2w ago

Thanks to the "you need to buy a new PC for running W11" bullshit, scammers are selling ewaste at full price to inexperienced people

And from the glowing reviews it's clear that

W11 doesn't actually need a new PC to run and the limitations are completely artificial
For many people, a ten years old PC is fast enough (or even faster than a brand new Intel N100 PC that is officially W11 compatible). They won't even notice that's something from 2015, as long it has a shiny new case, enough RAM and SSD
Amazon doesn't care that the PC comes with pirated software, or that someone is scamming their customers, as long they get their 15% cut from marketplace sales (the cost of a genuine license of W11 pro and office exceeds the price of those ewaste specials)

131 comments

It's not actually eWaste you can buy a TPM chip for it, or ya know Linux.
- Windows 11 doesn't actually need the tpm. They just check: "oh it's Intel 6th gen, it's trash from the last decade, sorry incompatible ewaste, buy a new one"
  Intel 6th gen + tpm chip = still "incompatible"
  Their marketing told us the lie "it needs tpm and secure boot" but they actually check if it has introduced to the market after 2018 or not
  In those units the scammer patched the install image to install without the check. Who buys this will get a surprise when in the next months the next update comes out and refuse to install (25h1?)
  
  Yes it does need a tpm
  Anything else isn't supported by Microsoft. You really don't want to screw around since you need security updates from Microsoft.
  
  Just block W11 updates entirely.
  https://www.sordum.org/9470/windows-update-blocker-v1-8/
  It's mostly bullshit that one absolutely needs the latest Windows updates; if you use uBlock Origin in your browser and don't download/run random .EXE/.MSI shit from the internet you'll be fine. Keep Windows Defender up to date once a month just in case as well.
  But really the best option is to switch to Linux.
- I've formatted and installed W11 on dozens of computers and never had it fail once. My gaming rig is an Optiplex from 2014, runs 11 just fine.
  
  Don't do that
  If anything run the long term support version of Windows 10
Switch to Linux and keep using your current computer. Tell Microsoft to pound sand.
- I dont think the people buying these even know what linux is.
  
  Very possible.
It's Amazon. Of course it's a scam. I always tell elderly people it's a criminal enterprise scamming old people when they ask about it.
I keep repeating this, my i5 750 (2009 pc), oc at 3.6ghz can do any fucking thing most people do with their computer. With a 1060 gpu, It plays like 90% of the games , I've made pro audio and video projects on it, even a small vr game.
- Yeah no, calling cap on that.
  It'll run most indies and triple A game from 6-7y ago.
  It'll be a real bottle neck for recent games. And especially for the only game that truly matters, rimworld.
  I am running an n150 on a secondary mini pc. On paper it's twice as fast as your cpu. It drives me crazy how slow it can be at times when running multiple tabs or apps at the same time. You're delusional if you think your cpu is still up to snuff in 2025
  
  I think people tend to forget that the vast majority of people don't even play games on their computer. Like when I mention this computer, I always get "Nah, this wont play Elden Ring at 4k 120 fps, just throw it to the garbage". But my parents, sisters, most of my friends dont give a damn about gaming. And this computer is definitely fast enough for all my personal gaming needs.
  Another thing, is that gaming streaming services are now super efficient. I could literally play Doom the Dark Age at 1080p on Xbox Game pass with this PC, and I sometimes subscribe to PS+ to play Playstation exclusives.
  
  Fr. I have an OCd 2500k and it was a bottleneck many years ago. Pre Sandy CPUs.... Not a chance it's not a bottleneck.
  
  Yeah, same. That was my first major PC build and it hit its threshold. I used the hell out of it for nearly 6 years, but no way it's playing new games with a 1060.
  
  It should be able to run a pretty good sized factory in Factorio. Easily fast enough to compile CDDA.
  Oh no, can't play what ever some AAA studio shat out last week, how ever will I cope...
  
  if it's anything like the Pentium g4560 it can absolutely play games, just not necessarily at good framerates nor AVX so star citizen is completely unrunnable. also Linux compile times suck
- Serious question, why haven't you upgraded to an i7 yet? They'd have to be super cheap at this point, right?
  
