Useful Old Computer Parts

[daberno123]

My dad was going to recycle away a cpu, a monitor and a printer. I stopped and asked to take them apart. I'm not very good with electronics but is there anything useful that I could take out (not necessarily spud-related) before they are recycled? And yes I already know about the fans.

[tmacd995]

The Hard Drives are always useful as well as the related cables

[Sergeant Dotson]

The cd burner has something called a laser diode. These can be sold for up to $200 or more. There are videos on the net of how to put one on a laser pointer and actually burn things.

Oh oh there is also two neodymium magnets in the harddrive... if you put them together, you can't pull them apart. You would have to twist them off. VERY strong magnets.

[Fnord]

The harddrive has something called a laser diode.

Hard drives read data magnetically, not optically. You're thinking of a cd burner.


Fans
PSU capacitors (or just save the whole PSU if it's 250+ watts... you can use it as a replacement or as a small hobby DC power source)
Any working drives
Ram and video card if they're decent.

Probably a couple motors from the printer
Springs

monitor:
Flyback+transistor
caps
maybe some big diodes and resitors
yokes (large masses of magnet wire behind the tube)


A "CPU" is a processor, by the way. Not the whole computer.

[Sergeant Dotson]

Didn't he say CD burner? Oh, I guess not, my bad.

[daberno123]

A "CPU" is a processor, by the way. Not the whole computer.

Not really sure what you mean but when I said CPU i meant the box thing with the CD drive and stuff in it. But I might be using the wrong term so if you'd just clarify that a bit...

And you say there is a flyback in the monitor. This could be used as an ignition device, right?

Oh and what do caps look like?

Edit: Are these capacitors? They were in the CPU box in the PSU and looked they needed to be pulled...

[Sergeant Dotson]

Well the harddrive (its in the CPU and looks like a disk tray, sorta) is where the magnets are, and no, you are using the right terms.

BTW
Love your avatar, _Fnord...

[tmacd995]

Oh yea one more thing, lots of these parts could contain very toxic chemicals, especially that monitor if it is a CRT.

[iknowmy3tables]

the CPU is the cracker shaped chip under the largest heat sink with usally a fan as well,
hey thats right get the fans to use as chamber fans

save the RAM you can posibly use it in another computer, the ram is the long chips that plug into the motherboard about an inch tall
check the power supply and monitor for capacitors and transistors, You are suppose to never do this according to all the book unless you got a really fancy pants certification to do so, but your a young reckless spudder arn't yah

most crt chemicals are in the actual tube and they are only trace amounts

okay printer, you can get a motor an possible high voltage parts
if the monitor is a crt the important thing is the fly back transformer, if you don't know which one it is post it and we'll post your pic with the transformer highlighted

[Blitz]

Alright, you guys are just splitting hairs now. People not in the field (and even some that are) use the acronym CPU to refer to the chassis and everything in it, just deal with it.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Don't forget the actual tower makes a great target

[Blitz]

Especially for penetration tests.

[psycix]

Don't forget the actual tower makes a great target

Yeah, sheet metal!
How many layers can it do?

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Printer spools are usually on nice solid steel bars that make excellent mandrels for aligning barrels and suppressor baffles for example.

[TurboSuper]

I always make sure to grab the sound card...they haven't changed that much over the years anyways,