About four years ago I enthusiastically built a new desktop PC. It was the best thing ever – silver Thermaltake Xaser III case with flashing flames and a clear acylic panel to ogle the jet engine processor fan, UV light and array of glowing connectors. The brand new AMD Athlon 64 3200+ seemed to destroy most jobs thrown at it in XP and Linux – so much so that I christened the box “Terminator”. The sense of achievement I felt from building this hulking beast far outweighed the true benefits and the novelty soon wore off.

First off, I made the big mistake of placing Terminator in my bedroom. The flashing flames, jet engine and UV gizmos had to go and the machine was moved into the spare bedroom. It sat there unloved for the past couple of years whilst a Vaio AR-Series laptop remained my main computer. Since I no longer have much interest in playing games, the system was mostly served as a power hungry file and print server, cable farm and dust trap.

I recently decided that something had to be done about this mess. Given we are now living is a world of affordable multi-cores and RAM on tap, I didn’t fancy the chances of getting a good price and hassle-free experience on ebay. The effort required to strip down the components to auction them separately also didn’t seem worthwhile.

Thankfully I found a solution that should finally put Terminator to good use! There is an charity called Computer Aid International that take unwanted computers off the hands of businesses and individuals and refurbish them for health, education and not-for-profit organisations in developing countries. Aside from the obvious benefits to the recipient, I also get more leg room and a lower energy bill. Also the environment doesn’t have to cope with another junkyard computer.

If you have any old computers gathering dust at home or in the office, then why not donate them to good cause. Computer Aid are a UK-based charity, however I expect there are similar charities worldwide. If you know of any then please comment below.