Looking for Ex-Business / School / University Computer Surplus

AirsoftAndy

Hey Im looking to get into Refurbishing computers to get a little bit of money as Im a CS student and have been building/repairing my own hardware since very young, I have seen on various places on the internet that the only way to actually make money refurbishing machines is to buy surplus from Schools/Universitiess etc where they're just trying to get rid of the ASAP , all the sources ive seen are from America which isn't much help to me ,does anyone know any Irish site/recycling centers which often have job lot ex-business/education laptop/Desktops for sale at good prices ?
Cheers

ED E

A large portion of said would go to Camara. I would be slow to suggest you pilfer any sources they use.


As a CS Student you won't have a commercial vehicle? They will expect you to collect in most instances I would assume.

coylemj

AirsoftAndy wrote: »

Hey Im looking to get into Refurbishing computers to get a little bit of money

I seriously doubt that there is money to be made at that game. Most large organisations scrap their old kit or donate it to Camara, it will usually consist of a mixture of old laptops with clapped out batteries and worn-out desktops, many of which would have been cannibalised for memory or disk or DVD drives so most of them would be uneconomic to be refurbished i.e. put back 'on the road' in a fit state to be sold for a profit. So for 100 old machines you manage to pick up, you might be able to refurbish 20 and then you have the job of selling them.

You'd be much better off getting into the business of doing PC repairs, put notices in your local shops.

Dravokivich

You'd also need to consider most competent businesses would be likely to destroy the hard drives when discarding them. These can be costly to acquire.

coylemj

Dravokivich wrote: »

You'd also need to consider most competent businesses would be likely to destroy the hard drives when discarding them. These can be costly to acquire.

+1 That also occurred to me after posting above. In order to get machines with the hard drives intact, you have to assure companies and educational institutions that you have procedures that are rigidly followed in terms of wiping or destroying the hard drive.

Camara have documented their policy ....

Secure Data Erasure and Certification

• Each hard drive is erased using a US Department of Defence (DoD 5220.22-M) and NIST 800-88 compliant program that operates on a firmware level, making it impossible to retrieve any data.
• If the hard drive fails during wipe it is physically removed, degaussed and crushed.
• Data destruction service can alternatively be provided at customer’s site location for more than 50 Hard Drives.

http://camara.org/give-computers/

OP as a sole trader operating from home would find it difficult to beat or match that.

scamalert

did some clearing in one place ive worked,and amount of tech i cleared would been in about close to 2k if selling most of it for parts or fixing them up,downside some tech like fax machines that weight 25kgs and equipment that's past 5yrs old would been half of it meaning pure junk that wouldn't have any use or power in this day.

Dont quite remember which company cleared it,but pretty sure you'd be required to provide cages for hardware,then have storage space and not sure about other requirements,since many places have contracts go to,that usually dispose so hard competition,and at the end companies doing that profit mostly from recycling metals,plastic after sorting and what not which isn't the cleanest job.

caff

coylemj wrote: »

+1 That also occurred to me after posting above. In order to get machines with the hard drives intact, you have to assure companies and educational institutions that you have procedures that are rigidly followed in terms of wiping or destroying the hard drive.

Camara have documented their policy ....

Secure Data Erasure and Certification

• Each hard drive is erased using a US Department of Defence (DoD 5220.22-M) and NIST 800-88 compliant program that operates on a firmware level, making it impossible to retrieve any data.
• If the hard drive fails during wipe it is physically removed, degaussed and crushed.
• Data destruction service can alternatively be provided at customer’s site location for more than 50 Hard Drives.

http://camara.org/give-computers/

OP as a sole trader operating from home would find it difficult to beat or match that.

Lot of companies require hardrives to be physically shredded also

TerrorFirmer

This is 100% something you could not get into as a student. It would actually be a pretty significant and time consuming venture requiring a good chunk of start up cash.

You're better off just buying and selling PC's in your circumstance. Use places like Adverts, Ebay, etc.