MoneyAccumulator.com

by Das Brain 

Last week I tested and built / refurbished two computers from scratch using Pentium Chips, motherboard, computer cases and RAM from 3 old computers from the east end Toronto City Recycle / Trash station. That was why I didn’t have much time to blog, it was quite a bit of work but the end result was that I saved quite a bit of money and it kept me busy.

I know what you must be thinkin’…”From the Dump or Trash yard???” The answer to that is a big “YES”. This was what I was able to build with spare parts that had dirt, dust and yes even beer bottle caps and other garbage that were in the computer cases when I looked inside.

1st computer – Going to be used for stock / option trading, more than enough power to
trade and surf the net.
Pentium III 996Mhz Chip
400 MB RAM 168 pin DIMM – 3 Slots
Intel Motherboard
ATI AGP 32MB Video Card
An nice NEC ATX case , Compaq keyboard
10/100 mbps NIC – runs at 100mbps to my Linksys router

2nd computer – Going to be used for instant messenging surfing net, and streaming audio
(bloomberg news).
Pentium II 466 Mhz
128 MB RAM 168pin DIMM – 2 Slots
Intel Motherboard
Onboard video card 4MB
Micro-ATX case, Compaq keyboard

Both are running Windows XP Home Edition SP2

How did I get all these used / trashed computers? Well, I had connections and it was my father in-law. He’s a great guy, very helpful and insightful individual who was willing to lend a hand and I really appreciate and am thankful for his help. He knew that I was trying to save money given that I was laid off about 1.5 months ago, and he knew I wanted to build another couple of computers for trading only for my small office in the basement.

My father in-law was also able to get me a great 17″ Sony Trinitron Multiscan 200ES CRT Monitor.
All in all these 2 systems cost me $40 which was for a brand new power supply I bought as a backup, just in case any of the power supplies fail in the used machines. Also, $20 for another used computer I bought prior to my father in-law bringing me the ones from the recycling yard. So total everything cost me $60. Oops, I forgot to mention that I will be getting another 15 ” monitor for free from my father in-law.

I’m actually currently writing this post from the faster machine that I refurbished, the 996Mhz one. I’m testing it and it is more than adequate….with the 100mbps connection to the internet surfing is pretty much as fast as my 3.2 Ghz machine and later on I will be testing the real-time stock charting and quotes to see how it performs. I’m sure it will be sufficient, because when I used to work a mutual company about 7 years ago, they were running slower machines than this junk yard PC that I put together, so I think this machine made from spare computer parts will have no problem.

In conclusion, I think that either refurbishing a computer yourself or even buying a refurbished Personal Computer / PC is a good idea and could save you a lot of money if you are going to use it for only word processing, surfing the internet, blogging, web design, minor graphics and video editing. I’m big on recycling and this is one way to contribute to our environment as well.
When I looked in the classifieds such as Kijiji.ca and eBay! ,  I can see so many Pentium 2 and Pentium 3 systems that are going for $20-$65, and monitors going from $5 to 50, given that you may be able to put together a system for 100 bucks, as opposed to buying a brand new system for minimum $399 now a days for a bottom of the line desktop. I didn’t want to spend $400 and I knew exactly what functions I wanted these PCs to do, so buying a new computer was going to be overkill and un-necessary.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2007 at 9:44 am and is filed under Option Trading, Saving, Stock Trading, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.