Safely Buying Used Hardware - pre-owned == pre-pwned?

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Used motherboards are generally a safe bet, just make sure you read the description and buy from a reputable seller, and never buy from sellers who don't accept returns.

Video cards are a bit more challenging. You can definitely save money by buying used. I'm pretty sure I bought my RTX 3050 used? It works just fine. Just again make sure you buy from reputable sellers with good return policies. Refurbished cards might be safer.

RAM is pretty safe, I would have bought my ram used, but I didn't find any. CPUs, too, I don't shy away from used CPUs. I would have bought my CPU used, but I didn't find any used 7700x's for my planned upgrade.
 
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The Repeated Meme said:
Used motherboards are generally a safe bet, just make sure you read the description and buy from a reputable seller, and never buy from sellers who don't accept returns.
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Agree.
The Repeated Meme said:
RAM is pretty safe, I would have bought my ram used, but I didn't find any.
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Somewhat agree. See below.
The Repeated Meme said:
CPUs, too, I don't shy away from used CPUs.
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Generally agree. People (manbabies who collect funkopops and watch LTT) do very stupid shit to their CPUs and GPUs.
If that squeaky fuck says you can overclock it, they overclock it. They overclock it using a cooler from 2008 that's full of Marlboro ashes and MLP plushy stuffing.
 
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I would get some used biz HDDs but I just know, I JUST KNOW the ones I get are gonna crash in a month, with all my shit in it

GPUs, if it was a miner I heard those capacitors (dont remember the name) tend to be fucked from mining some faggotcoin 24/7, also dirty because cryptoniggers never clean the fans, and if it was from a gamer then the entire card its fucked from all the stress and OC to get 5 more frames on valorant or some other shit game
 
Cool Dog Returns said:
on reddit
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That's your first problem.

But really, if there's anything that has an observable, finite, event-based lifespan, it's storage.
If the seller knows what they're doing, they're going to wipe. If you're a schizo like me, you're going to wipe.
Wiping all over the place. It's like Andy Ditch's house up in here and it's bad business for the longevity of the already-used drive.
 
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I got used storage too, it's fine. That said, you of course have to make backups with redundancy. Then it shouldn't matter if something fails. Maybe also don't make that redundancy just a bunch of identical harddrives, maybe even from the same batch. The savings make it worth it even if it lives somewhat less. I didn't have storage die in ages, to be honest, and especially never without any sort of warning. In the 90s, my harddrives (factory new) died or started dying about after three years of normal use on average. Often completely without warning. A weird sound and bam it was gone. It is hard to overstate how much more qualitative this stuff is nowadays.
 
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AmpleApricots said:
I got used storage too, it's fine. That said, you of course have to make backups with redundancy. Then it shouldn't matter if something fails. Maybe also don't make that redundancy just a bunch of identical harddrives, maybe even from the same batch. The savings make it worth it even if it lives somewhat less. I didn't have storage die in ages, to be honest, and especially never without any sort of warning. In the 90s, my harddrives (factory new) died or started dying about after three years of normal use on average. It is hard to overstate how much more qualitative this stuff is nowadays.
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Not my bag for a :waifu: "production" :waifu: server, but maybe I'll give it a whirl when I grow some balls.
 
Squishie PP said:
If you regularly buy used hardware and are worried about security, it may be a good investment to buy an external BIOS flasher like this one: https://www.amazon.com/AiTrip-EEPROM-Programmer-CH341A-Adapter/dp/B07VNVVXW6

Doing so will allow you to overwrite any potentially corrupted firmware on your devices without even needing to boot them.
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This is more in the vein I'm curious about.

Was hoping to buy from a reseller who uses this shit so I don't have to. Granted it's cheap.
 
Sultan Bin Jewstar said:
This is more in the vein I'm curious about.

Was hoping to buy from a reseller who uses this shit so I don't have to. Granted it's cheap.
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If you do it yourself, you don't have to trust the reseller either!
Its pretty easy to use; all you have to do is use the clamp provided to connect the flasher to the BIOS chip on your motherboard/GPU/whatever, and use a flashing utility to read/write the firmware.
The flashing utility I have used in the past is flashrom, since it works on Linux: https://www.flashrom.org/
If you use another OS, there may be better utilities.
 
