I would like to see a sticky about donating old pc's to charity.

It seems that it's hard to find places locally that will take PC's for charity. But I have contacted one website about donating my old laptop.

 

I used to that all the time. But it got to the point where they weren’t good enough for a lot of them, despite not being that old. Whatever.

 

Working for a non-profit and relying soley on donations for technological equipment I can say that timing is the big thing. If we have just received a whole fleet of PCs from a bank, say, who have just upgraded, then the next kind offer might not be so appealing, as then you just run into storage issues.

Contacting your local charity of choice is a good way forward. On a personal request note, if anyone knows their company is upgrading their projector and has an old one to donate, I would be very interested, as I'm getting to the point of needing to do several PowerPoint presentations with my organization (501 c3). Message me for further details. Also would be interested in a modern direct dial capable phone system with up to 20 extensions.

 

My old laptop is bascially just good for parts. Unless someone wants to fix the screen. Basically, I figure that if two other people donated broke thinkpads, you could put a pc together.

 

Charities don't usualy have time or technically ability to run to this FYI

 

Then somebody needs to start one.

 

One option is to sell working pc's and give the money to charity too.

 

Has your laptop got a working video output?

 

It has a monintor output and a SCSI port.

 

What else can you tell me about it? I might be able to rid you of it.

 

It has infrared port and a docking statation. It has an OEM Win. XP CD (home version) and (and it's installed), a 10 gig HDD?, Pentium II, originally had 128 MB RAM, but I sold it, now has 64MB built in +32MB added which does not register. Probably needs a CMOS battery, I've replaced it once. Has a CD-ROM. I started to fix it but forgot that I sold the RAM, and so it's probaby cheaper to buy the equivalent used than it is to fix it up, unless somebody donated parts. It has a port for an external floppy. It has one USB port (1.1).

It also has OfficeXP installed on it. Installed on it. (no CD).

 

I've got Office XP, so that's not a problem. I'll send you a PM so we don't keep this topic bumped off-topic.

 

I have worked with the united way, and boy scouts in my community for 10 years doing this exact thing. We run into a few problems that may help you understand this.

1. Storage space, we get tons of people wanting to donated machines, most so old/damaged its not worth our time to repair.

2. Technical ability, its hard to find good knowledgable volunteers to repair/rebuild machines.

3. Time invested it takes a lot of time to do this.

4. The fact that usually donated machines are older won't run the latest os or what not, which then causes problems when people try to install xp on them, and bring them back complaining there slow and broken.

Hopefuly this helps, if any another questions about why you may not be finding opertunities to donate machines let me know i will try to help.

 

I recommend listing your old computers on craigslist.com. Eric's been collecting old computers off Craig's list to piece together for our school. It's been amazing what we've been able to get. A lot of people posting on the "Free" section of Craig's List specify that they want the item to go to a charity, and I know that the administration at our shelter checks CL regularly, so I would assume that other charities in need check it as well.

 

It's possible to sell computers and donate the money to charity.

 

Well that's a sticky wicket!

 

I'm argentinian. And it would be very nice to get a better pc than mine (Pentium II) to work with eclipse and stuff. A little donation would make me happy. I know I live far away from most of you but i'm just asking. I hope noone gets mad for this.

 

I get a lot of 'cast offs'. Sometimes I get some really nice high end machines, well, p4's. and sometimes I get junk. If you can perhaps get in the door to a company, you can sometimes score good stuff. My friend works at a local lumber yard, and I get their throw aways. The only requirement is that I format the hard drive.

I got a nice HP printer that just needed ink, still using it. I got a nice p4 system, that I sold and someone else got it running. Sometimes I get little 1GHZ machines or less, and I give them away, or scrap them and use the case for myself. Last week I gave my boss a 600GHz Compaq laptop. It does take time, and I am lucky with my job and relationships with some local companies.

I did not get this, no connection there, but a local company got 20 Dell laptops, some work, some do not, all they had to do is drill the HD. A format would do in my opinion, but If I am getting a free puter, I do what they want!

And you would be suprised at what you can find on the side of the road sometimes. Now I do not 'Dumpster Dive', but if it is on the side of the road, yeah, sometimes I will pick it up. I got a nice 19" Dell trinitron crt from the road.

Most of the stuff I get is junk, but sometimes there a few nice finds. And a lot of companies will just give it to you as long as you make sure their data is erased.

E

 

Here's many places around the country -- sometimes we have to pay shipping costs.
Google =donate+recycle+used+personal+computers

Computer Recycling
www.pcdisposal.com Free Nationwide Computer Recycling Free Data Wipe, EPA Cert. Free S&H

Donate Your Old Computers
www.youthfortechnology.org Computer Donations for Charity.

This organization accepts donations of used computer equipment.
www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/recycle/ecycling/donate.htm

Do the PC thing: donate your equipment for reuse. ... San Francisco Students Recycling Used Technology (StRUT).
www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/conserve/

Increase the number of refurbished computers being re-used overseas ...
www.computeraid.org/

The Used Computer Mall(tm) Where to donate and recycle old computer equipment
www.usedcomputer.com/nonprof.html

Recycling ink cartridges, Computer donation, monitors, ...
www.computerhope.com/disposal.htm

Recycling Computers, Laptops, Electronics, eWaste, and eRecycling metal, plastic, P.C.Board, ...
www.crc.org/

Learn How to Donate, Reuse, or Recycle Your Old Computer www.nsc.org/EHC/epr2/DONATE.HTM

Do The PC Thing: Donate Computers. Getting Started Locate a Nonprofit Organization or ...
www.cristina.org/download.php?path=pc_thing.pdf&name=pc_thing.pdf

Ten Tips for Donating a Computer http://www.techsoup.org/recycle/donate.

 

hey check out some colleges or something i know the school i go too, itt tech, gets rid of like a third of their computers every year for updated ones im not sure what they do with the extras

 

It's very interesting what you said. But here in Argentina that never happens. In downtown i never found a piece of something. I'm surely it's because of the low budget the goverment gives to technology here. :cry