Would you still sell a used laptop with XP ?

[NYJimbo]

I've been doing some recycling for a while, mostly stripping machines for parts and occasionally Frankensteining a laptop I can sell. So far most of the machines I rebuild for sale have run at least Vista, but today this guy I know found out his company has 20 old Compaq Presario M2000's laying around in a crate, preloaded with XP. Nobody knew what to do with them, so they GAVE THEM to me.

While these things are old they are pristine and I would love to unload them in the shop but am not sure if I should sell them with XP or try to install some friendly Linux. This unit has a max ram of 1gb so I don't think anything but XP or a Linux is going to have acceptable performance.

Are any of you still selling used computers with XP (towers or laptops) or do you go Linux or something else ?

 

[Markverhyden]

Personally I would not touch them. When I was at CompUSA they were one of the "lemon" models we had to deal with.

But if you are stuck with them I would keep XP on them. No doubt there will be others who will be very happy to have a working XP machine.

 

[NYJimbo]

Personally I would not touch them. When I was at CompUSA they were one of the "lemon" models we had to deal with.

But if you are stuck with them I would keep XP on them. No doubt there will be others who will be very happy to have a working XP machine.

Well I have worked on this model in the past but only for DC jacks or failed HD's, nothing like mobo failures, they are tanks. Maybe I will stress a few of them this weekend and look for hiccups.

 

[JustInspired]

One thing I'd mention here is that probably 50% of my residential customers who have XP seem to have no intention of changing to anything else despite my warnings and explanations. Oh well.

I guess if you gave them away or sold them, making sure the new owners were happy to accept full responsibility and that you were in no way responsible or able to support them?

 

[14049752]

I usually don't sell stuff like that through the business, but I would have no qualms about selling it in general. I usually list used computers on facebook or craigslist, "tested but as-is". They are usually all sold within the day.

 

[NYJimbo]

One thing I'd mention here is that probably 50% of my residential customers who have XP seem to have no intention of changing to anything else despite my warnings and explanations. Oh well.

Same here. A guy brought in an old Dell OptiPlex the other day and said he would like it back to factory and I told him it had XP and that is going to have no support, blah, blah, blah and he said "Well, my other machines have XP so I guess that's ok". He told me to just do the O/S reload, add extras like iTunes, adobe reader, etc, and that's it.

For some reason because his other machines have XP he thinks this one will ALSO be ok after April 8th because they have XP.

Whatever, he's picking it up on Monday....

 

[smashedbotatos]

If I sold them, I would do a short 30 or 60 day warranty. Linux won't appeal to most residential customers, but then again if the price it right they may not care.

 

[gunslinger]

If they are strong enough to run Linux Mint thats the direction I'd go but I would not offer a warranty. Maybe 30 day support until they learn their way around the OS.

 

[NYJimbo]

Do any Linux's have a "reload" type option ? What I mean is if Joe SixPack is running Linux and happy with the O/S but feels the current install is starting to f-ck up is there any Linux that makes a recovery partition or "recovery disk" so the guy can just press a few buttons and go back to "factory" or some snapshot ?

 

[Markverhyden]

Do any Linux's have a "reload" type option ? What I mean is if Joe SixPack is running Linux and happy with the O/S but feels the current install is starting to f-ck up is there any Linux that makes a recovery partition or "recovery disk" so the guy can just press a few buttons and go back to "factory" or some snapshot ?

If you are thinking ala HP, etc recovery partition, not exactly the same. You can build two partitions no problem. But the thing that happens with the likes of HP is that you can pick, via BIOS, to boot to recovery partition. In Linux you would have to use GRUB to make that choice. Personally I've never tried that. Might be an interesting exercise.

 

[Moltuae]

Why not keep them and offer them as a free loan computer to any customer who just need something basic to use while their computer is in for repair.


I'd install a simple and lightweight Windows-esque Linux distro ... perhaps Mint or Zorin.

And I'd keep an image of the fresh install and restore the laptop back each time it returns.

 

[NYJimbo]

Why not keep them and offer them as a free loan computer to any customer who just need something basic to use while their computer is in for repair.

I can see that for 2 or 3 machines, but I got 20 here. I don't know how many loaners other shops need but I cant remember ever needing more than 2 or 3 at any time.

 

[altrenda]

Unless you think you can get more for them with Linux, why spend the time on them? Linux may make them take longer to sell.
I would sell them as is, after testing to make sure they work.
I would actually be more concerned about the condition of the battery than worrying about XP.

 

[seedubya]

I'd privately sell these at around €100 apiece with a 7 day DOA warranty. I wouldn't involve my business at all. Put the money in your pocket when you're done. Nice tax-free income

 

[Moltuae]

I can see that for 2 or 3 machines, but I got 20 here.

Yeah, that is a lot of loan machines, gotta admit! lol

But ... there's bound to be a few bad ones. I suspect by the time you've checked them all out and swapped parts around that number will drop.

Then there's the 'loans in' and 'loans out': You're not going to want to re-loan one that has only just come back in without checking it and perhaps giving a quick clean and charge. So if you've got 3 out on loan, you should probably have 3 more ready to go.

So that's 6 of them accounted for and, after subtracting any bad ones you find when you initially check them all out, that probably only leaves another 6 or so. Just stick those in a box ready to serve as donor/replacements for the ones that come back broken. They're only laptops; it's not like they'll take up a lot of space.




Failing that, put Linux on 'em all. Get a big table and 20 chairs and start offering Linux classes.




Beyond that, I'm out of ideas ..... 'cept for dumping them or giving them away.

 

[SpaceSquad]

As another mentioned here - unload them on Craigslist. Sell them cheap either as-is or with a short hardware only warranty.

I don't think you want your business name on those old clunkers, even as loaner machines. It would be better to sell all of them and buy one or two decent machines to loan out. People buy what's cheapest and will blame your business if the thing conks out.

 

[trevm999]

Install chromium OS and sell as chromebook, or install android and sell as a tablet with 'non-touchscreen' and free keyboard case.

Just sell them cheap with XP. Either someone will buy to put their on Linux OS or someone will buy for a cheap laptop for their 8 year old and then trash it when it gets slow and infected with malware.

 

[glricht]

I've got about a 6-7 XP laptops in my refurb-for-sale list. Thought about doing a 50-60% off "as-is" sale just to get rid of them, but decided I didn't want the potential liability of supporting them ("I don't care if I did buy it as-is, it's not working").

There are some churches around here that are always looking for PC donations for their children's ministries. So I'm donating the PCs to them. They get free PCs, I get a tax write-off and a lot of good will. Win-win situation all around.

 

[codegreen]

I wouldn't sell an XP machine locally through my business, primarily because it would undermine my efforts to get my clients off of XP. However, I would have no problem eBaying them, preferably as a lot.

 

[Rocco]

I have a few customers who want me to keep my eyes open for cheap laptops with wifi for their kids. They are perfectly happy with XP. The last 2 I sold were for $75, 30 day warranty on parts. I would be careful about who I sell them to though. If it is anybody who would need computer security, (ie using credit cards) I wouldn't.