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Sultan Bin Jewstar said:
People (manbabies who collect funkopops and watch LTT) do very stupid shit to their CPUs and GPUs.
If that squeaky fuck says you can overclock it, they overclock it. They overclock it using a cooler from 2008 that's full of Marlboro ashes and MLP plushy stuffing.
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Like possibly installing malware on the CPU itself..
 
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I bought a used RX480 back in early 2021 from eBay for around $100 and still rock it. No idea if it was used for crypto mining but I couldn't care less, it's been reliable (besides the one time modeling bricked my computer).

I'm of the opinion that buying used parts is perfectly fine if you do it through eBay, along with your due diligence to make sure the vendor isn't a pajeet with 0 reviews. I won't go as far to say buy everything used, as I'd stay away from PSUs and old SSDs/HDDs. Newer GPUs, used or not, seem to have more manufacturing defects considering all of For Parts listings I see. Though with new, you would have the warranty.

Concerning laptops, if it's one of those cheap ones sold by HP or OEMs with MSRP of or below $500, stay far away as they tend to slow down or implode after a year or two. No amount of formatting those drives will save them.
 
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Two Hands said:
buying used parts is perfectly fine if you do it through eBay, along with your due diligence to make sure the vendor isn't a pajeet with 0 reviews.
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I didn't want it to be, but I think this is the answer to my question. If the shit works, it works.
 
I've bought nearly all of my server hardware from eBay. I've sourced everything from RAM to Motherboards to SAS Drives to CPUs and even Server Chassises. It really depends on your choice of seller, and the warranty they offer.

I picked up a dl360 g7 and a single RAM stick failed. The seller advance RMAed an entire replacement set of memory for the server. Legit free ram if I didn't send the old stuff back. Sure the Raid card exploded later on the server, but they were known for doing that.
Used SAS Drives had a 1/4 failure rate, but they sell for half to a third of the price.

I have never had a problem with CPUs off of eBay, as long as they are not pin CPUs.

Motherboards are okay as well. I've bought 2 enterprise motherboards and it took a water heater exploding on it to kill the first one. Second one is okay, but the VGA port arrived fucked. I also grabbed a used consumer motherboard of a reliable model from ASRock and it's doing good as an ML server. When you buy used hardware off of ebay. You should never just type in Skylake motherboard and buy the cheapest. I pulled a Z170 ASRock extreme4 out of a used parts bin ten years ago as my first serious build, and it's running Baldurs gate today. I only buy used consumer shit I know is rock solid and you should too.

Used Supermicro is apex for chassises and enterprise performance motherboards. Accept no substitutes. Spending more initially is cheaper in the long run. Only buy with a 30 or 90 day warranty.

Memory is another story. I've had to return memory a couple of times, but I only buy from a specific company who provide advance RMA on their memory.

GPUs are a cool section of the used ebay ecosystem or at least they were before LLMs came out. 24GB Enterprise inference cards could be had for as low as $120 back last February.

They also pose the biggest risk/reward dynamic when it comes to savings. You can significantly mitigate this risk by doing research.

Most consumer GPUs are garbage, or have critical flaws which the manufacturer knows about, but the manufacturer hopes doesn't impact performance during the warranty period enough to justify an RMA. Some flaws can be fixed. Others cannot. A cursersery amount of research on a model should reveal if it should be avoided. For example EVGA FTW 3090s disintegrate often, and are notorious for doing so. The same goes for the MSI armor series. Those flaws can't be fixed.

A shitty thermal pad/paste on certain OEM 3060s can be fixed and eBay is pretty much the only place to find them. Specifically for how slim and short they are.

Ebay isn't a scam as far as second hand hardware goes. You just don't get your hand held like if you buy new from a big retailer or Amazon. You have to be smart on who you buy from and research what you are buying. Never buy from China.

Edit:I've dealt with only two issues with the 4 GPUs I bought on eBay. The first was a Tesla where I didn't know I needed a fan shroud which made it too long. The second was due to Nigger rigging. Another thing I forgot to touch on. Basically you should always be looking for subtle issues on the board. In my case, the fan header broke off a GPU, and the seller didn't solder it flush to the board while repairing it. The header broke off when I shipped it to resell. Much to my wallet and the buyers chagrin. Once again an easy fix if you know an experienced soldering guy(I do), and you notice it(I didn't).
 
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