Second-hand hardware you shouldn't buy

Many times, we have the right budget and that can be a problem when setting our expectations. There are many of us who buy the loose components and we dare to assemble them one by one. However, buying some second-hand hardware can be a bad decision. We show you what components you do not have to buy or what kind of precautions you have to take.

HDD or SSD with many hours of power on

Unless we pass the hard drive through CrystalDiskInfo, it is almost impossible to check the health status of the hard drive. That said, you will have to talk to the seller about the possibility of installing it and checking the health of the hard drive, or buying it and if we are not satisfied after passing the program, it will return the money.

A priori, we are not interested in hard drives that have more than 40, 000 hours of power on because they are quite burned in that case. Below, we have the SMART data, but I would not know whether or not to trust them because they can be manipulated with flashes or very questionable techniques.

On the other hand, you have to pass CrystalDiskMark to see how the hard drive performs because CrystalDiskInfo serves to give us a rough idea of how the hard drive is. After doing the test, it will show us the read and write speeds of the hard disk. Depending on whether it is an SSD or HDD, they will be higher or lower.

After doing the test, you have to check that the speeds are logical. If they are not… the HDD or SSD may not be in the best condition. Finally, to tell you that I am not a fan of buying second hand hard drives, but the operation does not have to go wrong.

To download the CrystalDisk programs, click here. Say they are completely free.

Overclocked processors

When we go to the second-hand market, it is mandatory to ask three questions:

What heatsink were you using to cool the processor? (if the processor is overclockable, of course) Have you overclocked it? Have you ever changed the thermal paste? What brand have you used?

Regarding the overclocking question, they can easily lie to us saying no. It is practically impossible to know if they have overclocked it, but it can be deduced based on certain " rare " behaviors of the chip.

With the heatsink it is more difficult to cheat because most of us remember, at least, the brand of heatsink we have. If the processor we are negotiating is unlocked and the seller answers us " I don't know what heatsink has " or " the one in stock ", I would not recommend buying it.

It is true that having an unlocked processor is not synonymous with us going to overclock it, but there are many possibilities for the user to do it in order to take advantage of all its performance.

Maintenance

As for the thermal paste, any worthy maintenance involves changing the thermal paste once a year to the processor. If you tell us that you have not, the chip has not been properly maintained. If you say yes, then we ask you what brand, which is an important detail. Perhaps, I have used Chinese thermal paste, something that I strictly forbid you (I have tried it).

I recommend you agree that if you are not satisfied, tell the seller to return the money. If the seller is sure that the processor is great, it will not cause a problem.

Once you have the chip installed in the PC, do stress tests and monitor temperatures. If you see huge temperature jumps of a difference of 10 degrees or more, the processor is not doing very well. On the other hand, if the temperature rises a lot… it may not be in good condition, although it may be due to the weather, your box, the thermal paste or your heatsink.

In short, stress and monitor the processor to know how it goes. This is a complicated hardware to acquire second hand with total security. The best thing you can do is buy it from someone you know and who knows how it has been used.

Graphics card used for mining

GPUs used for mining are exposed to constant stress, reducing their lifespan. So, as you will suppose, there are several questions to ask, especially when we buy a product without guarantee:

Has it been used for mining? Has it been overclocked? Did you buy it from someone or is it real second hand?

Second-hand hardware can cause problems, and if we think it has no guarantees, even worse. In the case of graphics cards used for mining, the most used models for this have been the following:

RX 580 8 GB. RX 590 8 GB. RX 480 8 GB. GTX 1070 and 1070ti. GTX 1080 and 1080ti. RX Vega.

Those are the most common models, although we can find RIGs with different models, such as TITANs, for example. That case is much more complicated, but it can still happen.

If they tell us that it has been used to mine, discard that GPU because it will give you almost 100% problems. If it tells you that it has been overclocked… it may cause problems, but it does not have to be that way, if it was done correctly. Needless to say, it is better that you have not been overclocked.

How to check what works well? As with processors: stress and monitor. In this sense, I recommend, among others, the MSI Kombustor.

Motherboard

Here we are going to refer to various aspects of motherboards that must be taken into account, not only to the ranges themselves. Everything we are going to expose is difficult to check without installing the board in question, but we tell you what you should review.

Overclocking

When we overclock our CPU, we have to raise the voltage, so here the VRM of the board in question comes into play. If the board has been exposed to very strong overvoltage, the service life is greatly reduced, so we would not be interested in such a model.

Low ranges

Low-range motherboards tend to become obsolete sooner, and components typically last much less than high-range motherboards. We say that they become obsolete because they stop releasing BIOS updates for those models rather than with high-end models.

The issue of BIOS updates affects any range because it is an issue related to obsolescence, rather than product quality. In the end, when the platform passes its mainstream life, it is abandoned to support the new ones.

If you find a low-end motherboard at an irresistible price and that it is well maintained, that the platform is not very outdated… it can be a good purchase.

Medium and high ranges

Be careful with these products because they are usually used to overclock, especially high-end ones. Many people access products of this type because they want to overclock, since in the low ranges this option is not unlocked.

Here you have to take a look at the BIOS update support, the VRM they have, the maintenance they have been doing to the board, how everything has been cooled, etc. I advise you to do a lot of research on the model in question because the community can alert us to things that we did not take into account.

Platform

If the platform is very old, we do not recommend buying that motherboard because it will not be worth it. In addition, we are dealing with hardware that in the second-hand market is not very cheap to say. For € 30-40 we can buy very outdated or low-end things, which, in my opinion, is not worth anything.

When buying second-hand hardware, the performance-price-future variable must be taken into account. You don't have to buy very obsolete things.

RAM

Basically, to say that it is not worth buying DDR3 or earlier RAM because its performance is much lower than the current one and requires an old platform. Not to mention that DDR5 is just around the corner.

Also, tell you that the RAM you buy may have been overclocked, so ask this question before buying anything because they may be hacking you. As with the motherboard and power supply, it is a component that is not devalued enough that it is a good idea to buy it from the second-hand market.

Power supply

The power supply is an indispensable component in any equipment, and if we go to the second-hand market, it is because we do not have a lot of budget. I am somewhat reluctant to buy second hand hardware, but the power supply does not have to give us any problems, except that it is very old.

In this case, I will always recommend more than 500W and that it is modular. In this sense, we can find spectacular bargains for new products. My opinion is that it is not worth the risk to buy a product that we do not know how it has been treated, nor has a guarantee.

So far our advice on second-hand hardware. If you have any questions, please leave it under and we will respond as quickly as possible.

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Any experience buying second hand components? What is your opinion?