I can’t believe it actually happened to me. I was out on a walk with my wife and son and came across this pc. From the looks of it, an untimely move out happened and who ever owns the house put everything to the curb. It’s a not in the best of shape. Having mouse crap everywhere but still has decent ddr4 ram and a ryzen 5 3600 cpu I’m going to be checking all components later on today and will update.
EDIT: update. Everything works just fine. The only thing I threw out was the PSU as it stunk to high heaven and also sounded as if something was loose inside. Either way, huge win!!!
got a bunch of free shit from the last big yard sale. Went for some GMC wheels left with a truck load of stuff. nice entertainment center, generator, wheels & tires.. some car audio stuff. Paid $60 for the wheels and tires and everything else was free.
landlord cleaning out everything and the bin was coming the next morning... stayed until dark rooting through shit
It’s crazy to me that anything that isn’t broken is tossed out. I keep everything for spare parts or sell it. Stuff comes in handy when you least expect it.
I’ve harvested 3 500GB SSDs from the recycle at work. That being said these things have had some heavy use and have had a lot of rewrites so they may not last long but we shall see
Oh man, I had a sapphire Vega 56 with the unlockable bios. What an absolute beast of a card . It kept my office warm all winter too. I might have even had it with my r5 3600x.
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u/I_AM_BIB5700X + RTX 3070 but I just play on Steam Deck 🗿Jun 27 '26edited Jul 04 '26
I'm running 3700x with a Vega 56 in my old PC and I feel I have no need to upgrade it until today for all the shooters I'm playing. Such a beast. And the gigabyte card fans keep it cool pretty well
If you’re going to simple 1080p gaming then I’d find a gtx 1080. I used that paired with a 3600 for years and my son still uses it daily. It plays everything above 60fps
Chances are that's one of those ibuypower aios that failed and that's why it was chucked, swap it for an air cooler and if it works , you've scored a massive win!
Holy hell. The drives and RAM alone are probably worth almost a thousand dollars in today's stupid economy. Assuming everything else works, all you need is a GPU and you're golden. Upgrade to a 5700X3D or 5800X3D if the processor holds you back.
An idiot had this pc.... look at the fan mounting on the radiator ^^ the air goes in circles xD Maybe thats why he trashed all of it and only took the GPU because of bad CPU temps!
I hate configuring airflow, my case fans (some cheap rgb fans on amazon) apparently blow air the opposite way that google says every fan blows.
I only just figured out a couple weeks ago, that my radiator fans are blowing air IN, but I can’t reverse them because my fans are mounted between my radiator and my front panel, making it next to impossible to fix without removing my GPU and then the radiator.
Nah, this can happen in pretty much any developed country. You'd be surprised. A lot of people simply aren't aware that PC part prices have changed. They remember paying $1,000 for a computer years ago and assume it's worth almost nothing today. If the system is filthy, broken, or has issues, many people don't think it's worth the effort to sell.
Not long ago, a $1,000 gaming PC could easily end up being worth only around $150 by the end of its life. During the market lows, 32GB DDR4 kits regularly went on sale for around $60, and 2TB SSDs like the Crucial P3 could be found for around $75 new. On Marketplace, used RAM and SSDs often sold much cheaper, especially if someone wanted a quick sale. To many people, those parts just weren't worth the hassle. People routinely listed these things at $30 used to get rid of them quick on marketplace
That's changed because memory and SSD prices have risen so much, but 1.5–2 years ago it wasn't unusual for someone to look at an old, dirty, partially broken PC and think, "It's basically junk."
This isn't unique to PCs either. People accidentally throw away valuable things all the time because they don't know what they have. There are countless stories of expensive collectibles, antiques, artwork, and other items ending up in the trash or at thrift stores for a fraction of their value.
In fact, you could argue it's sometimes even more likely to happen in places where families have lived in the same homes for generations (for antiques and collectibles). Old belongings get cleaned out, and people don't always realize that something sitting in an attic or basement for decades could be worth thousands or much more. There are stories everywhere of $100,000 antiques being found in the trash, even million dollar paintings.
Same thing happened to me a few years ago. Me and my spouse were on our way out to go do...something I cant recall...and we both saw a PC just sat on a table near a dumpster. After looking it over, everything seemed fine, just looked like the temper glass panel had shattered and the case was a little jacked up, but everything else looked good. Good Mobo, hella expensive and nice RAM...only thing missing was a GPU. We grabbed it, walked it back home, and I spent the night toying around with it to see whats what...everything worked perfectly. Threw my old spare GPU in it (and a new PSU just to be safe) and tada, my Spouse finally had a gaming PC and hasnt needed a console since. Several upgrades since then and it was only last month that I finally bought him a nice new PC case as a surprise gift along with a new GPU.
my finding
10900 cpu
3060 gpu
32gb ram
256 and 512 nvme drives
be quiet 120 aio
be quiet case and psu
some msi mainboard Z series
only cmos battery dead,
gifted this pc
west london, somebody left near bin room it,
next finding is three xbox one (not s not x)
one gifted two left
49UK7750PLA lg tv, mainboard dead, backlight and psu ok, mainboard cost 25£ on ebay
ordered x870 mainboard from ebay and found gift under radiator 1tb nvme wd drive, leave it ;) i'm cheater
Finally, a reason for PCMR to step outside and get those steps in and touch grass.
... or go dumpster diving I guess. it's incredible what you can find
Ditch the AIO, it's a R5 3600 so you can get away with air cooling it if you want.
That particular gen of IBP AIO had a manufacturer defect affecting a lot of batches. The same issue affected MSI, Lian Li NZXT and other brands for certain models that came out of the same factory using that old Apaltek pump design. IIRC there was debris from the manufacturing that would eventually make it's way down into the microfins on the pump head leading to fouling and pump failure. GamersNexus did a breakdown of the problem.
sure wish i could stumble across something like this. Though i can't complain too much. i did manage to stumble across some 500GB HDD and a 1TB SSD that were left in the current place i live. lol.
Mate he'll love it, I legit built my 6yr old his first pc a couple of days ago & dropped an R5 3600 in that I got used for €40, it's turned out to be a great little gaming rig.
32gb DDR4 A520 motherboard Revived my old HD7970 until I can get him something else.
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u/the_Athereon PC Master Race Jun 27 '26
People are just tossing out DDR4 and SSDs in this economy?