Selling Advice: Old Computer

[jdcfsu]

I'm looking to sell my old, custom built PC on eBay or Craig's List but I need some advice on which way to go. Should I sell the parts individually (CPU & motherboard, RAM, case, video card) or should I sell it as a total package? It's a 2.0 GHZ Athlon XP with 1 GB RAM. I've never sold a used computer before and would like some tips from those who have. Thanks guys.

[Luca]

It'll be a lot easier to sell it if you split it up, because few people have a use for older computers, but there are a lot of people out there who may need one part or another to fix an almost-working computer they have. On the other hand, it'll be a lot harder to sell some parts than others, and you may end up with leftovers.

It might be a good idea to try out the buy/sell forums at some PC enthusiast websites, such as AnandTech.com, ArsTechnica.com, and HardOCP.com. Those are three of the most popular computer enthusiast sites on the Internet. If you want to part out your computer, I'm sure you'll find plenty of potential buyers there, and they are, for the most part, significantly more honest than the people on eBay and Craig's List.

[spikeh]

You'll end up with a lot of spare parts, I reckon. The Athlon XP wouldn't be too bad inside a Media Center PC so you might consider investing a little money in it and selling it on as an entertainment center.

[adamb]

I would agree that you will probably get more for the parts you do sell than if you were to try and sell it all together. I only managed to get £150 for similar specced machine about 2-3 years ago on eBay, whereas the RAM om its own would go a good deal toward reaching that kind of figure. I don't think it would be worth putting any more money into it.