Server buy question

So I've been going to this one repair shop for months and have never caught up with the owner or gotten him to call me . Today I ran into him as he was going out for a beer. I had heard that he had a basement full of computer junk, so I was anxious to connect with him and get some kind of business relationship going.

Anyhoo, bought four Compaq proreliant servers from him today. They are from the mid to late nineties. I paid $30.00 with the possibility of purchasing more stuff down the road. ( He wants to teach his daughter responsibility so he's giving her the first chance to recycle his stash - if she loses interest in it then it will be back on the market.)

He had wanted fifty bucks but I told him I was only going to junk them, not try to test any of the parts and he came down to thirty.

Will I come out ahead? Even if I don't, I think it may have been worth it to finally get a foot in the door. Thanks in advance for opinions.

If they are complete servers, you'll probably come out ahead at Scrap prices. Resell some of the parts and you might come out even farther ahead..if there is a market for that type of thing.

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Originally Posted by thortek

If they are complete servers, you'll probably come out ahead at Scrap prices. Resell some of the parts and you might come out even farther ahead..if there is a market for that type of thing.

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Don't know yet if they are all complete - they've all been opened and are missing one panel. But they are all very, very heavy. The kid that works at the store helped me haul them up the stairs and out to the car ( he did almost all the work actually) . I'm guessing they weigh 45 to 50 pounds a piece. Still learning about what is in stuff.

Thanks for your reply, Thortek.

at $7.50 each you should do well. Even if they have been stripped of RAM and CPUs the motherboards + steel alone will put you ahead of the game.

Best of luck in landing more material from this guy, sounds to me like it could be very lucrative.

Yeah I hope you didnt pay $30 each for them. If you did pay $30 for all 4 you will do real well.

I just got done scrapping one of them Compaq's and mine had 6 - 18.2 gig HD's and two large plug in power supplies (with gold fingers) and a few extra cards where all the HD's and power supplies plug in. The cradles for the slide out HD's are extruded alum. and the whole front was alum. Was definitely worth it even at twice the price.

@ PTS - It was $30 for all four. Thanks for your reply.

Thanks Mechanic. These suckers are heavy! I'm working my way through them - they don't all have RAM - so far I have 3/4 lb. of it though. Are the vertical boards (accessory boards?) the same as PCI etc. cards? Or would they be motherboard grade? Still not sure what I am doing with this stuff.

gotta come out ahead. want take long to rip, and always look to resale workable parts. That will put you way ahead.

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Originally Posted by Scrapette

Thanks Mechanic. These suckers are heavy! I'm working my way through them - they don't all have RAM - so far I have 3/4 lb. of it though. Are the vertical boards (accessory boards?) the same as PCI etc. cards? Or would they be motherboard grade? Still not sure what I am doing with this stuff.

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I'll let my buyer grade mine but I think they could go as cards or peripheral boards. Most likely cards.

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Originally Posted by Scrapette

Thanks Mechanic. These suckers are heavy! I'm working my way through them - they don't all have RAM - so far I have 3/4 lb. of it though. Are the vertical boards (accessory boards?) the same as PCI etc. cards? Or would they be motherboard grade? Still not sure what I am doing with this stuff.

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pictures might help, they could also be old ISA full length cards, or a backplane of some sort

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

I just got done scrapping one of them Compaq's and mine had 6 - 18.2 gig HD's and two large plug in power supplies (with gold fingers) and a few extra cards where all the HD's and power supplies plug in. The cradles for the slide out HD's are extruded alum. and the whole front was alum. Was definitely worth it even at twice the price.

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were the HDDs SCSI? there may still be a market for those ones on ebay

i'd check with those scsi adapter cards too

Mine were all identical 18.2 gig Compaq HD's, the ide style. But they all plugged into a card on the back instead of ribbon cable connecting them.

Sorry no pics . They weren't complete but there was around twenty bucks worth of metal and a around a pound or ram- so that paid for the servers. Still got a lot of different sized boards, several hard drives, some slot processors, ribbons, power supplies, cd drives etc - so should make a buck or two.

Don't know if any of it works and no way to test it .

Is server board worth any more than high grade to any of the buyers?

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Originally Posted by Scrapette

Don't know if any of it works and no way to test it .

Is server board worth any more than high grade to any of the buyers?

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Just plugging it in and turning it on can tell you a lot, if it goes through the startup and tries to boot it's likely working

I think most buyers pay a premium price for server/dual processor boards

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

Mine were all identical 18.2 gig Compaq HD's, the ide style. But they all plugged into a card on the back instead of ribbon cable connecting them.

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IDE plugged into a card on the back? are you certain it wasn't SCSI? IDE has 40 pins, a common (earlier) SCSI has 50 (if you count one row and have either 20, or 25, pins you'll know if both rows would = 40 or 50

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Originally Posted by Bear

Just plugging it in and turning it on can tell you a lot, if it goes through the startup and tries to boot it's likely working

I think most buyers pay a premium price for server/dual processor boards

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These were incomplete and didn't have their cords . Thanks for board answer.

just shipped the parts from 9 sun servers 440/880. total weight 48 lb of ram/dimm and mother boards. 2 lb pinless cpu. each server had 3+ lb mother board, and 3+lb ram