I-found-an-old-gaming-pc-in-the-garbage | PCWorld

We certainly dwell with first-world issues in the USA. I do know this as a result of amid a worldwide chip scarcity and a 1,000-year drought of GPUs, I stumbled throughout a completely useful gaming PC actually thrown to the gutter.

Nerd’s honor (which you correctly say with a Vulcan salute)!

Sure, I do know you suppose I’m telling you fish tales after I say I discovered a liquid-cooled, 6-core Core i7-5930K on an X99 motherboard, 32GB of DDR4, a 128GB SSD, and 1TB onerous drive whereas strolling the canine. The gem was the graphics card: An EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 ACS.

For actual: I’m not mendacity. The earlier proprietor didn’t simply abandon it haphazardly, however the place I dwell, the town provides bulk disposal days the place you possibly can toss out home equipment, mattresses, and sure—even your gaming PCs.

As you possibly can see, it appears to be like prefer it was tied to a truck bumper and dragged to hell and again. Its followers had been clogged with mud, one reminiscence warmth spreader had fallen off, and the cap that will usually cowl the liquid cooler had by some means vanished. One case fan had a wire rubbing in opposition to it, so the answer was apparently to fold up a bit of paper and jam the fan blade quite than take heed to the “tick-tick-tick” of the fan hitting the wire.

Gordon Mah Ung

I, frankly, might perceive why somebody would possibly resolve it was time to jettison this mess throughout spring cleansing. However as a finalist for the recent new present, “PC {Hardware} Hoarders of Silicon Valley” (I truly dwell north of Silicon Valley, and no, there’s no such present—however there must be!), I can by no means let go of outdated {hardware}. Not as a result of I want it, however as a result of I discover magnificence within the ugliness. Sure, the machine you see right here appears to be like sketchy, however in my thoughts—somebody, someplace—can use it. I do know I can discover a dwelling for an outdated monitor on the public library, or an individual joyful to take an historic PC. It’s higher for somebody to get some use out of it then to have it go to the nice e-waste firepit within the sky.

Gordon Mah Ung

I do marvel what its historical past was. Did it get changed by a shiny, quick new Ryzen 5000 paired with a GeForce RTX 3080? Did the proprietor stop PC gaming, or purchase a new-generation console? By the way, the house I discovered for this PC is with a relative who has lengthy been a console gamer however actually desires—and might’t afford—a gaming PC.

The remainder of the elements I discovered, I haven’t discovered a house for but, however I’ll. Sure, it wasn’t simply this useful Core i7-5930K and GeForce GTX 1080 that was headed for the trash heap.

Gordon Mah Ung

In addition to the outdated analog PC audio system and a PS/2 keyboard, I additionally discovered a useful Ninth-gen Core i5-9600K with 16GB of RAM. The motherboard was simply mendacity on the bottom and was lacking its fan, so I believe somebody had already come throughout it in a case and determined to depart it behind, preserving no matter parts that had been by some means higher as an alternative. As with the gaming PC, the motherboard, CPU, and RAM operate simply high-quality, as you possibly can see from BIOS shot under.

Gordon Mah Ung

Not Ryzen, not for me

Even I’ve my limits. There was truly a 3rd PC in a case stripped out by one other passerby: an older AM3-socket primarily based AMD CPU. I didn’t take away the cooler to search out the mannequin quantity, however pre-Ryzen CPUs don’t rank excessive in my guide anymore. I’ve sufficient older Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge machines I’m nonetheless attempting to rehome.

I might see the sanitation engineers driving my method, so I scuttled again dwelling with the PC and motherboard whereas dragging my confused canine. Hopefully, another person discovered utility for that outdated AM3 chip.

Because of this Home windows 11 makes me unhappy

My story of turning e-waste into helpful {hardware} is an efficient bar story, but it surely additionally highlights why individuals are so very enraged over Home windows 11’s plan to strand older {hardware}. Sure, there could certainly be authentic wants with the elevated safety threats, however that doesn’t reduce the sting. For so long as I can bear in mind, outdated PC {hardware} has continued with the power to run the latest, most safe OS.

Come 2025 when Home windows 10 ends, I’m afraid I’ll simply have to depart any outdated {hardware} to the e-waste gods as an alternative (sorry Linux followers, it’s simply actually onerous to search out common customers who will take an outdated PC with out the most well-liked shopper OS on it).

For now, I can at the least admire that I discovered properties for this {hardware}.

Gordon Mah Ung