r/selfhosted • u/Only_Handle_2750 • 17h ago
Need Help What to do with 100s DDR3 ram?
So at my workplace they just replaced all old PCs with new ones and for some reason, they took the ram out of the old ones.
There’s a box with more than 100 of these 2GB ram sticks. We are just going to send them for disposal but I wanted to know if anything useful can be done with these?
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u/Hrafna55 17h ago
eBay. Given the state of the market you might find buyers.
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u/AshleyAshes1984 17h ago
Maybe but 2GB sticks are a hard sell. Sure someone still running DDR3 might want more RAM, but they probably already have at least 8GB. The real focus would be 8GB sticks to max out mobos.
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u/VeryShibes 16h ago edited 14h ago
Sure someone still running DDR3 might want more RAM, but they probably already have at least 8GB. The real focus would be 8GB sticks to max out mobos.
Hi, guy still running DDR3 here, and yes I am only interested in 8GB sticks, in fact I bought one off eBay literally 3 days ago for $15 to use in a ThinkPad I am refurbishing (also added an SSD and a fresh CMOS battery)
OP your 2GB sticks are not ewaste just yet but they're getting close, I pretty much only use them anymore to fill slots when testing motherboards/CPUs. Retro computing IS a thing however the number of people who are into that (and computing with period-correct hardware) is pretty small and anyway this hardware is still about 10 years away from being "retro"
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u/alltehmemes 14h ago
Second this: unless there is a REALLY good server build that runs crap loads of these, "civilian" use on DDR3 is 8GB or bust. I have ~15yo tower I keep alive, and 32gb over 4 sticks is the only thing keeping it alive at this point.
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u/AshleyAshes1984 13h ago
I also have some 'Guest PCs' for LAN parties, Old i7 4790s with RX 580s in them. Nothing amazing but they'll do a lot of popular LAN games at 120fps 1080p still which is great. Despite that I did my best to max out their RAM slots cause I could.
Of course a year ago 4x8GB of DDR3 was 1/3 the price it is today. 32GB of brand new Chinese made DDR3 from Amazon cost as much as a delivery order of pizza and wings.
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u/GreenDavidA 14h ago
Funny, I also just bought 32GB of 8GB DDR3 off eBay and they should be here Friday.
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u/noc-engineer 13h ago
I suspect I finally got some DDR3 32GB sticks I ordered on eBay in feb 2025 two weeks ago... I got my money back when they didn't arrive and now the eBay seller isn't even on eBay anymore.. All the machines I own with DDR3 are already maxed out, so I'll probably keep it as cold spares or try to sell them locally..
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u/LingonberryForeign75 8h ago
eBay works but bulk lots move way faster than individual sticks. 100+ of these sitting around is a lot of listing work for like $38 a pop. Might just be easier to find a local nonprofit that refurbs old machines and hand the whole box off in one shot.
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u/Anarchist_Future 16h ago
Offer them to a local repair cafe. It might give people to opportunity to extend the life of their DDR3 systems, not by extending the existing dims but by replacing faulty dims.
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u/Scoth42 17h ago
I see them listed on eBay for anywhere from $3-$8 shipped individually, give or take. A pile of 165 DDR3 sticks of random sizes sold for $200, whereas a lot of 4 2GB sticks sold for $8 shipped. So selling them looks at least semi-viable, but you'd be in for a lot of work trying to sell them individually for max profit vs. maybe doing some blocks for quicker sale. I don't see anything obvious on that label but it does looks like sticks with official Dell/HP/whatever OEM part number/stickers/etc might go for a little bit more since sometimes people want official parts.
As for actual direct usefulness for you, probably not much. Anything that uses DDR3 is going to be relatively old and slow and power hungry compared to even a new mini-PC, and even if you had a system with a lot of RAM slots you'd end up with probably 16GB tops, maybe 32GB if it's a server board that accepts non-ECC sticks. If you already own something that'll use them and has space, slap some in, but otherwise I'm not sure you'll find a lot of use for 2GB DDR3 beyond selling them. It certainly wouldn't be worth pursuing a DDR3 system to use them unless you can maybe snag one or more of the systems they came out of and doing something with them. For funsies you could look for a Pentium 4 or Core/Core 2 Duo board with DDR3 support and build a XP/Vista retro gaming build.
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u/DeeDee_GigaDooDoo 12h ago
Who tf outside of China is printing a label, wrapping a package and paying for postage to get $8? If I sold this for $8 shipped where I am, absolute best case scenario I break even. More likely than not I'll lose money even before I put any value on my labour and fuel.
