Guy at the recycling center nearly had a heart attack when I dropped off my old Dell case

I was unloading some boxes at the county dump last Saturday and this older fella sees me carrying out this beat up Optiplex tower. He starts yelling "Wait wait wait that case has good aluminum in it!" I just smiled and told him it's actually hiding a Ryzen 7600 and a 4070 inside. He didn't believe me so I popped the side panel off and his jaw just dropped. We ended up talking for like 20 minutes about old business PC cases being the best sleeper candidates. Anyone else run into people who think you're crazy for keeping old e-waste looking boxes?

3 comments

3 Comments

verab282mo ago

A buddy of mine built one last year and I thought he was nuts till I saw the final look.

olivia_chen352mo ago

Ha, "thought he was nuts" - pretty sure that's the standard reaction for anyone who hasn't tried it yet. My neighbor was the same way, I remember texting him like "dude what are you even doing" and then he sent me a picture and I had to eat my words. It's funny how something that sounds so basic on paper can actually look really polished once it's done right. I guess we all just have to be proven wrong sometimes, your mileage may vary but I've been wrong about a lot of home projects myself.

taylor9292mo ago

Right? I was pretty skeptical too until I actually saw how clean they look on a finished wall. It really changed my mind once I got to see the end result in person. Now I'm actually planning to try one myself next month.