What to look for when buying Used hardware.

I have a few ideas, but when buying something like used computer motherboards, CPU's, RAM ect. What should you look for to see if anything may be damaged or jus bad, It would seem that simply powering on the hardware and showing that everything works fine isn't always enough.

So before buying, If possible to physically examine the hardware, what all would you look for??

Thanks..

 

That's a tough one. If CPU/RAM work then they'll most likely keep on working for a long time to come. (Ask the seller if they were overclocking, they'd prolly lie but still a good question to ask). For motherboards, make sure all fans are working and look for bulging of the capacitors, the cylinders with a silvery top. Power supplies are always iffy, if it's a brand name and doesn't smell of fried electronics then it should be OK. Caveat emptor.

Also, if the hood is open then look for excessive dust etc./smoking crud on fan blades as that kills fans and optical drives. Not a big deal there.

 

Something else I personally would want to do is view temperatures, probably by installing some form of sensor software like Everest.
I would never want to buy used pc parts personally, pretty much anything else I would but I'm funny when it comes to pc parts, they could have been under all kinds of pressure.
Example, I gave a buddy of mine my old X1950, I told him what was wrong with it, my son had near killed it with pushing it too hard. In my antec 900 case it would run COD:MW2 on semi high specs and have a temp of 65-70C which is a little high, but I told him without good cooling and airflow it will overheat and shut down on any game pretty much not set to minimum. But as far as he could see, it ran fine if a little warm. Reality, card is pretty much trash. But it does what he needs lol

Also it depends how much you're paying for it, if it's dirt cheap then you can't expect too much, it might be a deal or it might be a lemon, but if you're paying a fair amount of money then you want to make sure 100% it's ok

Everything Auggie said plus temp reviews and the ability to sense when someone is lieing lol

 

Have had a fair bit of experience in this type of thing.

If its got a moving part and it costs more than 2/3rds of the same item new you may as well buy new.

Hard Drives unless cheap and a year or so old...well now days just dont buy second hand they are cheap enough per GB and you may as well get a warranty and be a little but more assured the device isnt going to fail any day soon.

Video cards, some good advice, these regularly get overclocked by tweakers and people who like to play. these may have been installed on systems with inferior power requirements or just futzed with and left at max spec.. dollar each way on video cards really dont know what its going to be like second hand untill you benchmark it and see how it compares with what other peoples similar rigs are getting online.

As for motherboards toughie, depends on the make revision and load its been under but in general the only thing you can visibly see is an issue quite common from years ago with capacitors on the motherboard failing - bulging on top or dark tea / coffe looking stain on top, usually one or more of the capacitors around the CPU was the issue. (I had an issue nine or ten months after buying a secondhand mother board cost $175 ouch - a new one was about $235)

L8r:wave

 

so if the board is less than a month old, the temps are good, caps look fine, and you see that it even runs good; there shouldn't be much to worry about right??

Aside from that if the board has been under a lot of pressure or it's damaged due to overclocking or what not, is there a sure way to find out?

Reason why I'm asking is, I'm trying to sell some hardware and i wanna be sure I'm not ripping someone off and selling them damaged hardware
the stuff i have is semi new, Ive had it less than a month and it runs great; I have roughly 150.00 invested in it, how much should i sell it for
I'm guessing 100.00 is too much? Refer to the Biostar ad in the for sale section in the forums.

 

Yeah $100 is a fair ask its not too old.

Think of it somewhat like a new car as soon as you drive it of the lot it looses 1/3 its re-sale value...pretty much.

The only way to verify that its fine I guess would be to run a 24 hour stress test and show the results, run a bench mark on it.

L8r:wave

 

Yeah, I may do that, I might also lower the price a bit, no lower than 20$ off , id be ripping my self off seeing that i spent so much on it not too long ago, I agree used hardware can be compared to a used car, It loses it's value right away.

Thanks.