On reddit, a man from South Dakota reported that he built a PC. He used 5 parts that he fished out of a dumpster from a PC shop. Only two parts of the PC are not from the dumpster; he had those lying around at home. He says he can play Minecraft and Roblox perfectly fine with the PC. People on reddit are impressed – for sustainability reasons.
This is what the man says: In an interview with Kotaku, the reddit user says he read about “Dumpster Diving”: a trend where people rummage through the dumpsters of a company or apartment block for useful items.
In the summer of 2022, he decided to give it a try and visited the local PC store in his town “in the middle of nowhere” to find things. He doesn’t reveal which town it is – that would ruin his dumpster diving spot.
There was a bit of stuff there. Since then, I keep checking the store’s dumpster. I built the PC from the reddit post mostly with parts I found there over the course of 6 or 7 months.
PC made from “dumpster parts” plays Minecraft and Roblox flawlessly
What kind of PC is this? On reddit, he says:
- The motherboard is from a Dell Optiplex 9010
- The case is from an HP Omen 25L
- It has 16 GB of RAM
- The processor is an i7 3770
- The PC has a 256 GB SSD
- The graphics card is a GTX 570
- The PC has a 750 Watt power supply
Only the power supply and the RAM he bought for another build and were lying around useless at home. He paid about $120 for the two parts.
The other parts are from the dumpster of the PC store. He paid about $120 for those.
PC builder baked temperamental graphics card in the oven
Did he have any problems during assembly? The roughly 10-year-old graphics card was acting up. It sort of worked, but the drivers wouldn’t install correctly.
The reddit user baked the graphics card in the oven, and afterward, it actually worked:
What you essentially do with the oven trick is: you take pretty much everything off the card – once you have the minimum left, the circuit board, you wrap it in aluminum to protect the more fragile parts of the board. Then you preheat the oven to around 200 degrees, slide the board in. It takes about 8 to 12 minutes for a graphics card, I believe.
Store throws away old but still functional hardware
What was the hardest to find? The SSD. He searched for months for such a hard drive but never found one. If there was ever a hard drive in the dumpster, it was already taken apart.
When he found the SSD, he initially thought it was still new, but there were already some data on it. He immediately deleted them to protect the user’s privacy.
The motherboard, on the other hand, he found early on, and it didn’t give him any problems either. The store sometimes simply sorts out old hardware that still works.
Much praise for sustainable approach
What can he do with the PC? He says he mainly plays Minecraft, Roblox, and Scrap Mechanic. The PC is sufficient for that:
I could probably play Crysis. But yes, I don’t play that many games. The only games I really play are Minecraft, Roblox, and Scrap Mechanic. That’s pretty much it, and my PC runs these games quite well.
The builder says that building trash PCs from trash components prevents perfectly functional parts from ending up in the landfill. It’s easy to build a computer for little or no money.
What is the reaction? The Reddit user presented the post in a subreddit about “Dumpster Diving,” where people are also enthusiastic about the performance for sustainability reasons.
One user notes, however, that he is glad the power supply is one of the parts that are not from the dumpster.
Also, “baking the graphics card” seems to be something you should put a “please don’t attempt without adult supervision” sign on.
More from people who build PCs:
User builds really good gaming PC for 270 euros – Can play almost all modern games at 60 FPS
The title image is a stock photo: Photo by Kevin Butz on Unsplash
