supplies, precision mechanical components (and I've saved a good cross-section of mostly metric hardware)
- complete power supplies
- innumerable cables, cords, adaptors
And from there, we often swap stuff with each other, or give stuff to others to learn on.
Like forest insects, we usually reduce a "dead" unit to sub-assemblies and bits, and what isn't immediately used or saved, is discarded into the right streams: metal bits to metal recyclers, plastic recycled where possible, and there's much less that actually heads to landfill.
I confess that taking stuff apart is still fun and therapeutic.
Headfullofair: I first became politically active when our dump banned residents from entering the electronics scrapyard to pull components, allegedly because of liability.
It's possible that the e-waste recyclers who cities contract with don't want the dropped-off stuff to be cherry-picked before they get it. Otherwise, liability is a manageable issue. Many recyclers already have areas where donated paints and similar can be grabbed by someone who wants them.
If governments are serious about electronics recycling, they need to make collected e-waste available to the most efficient recyclers!
posted by Artful Codger at 8:41 AM on April 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
"Reduce (to its component parts), Reuse (whatever items or parts that you can), Recycle (whatever is left in the appropriate stream and landfill as little as possible)."
posted by wenestvedt at 9:24 AM on April 16, 2023
posted by wenestvedt at 9:24 AM on April 16, 2023
Our local Freegeek shuttered their pc parts & stuff donation center =(
... but there's The Hackery!
posted by porpoise at 6:10 PM on April 16, 2023
... but there's The Hackery!
posted by porpoise at 6:10 PM on April 16, 2023
I had a perfectly functional 15-ish year old B&W HP laserjet printer that I had to recycle simply because no drivers existed for modern (Mac) operating systems. I put off upgrading my computer for a couple years just so we could still use it but eventually I had to make the call to get rid of it and upgrade my OS. It still frustrates me to this day.
posted by misskaz at 5:18 AM on April 17, 2023
posted by misskaz at 5:18 AM on April 17, 2023
I had a perfectly functional 15-ish year old B&W HP laserjet printer that I had to recycle simply because no drivers existed for modern (Mac) operating systems.
On the modern mac that is done by CUPS. Any printer that old would be supported by the open source version. Worse case support - a raspberry pi type machine driving it.
posted by rough ashlar at 8:01 AM on April 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
On the modern mac that is done by CUPS. Any printer that old would be supported by the open source version. Worse case support - a raspberry pi type machine driving it.
posted by rough ashlar at 8:01 AM on April 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well it didn't work when I plugged in and as an average person (not someone who would buy or know what to do with a raspberry pi) I guess I failed.
posted by misskaz at 8:33 AM on April 17, 2023
posted by misskaz at 8:33 AM on April 17, 2023
guess I failed.
In the past if you had a working .ppd file you could have just moved that. I don't know how FUBARed CUPS is now that Apple bought them WRT moving the .ppd file.
Almost any "old" tech is not plug and play or even supported with "modern" OSes. But if it was supported on an open source platform in the past it will be supported in the future.
I've seen an IDE from a 586/686 boot on a DDR2(or was it DDR3?) vintage AMD box. Macs running OS 9 and modern mac OS + Windows can all use the same printer with the FreeBSD stack. (that was fun - they pulled the FreeBSD server and not only did the production printer stop but 1/2 hour later they were infected and sending spam with the infection payload 'cuz the "new" people were gonna be better.)
Exceptions would be a connor IDE drive.
If one can find a local open source user group there is likely someone who can get that old hardware working with new windows/mac with some open source glue and a $5 raspberrypi zero.
posted by rough ashlar at 2:13 PM on April 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
In the past if you had a working .ppd file you could have just moved that. I don't know how FUBARed CUPS is now that Apple bought them WRT moving the .ppd file.
Almost any "old" tech is not plug and play or even supported with "modern" OSes. But if it was supported on an open source platform in the past it will be supported in the future.
I've seen an IDE from a 586/686 boot on a DDR2(or was it DDR3?) vintage AMD box. Macs running OS 9 and modern mac OS + Windows can all use the same printer with the FreeBSD stack. (that was fun - they pulled the FreeBSD server and not only did the production printer stop but 1/2 hour later they were infected and sending spam with the infection payload 'cuz the "new" people were gonna be better.)
Exceptions would be a connor IDE drive.
If one can find a local open source user group there is likely someone who can get that old hardware working with new windows/mac with some open source glue and a $5 raspberrypi zero.
posted by rough ashlar at 2:13 PM on April 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
I had a perfectly functional 15-ish year old B&W HP laserjet printer that I had to recycle simply because no drivers existed for modern (Mac) operating systems.
I keep a couple of Windows XP towers around in order to use my dumpster-find scanner, and for any floppy-disk or parallel-port shenanigans.
posted by Artful Codger at 12:09 PM on April 18, 2023
I keep a couple of Windows XP towers around in order to use my dumpster-find scanner, and for any floppy-disk or parallel-port shenanigans.
posted by Artful Codger at 12:09 PM on April 18, 2023
rough ashlar: But if it was supported on an open source platform in the past it will be supported in the future.
You can't count on that, though. Even with open source devices can drop out of support, for instance when there's a 32-bit driver but no-one can be bothered to rewrite it for 64-bit (hairy code, tiny userbase, the person who wrote the driver back then doesn't have that device anymore, whatever). But for devices like printers and scanners you can then often fall back to some generic driver that offers basic functionality, just no advanced features.
posted by Stoneshop at 3:33 AM on April 19, 2023
You can't count on that, though. Even with open source devices can drop out of support, for instance when there's a 32-bit driver but no-one can be bothered to rewrite it for 64-bit (hairy code, tiny userbase, the person who wrote the driver back then doesn't have that device anymore, whatever). But for devices like printers and scanners you can then often fall back to some generic driver that offers basic functionality, just no advanced features.
posted by Stoneshop at 3:33 AM on April 19, 2023
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* HP mini-PC (now my primary desktop)
* Color laser printer, working, with full toner cartridges
* 40GB drive (from a trashed desktop on the street)
* Multiple all-in-one inkjets and laser printers (salvaged for parts and/or used for classes)
* "Click and grow" smart garden
* DAT player (donated to friend)
* Washing machine control panel (converted to kid's toy)
... I could go on. It's nuts. It's illegal to put out e-waste with trash, so people just wrap them in opaque bags or leave them out in the hope that someone will just pick it up and take it away. They tore down the local e-cycling depot to build more luxury housing, and it's only getting worse.
posted by phooky at 8:48 AM on April 15, 2023 [11 favorites]