  I mean, it's not my work PC anymore, but this one has been my main entertainment system for years now. I really don't need to upgrade and create e-waste to gain a little bit of performance. I haven't even installed Linux on it yet, still on win 10, but that will make it even faster. It's my firm belief that like 80% of the people would be fine with 15+ years old computers.
  
  Wasn't a lot of benefits from the i7 back then, the 750 was still quad core, decent specs.
- I used to have that CPU, but found it absolutely dying on it's arse for VR Chat (which is notoriously badly optimised). I got a i5-8400 instead, which is about twice as fast for single threaded work (which is still the main bottleneck for most games). Your overclock would take it a decent amount of the way there, but most people aren't going to do that, and it was getting a bit iffy even when I replaced it. Runs hot as well, I expect.
  Since then they've got about twice as fast again. You don't have to spend a lot on them to get that either. A Ryzen 9600X will have me set for the next 15 years (assuming they don't ditch x86 CPUs altogether). AMD being competitive again has down wonders for performance boosts. Motherboards seem a lot more expensive these days though.
  
  It's only the AM5 mobos, you can still get very cheap AM4 mobos, even with PBO (performance boost overdrive, huuuuge performance boost for me at least). The new AM5 mobos are like 200 bucks WTF? Aaaand they have shit audio 😭
- Generally agree but also consider power usage. Of course it also depends how often its powered on or not. If its used a lot then buying newer hardware may well be cheaper just in the energy saved, though if its off most of the time then its less of a concern.
  
  From a personal finance perspective, you need to consider the price of the new machine and the difference in the energy bill for the average time you would still be using your current machine until it doesn't work anymore.
  From a sustainability perspective, you also need to consider the manufacturing impacts of the new machine in all the production chain and the energy used in that process (this is a concept called emergy). Maybe also the disposal process of the current one, if that's the case.
- I had a very similar PC. I think maybe slightly better. I ended up upgrading because the CPU was becoming more and more of a bottleneck. The roar was Elden Ring. The fps wouldn't go past about 20. Also some gaves are now being compiled against x64 v3 instructions (like Hell Divers 2 and Death Stranding) which there's literally no way of running on an old CPU since it doesn't have the instructions for it.
- I dont think that GPU could handle any game in the past 5-10 years though. So 90% of games doesn't seem right.
  
  1060 is probably more powerful than the steam deck and that things run almost everything. You don’t have to play at 4k/ultra.
  
  I don't play online games, but otherwise I have a library of 200+ games and they all work fine so far. At 1080p, sometimes I put it at 720p to get higher fps.
  Lately, I've been playing It takes 2, Little Nightmare 2, Fallout 4, Hades, Sable, Doom 2016 among others, no issues.
Those are newer than the CPU I'm typing this on, they're not waste
- They dont officially support windows 11 and the avg users are not going to know any better. It's a grey area scam. They're not worth $400 at all.
  But 1000% not waste to a tech person. My oldest machines right now we're decommissioned workstations with 8th gen i5s that I used for seedbox, DNS/pihole, proxmox, etc. they won't get windows installed and I'll drive them til they literally die. Backed up with veaam to a second truenas, easily swapped out and back up and running with any failure. I love older tech because it's cheap and as long as you know what you're doing, it works well.
  
  Core i7-6700 with 32 gb ram isn't worth $400? Daymn, I'm due to upgrade then
Those aren't eWaste. Those are Mint machines.
- Not worth hundreds though
Meanwhile I am waiting to buy a good "unsupported by Windows 11" PC cheap this October.
- Same. Should be rock bottom prices.
... a ten years old PC is...
... that's something from 2015, ...
Oh my! 2015 was 10 years ago?
- Aa of July 1st we're closer to 2050 than 2000
  Edit: 2020 -> 2000, derp
  
  Hahah. I think you should double check your sources. As far as I know 5 years is less than 25
  
  You sure about that? Maybe you meant 2000 not 2020? Regardless, not sure how to feel about that…
This is so wrong
Windows 11 requires 8th gen Intel or newer. You can bypass it but you lose official support and more importantly things will break down the line.
Those listing are not what I would call "full price"
You can buy a old 8th gen Intel system off of eBay for less than 100€
- Yeah, those are basically Mini PC prices. The CPU alone used to cost more than that.
  The specs look perfectly adequate (I'm still running very similar for daily use), and 1TB SSD and 32GB RAM should keep you going no matter how many tabs you open or how bloated your PC gets.
  Personally I'd get a new Ryzen Mini PC for that kind of money just for the form factor, but they're hardly a scam. The main issue is that the crowd this is aimed at have very little use for a PC these days.
  