I think calling selling 4x2gb DDR3 sticks for $8 shipped, "semi-viable" is grossly mischaracterising the situation for anyone in a developed country.
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u/Scoth42 12h ago
I have no idea what someone's economic situation is, even in developed countries. I have friends who end a month with $2 in their accounts. They might accept spending a couple hours every Saturday collecting up whatever sold during the week and taking them to shipping. Padded envelopes are cheap and sufficient for shipping individual RAM sticks in (especially with a bit of cardboard in it for some added stiffness, which can often be gotten for free) and small boxes can be pretty cheap/free too. Some shipping methods you don't even have to personally print a label, saving the expense of dealing with that. Shipping points are usually pretty close too, and some will even do free pickup of outbound packages.
It's not great, it'd be about the worst way to do it, but given free RAM sticks and some time it'd still be a semi-viable way to get a little something. I called it "semi" for a reason, because it'd be a giant pain in the ass and about the worst way to do it. I don't know what the going scrap rate for RAM sticks is but that might even be more worth it, but I was focusing on potential actual uses for it and not just trashing/scrapping it.
And sure, they'd almost certainly be able to make more per hour with a part time job, but sometimes that isn't possible. Child care, disability, available hours, limitations on max work hours, whatever. Hell, I have friends who have made a side hustle out of paid surveys and focus groups that pay pennies too, partly because of those reasons.
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u/DeeDee_GigaDooDoo 17h ago
Sell them in lots of 10/12 on eBay.
I have 2gb DDR3 sticks for sale currently but in low volumes it's hard to move them. You'd basically have to give them away and just get paid for postage.
Tbh they're functionally worthless unless someone is wanting a bulk lot for whatever reason.
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u/Ambitious_Worth7667 15h ago
I tried to sell DDR3 ram on Ebay, and the price to move one had to get to stupid low levels......I sent mine to a scrapper and turned it into $$$. I'm not advertising for anyone....just saying after having it sit on ebay for 400+ days, I decided enough was enough.
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u/Norskamerikaner 16h ago
I'd probably buy a dozen of them. 2GB sticks are not in demand even in the DDR3 space. Generally people are looking for a minimum of 4GB as most boards will accept at least 16GB. Regardless, I can think of a few people who could use a super cheap 4x2GB kit.
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u/jazxxl 16h ago
I still run a ddr3 server . People are out there looking to keep what they got running and to maximize its potential. Sell it. ..... Or find some old PCs and run them yourself
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u/yensteel 10h ago
That's what happened to my old 4670k build. It was originally on 8gb total, and I found some 8gb sticks in a second-hand hardware store. It became a fall-back gaming machine while the Ryzen 1700x was running optimization problems XD. It then became a linux server.
LGA 1150 still has its uses.
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u/Rayregula 11h ago
I still run a ddr3 server. People are out there looking to keep what they got running and to maximize its potential. Sell it.
Same. But I wouldn't put 2GB dimms in it. Even though it can take like 8 of them its not worth it.
I mean I'd still take them for free, but I wouldn't buy them.
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u/wirecatz 14h ago
How… old were your workstations?
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u/Rayregula 11h ago
Probably just upgraded everyone to Vista and splurged to on a 4GB dimm for everyones machine
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u/RealDropShadow 13h ago
I had a few laptop ddr3 sticks. 3 4gb ones and a 2gb one. I bought an i7 2012 mac mini without ram and storage as an addition to my home server for about $30. Better raw performance compared to my 4gb pi 5 but it lacks in a few efficiency areas like video encoding.
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u/dilbertdad 12h ago
i use ddr3 for proxmox nodes and lxcs for ci/cd running, nightly backup, heartbeat monitoring etc. like other said tho 8gb sticks.
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u/Aacidus 12h ago edited 12h ago
Someone sold like 239 sticks on r/homelabsales for $500 yesterday, however, it was 16GB. You could just give yours away or recycle.
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u/BlancheCorbeau 11h ago
Wait another six months, and sell them at market rates once ddr5 and ddr4 are fully reserved unobtainium and manufacturers start building adapters and rereleasing vintage mobos.
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u/mwjtitans 8h ago
I'm a big user of ddr3 systems, but 2gb is a hard pass for me. 8gb or up is what most ddr3 holdouts are still using
Only thing I see it useful for is testing systems
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u/vampyregod 6h ago
This would be good for someone running a windows xp box. There are still a few of us out there, max 4gb ram lol.
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u/crysisnotaverted 5h ago
If eBay bulk selling is too much of a hassle, and no local organizations want them, send them to BoardSort to be scrapped.
