[bitwize]

I once scavenged an HP workstation from behind a dumpster. It was just sitting there in the rain. I brought it in, dried it off, and checked the innards for rust or damage. All looked nearly brand new, so I let it dry out for a couple of days, and powered it on -- it worked. Put a hard disk in and it was ready to go. It's a fairly powerful machine, with four cores and 12 GiB of RAM, a real powerhouse for 2012 when it was new. Probably chewed through many a spreadsheet back in the day. Now I'm making it into a build server.

[tombert]

That's awesome. I think my wife would punch me if I got into the habit of dumpster diving, but there have been multiple times where I've seen what looks like awesome equipment (monitors, computers, surge protectors, etc.) being thrown away near universities and office buildings, and I always have to resist my hoarding nature to take them.

Four cores and 12gb of RAM would make a pretty solid build server, with enough room left for a Minecraft and video streaming server to boot! Sounds like a pretty awesome find.