How to Make Money Buying & Selling Computers on Craigslist

Here are some of my tips on making money buying and selling computers on Craigslist and also on eBay. First of all there is no easy get rich quick scheme, it takes a lot of work and some time. You should know a little something about computers as well but it was stuff that I easily learned by searching Google.

1. First things first start searching Craigslist for cheap computers and parts. Primarily search for people that are getting rid of their parts collections.
2. Put ads in the wanted section for computer parts.
3. Put an ad in the barter section for computers as well. I would make sure I had a list of things to barter.
4. When buying computer parts especially older parts don't pay more than a $1 per part unless there are some know good parts like fast cpu's or big memory sticks. My rule of thumb is not to pay more than what stuff goes for on eBay or Pricewatch.com. There were many times that I was able to buy large lots of parts for about $50. 
5. Now that you have lots of parts separate your parts. This is important becasue some parts are worth more individually on eBay than they are on a computer system.
6. If an item is bad don't trash it. There are usually local computer recyclers that will pay you per pound for your computer scrap. When gold was up I got as much as $4.50 a pound for motherboards. One MB weighs about 1.5 pounds so do the math. Even bad memory and video cards get you about $2.00 a pound depending on gold prices.
7. Some items are worth more in scrap value like older ceramic CPU's and anything coated in a lot of gold like old Pentium Pro CPU's. I sold fours of those old CPU's on eBay for $175.00, four gold coated processors!
8. I would only build computer systems with motherboards that have a 533mhz bus speed or faster. On occasion I would build a 400mhz system but only if it had a fast processor and lots of memory.
9. When I got a good system, I would install one of the many Linux operating system on it for free. There is no sense in installing older Windows operating system illegally. My Linux operating system of choice is Linux Mint.
10. I would sell most systems for around $50 to $100 depending on how many goodies it had and how big the hard drive was.
11. Always keep your scrap metals as well. I went to the scrap yard every few months and got around $50 for the old computer cases and aluminum parts I would separate out myself.
12. When I was done selling computers I made good money and learned a lot about building desktop computers.

Ubuntu Studio 11.04

I just recently downloaded and installed Ubuntu Studio 11.04 and I am really impressed in the software and how well the operating system runs. I think it runs very fast on my Pentium 4 machines. I have some learning to do on all the the free creative software that is available for it. Here are some pictures of the new build.

3.0ghz HT with Ubuntu Studio

3.0ghz HT, new MSI mobo and Ubuntu Studio

Ubuntu Studio 11.04 Screen Shot

Computer Build of the Month, Jan 2012

I just recently completed a pc build that I through together from a bunch of good extra parts I had and I am thoroughly impressed with the results. It isn't the fastest machine I have ever built but it very nice and stable. Here is what is in my build:

• AMD Sempron 140, 2.7GHz AM3 CPU
• 2 GB of DDR2 800mhz
• MSI Motherboard #K9N6P6M2
• 120 GB Hard Drive
• Radeon 5450 HD Graphics Card, 512MB
• Linux Mint operating system
• Passmark CPU Rating: 764
• Blowfish CPU Test: 13.35 seconds

 This system is stable, fast and consumes a lot less power than your standard 65 - 95 watt cpu. The Sempron 140 is rated at 45 watts which is preferred for green energy applications. This CPU is also a great candidate for overclocking and unlocking one of its cores. My current MSI motherboard will not support core unlocking for this processor.

Pentium 4 HT - Hyper Threading CPU

I stand corrected on one of my previous posts about buying and using Pentium 4 processors. I so far have tested two different P4 HT computers and I was blown away by their performance. I have heard that when you review the processors on P4 HT machines that two cpu's show up and that is absolutely right. Those processors do more than just show up as two cpu's they perform like it too!

I install Linux Mint 11 on the computers I currently build and I use the system profiler to check system components and run the CPU Blowfish benchmark test. These cpu's perform like a dual core system. Here are some of my results:

• Intel Duo Core E2140 runs the Blowfish test at 10.75 seconds.
• Intel Pentium 4, HT 3.2GHz run the Blowfish test at 11.45 seconds.
• Intel Pentium 4, HT 3.0GHz run the Blowfish test at 11.66 seconds.

As you can see the P4 HT's perform almost as fast as the early Duo Core processors. So my recommendation is not to get rid of your HT's yet, they should provide lots of years of good service still.