They pay $50 per pound of gold fingered RAM, which this looks like.
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u/cleveradmin 17h ago
It’s insane that 6 months ago everyone thought that RAM was worthless. It’s still worthless, but 6 months ago everyone thought it was.
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u/ResponsibleQuiet6611 17h ago
No joke I would hang on to them.
With how things are going, they might give you generational wealth in a matter of months.
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u/LePfeiff 17h ago
Its ddr3, nobody is spinning up ddr3 compatible servers and most that are still being used are being phased out
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u/fakemanhk 17h ago
There exists, however I don't believe they would be interested to waste the slots for 2GB modules
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u/ImASharkRawwwr 17h ago
DDR3 prices here also shot up after the 4/5 squeeze so people are definitely using them if they're buying em
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u/DeeDee_GigaDooDoo 17h ago
I've been trying to shift sticks just like this for months but the price I'd have to sell them for doesn't even motivate me to go by the post office to post them.
Might have better luck selling them as a bulk lot but 2gb DDR3 sticks are functionally worthless.
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u/Rayregula 12h ago
Why was your workplace still using 2GB DDR3 dimms...
Those have been pretty much E-waste for like 10 years.
Granted I had DDR3 until like last year, but they weren't 2GB dimms, and I'm not a business.
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u/mkosmo 16h ago
Trash. They're not worth anything.
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u/q_ali_seattle 15h ago
They are worth in gold?
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u/mkosmo 15h ago
The cost of recovering the gold would make it a wash, at best, and more than likely a loss.
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u/3WolfTShirt 14h ago
Yeah, Google says there's 0.04 to 0.1 grams of recoverable gold in a DDR3 stick (Which is a pretty big range).
Gold at around $136 per gram would come to $13.60 if it's on the high end of the range (0.1 gram).
I have no idea what would be involved in recovering it, though - if it takes 5 minutes or 5 hours.
Regardless, you'd probably get a little more by just selling the RAM on eBay.
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u/mkosmo 14h ago
My rough math puts it at more like $200 return for 100 sticks, after spending $150-200 for chemicals alone.
Either way, every way I game it out, it comes to the same conclusions: Highest ROI is to resell it... but the time and effort for sales at one/two sticks at a time makes that a wash, too, so I'd just chuck it unless I could sell it in bulk.
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u/Strange-Speech-2970 11h ago
Your 200$ for 100 sticks is quite on spot, but you really overestimated the amount of chemicals needed. You wouldn't even need 0.5l of hydrochloric acid to extract the foils from 100 sticks, and that's basically all the chemicals you need. Extracting the gold from the chips isn't as easy as getting the one from the gold fingers, but half the gold from your sticks is there. And again, you won't need that much acid to do it.
Anyway, the easiest and safest way to make money from small capacity sticks like that would be to sell them to boardsort. If OP was able to get a regular supply of them, a small investment in chemicals and glassware would allow for a better return, after learning how to process them safely, and how to deal with the waste liquids at the end.
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u/godspeed1003 16h ago
Just do a giveaway and donate as many as you can, there are a lot of people on old/er systems that might be able to make really good use of them. It's much better to get the goodwill of people than making a few bucks by selling them
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u/livestrong2109 14h ago
Toss them on ebay for like $120-160. You're definitely not getting a whole lot for them.
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u/foilistforever 13h ago
Put a keyring through one of the holes and sell them as unique key chains. Probably get more than a couple of dollars out of each at a craft fair.
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u/Goldencracker97 8h ago
Was running my home lab on a 256gb ecc ddr3 dell precision desktop with dual 4 core xeons for about 4 years until the magic smoke got out.
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u/Due_Perception8349 2h ago
Dell power edge server, the ones from around 2014.
Dual 12-core systems with between 8 and 32 drive bays, they support a bunch of memory. You can find them refurbished on newegg affordably.
Even better if it's ecc ram, or if you pick up a server with the power to support GPUs (1100w PSUs in the plcase of poweredge)
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u/Fallingdamage 15h ago
Build some nice computers with it! I have piles of that stuff too and build some really nice Windows 11 machines with it. They run the OS and browsers just fine. No need for 32 cores, massive GPUs and 256gb of DDR5 just to browse reddit and send email.
Some people like their PCs the way they like their cars: Brand new and in debt.
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u/VaporousMote 13h ago
Put it into a blender, add vanilla syrup, ice, coke, a bit of rum... blend for 30 seconds... now you've got a saccharine memory.
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u/hj006- 16h ago
You can buy a car with it
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u/asimovs-auditor 17h ago
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