It may not look like much to you, but to an imaginative tech this is a treasure chest!

And yes, you read this correctly in that I am talking about getting a new PC for under $300.  I know it’s possible because it’s what I’m getting ready to do soon. You see, my computer is in need of a major upgrade and so I’ll have to be buying some parts for it, but the good news is that I can reuse some of the parts from my old PC.

It’s amazing what one can do with a little creativity and an old system. For example, I just acquired a PC that was in working order but the hard drive failed. It was from someone who gave up and decided to buy a new PC and thus planned to dispose of the old one, which I’m sure many of you have done in the past. I was given the old system, with it’s failed hard drive, to salvage what I could.

To be honest, I salvaged the whole thing! I went to a computer store in my area that specializes in second hand parts and picked up an 80 gig hard drive. Brought it back and tested it throughly to make sure there was nothing wrong with the drive and then installed it and a clean copy of windows. Since this was a Dell, I made sure I used the Windows CD that came with it in the first place. I then added some free virus software that you can get off the internet, an free copy of OpenOffice, updated to the lastest version of windows and bought some $6 PC speakers (new!)

My total out of pocket expense was $25. I plan to sell the system for $150 because it has both a DVD RW (which was tested) and CD RW (also tested). I went to YouTube and played some videos which I’ve done at customer’s homes. I find that YouTube lets me test the internet, video and audio all at the same time. Plus, if I pick a topic like “[Insurance Company] Commercial” I’m pretty sure to get very family safe videos.

My point is, this PC could have been turned into a secondary PC if the customer had wished. I’m sure they wouldn’t have cared to clutter up the house with another PC anyway but for growing families there is often a fight over who gets the computer. I would have charged a total of $225 for the hard drive, the install, and loading all the software, service packs, drivers (which can be tricky and time consuming), and internet extras. $225 for a Spare PC that the kids can surf the internet on and OpenOffice to do all their homework?

Don’t count those old PCs out just because a major component dies. It might worth it to get a Tech to take a second look at it. With a little creativity you might just have a good hand me down.