  Happy cake day!
- Oh nooooo, however will I do the needful without Microsoft's world famous blue ribbon customer support.
- I thought they recently changed windows 11 to require an 11th gen or higher
  
  No, that was misinformation
I thought all Lemmy users were running Linux?
Stop purchasing from Amazon
Folks, the sooner you dip your toe into Linux the better. Don't let these mega corps tell you how to use your own stuff. Buck the trends and break free.
- I've been thinking about it, but I probably wouldn't be able to run my driving sim gear on it. I think I might get a cheap second-hand laptop to play around with it, though.
  
  That's the way I fully got into it - started off on an old laptop and ~~manifested~~ continued from there.
  
  Idk about running sims, but I switched over a yearish ago. It was a release of anxiety I didn't even know I was carrying around with me. Just a break from the relentless capitalization and enshittification that windows jams down your throat at every given moment. It's so nice having a system that doesn't spy on me, does what I want when I want it, and never locks me out for any reason. I don't have to reset the privacy settings after every update. It works faster too. 10/10 recommend.
Could you explain why you consider these overpriced/scam? If those use new parts and come with warranty, at least the top one, seems fine. Can you do a breakdown of what it should cost?
My Windows PC has i5-6500 in it and I definitely don't consider it e-waste.
- I call it ewaste because it is coming from that. Banks and corporations change computers every 3-5 years because accounting love to lease rather to buy
  Those computers go to ewaste centers, then some not honest sellers take the components (that usually were left on 24/7 because in offices nobody bothers to turn off computers) and put them in brand new cases
  That's why is a scam, selling old stuff that came from an ewaste center as brand new
  
  So keeping it from being actual ewaste it's now going to be used by someone... That seems like a good thing.
  The only downside I see is that it isn't disclosed
  
  Banks and corporations change computers every 3-5 years because accounting love to lease rather to buy
  3-5 years is a pretty standard depreciation schedule for IT equipment like computers, peripheral accessories etc.
  Computers and laptops (using Straight-line method): 31.67% with a useful life of 3 years.
  Computers and laptops (using Written Down Value method): 63.16% with a useful life of 3 years
  It really has nothing to do with leasing vs. buying.
  
  But "e-waste" means something so outadet that it's useless. Or unrepairable. Those computers are perfectly fine for 80% of users.
  And are they explicitly saying that these are new? While you know for sure it's heavily used equipment?
- They don't support Windows 11
  
  Not officially, but I have, in the past, installed W11 on a computer from 2010. And it worked fine, all things considered.
- The only time a tried to buy a laptop from Amazon it was advertised as 16Gb of RAM. What was delivered was 8G with an 8GB SD card taped to the box and Amazon refused to give me an actual refund. So i just assume any computer you buy on Amazon is fraudulent now
  
  Should have done a charge back
  
  That seems like an entirely different problem from the one being discussed.
- It can't be legitimate because licences for the bundled software cost more than the machines are being sold for. Also, the hardware included isn't officially Windows 11 compatible, so selling it with Windows 11 installed is misleading the customer into thinking they're buying something much more recent than they really are. For a decent number of people buying these, they're likely to own something just as new already, and could get a free upgrade to Windows 11 by doing the same configuration tweaks as the sellers did.
  
  Do you mean you wouldn't consider it a scam if it has W10 preinstalled instead? How much is MS Office anyway? I know there are $5 W11 keys all over the place.
- Give it up.
  Lengths required for this solution: purchase computer and use it.
  Lengths required for Linux: spend 10 years understanding all the technical underpinnings so that you can get a basic install going and then realize you can't accomplish 98% of what you need to because it's a piece of shit not made for desktop use.
  
  spend 10 years understanding all the technical underpinnings
  oh give me a break. linux doesnt need 10 years of technical understanding to use.
  have you ever tried linux in this decade?
  is this bullshit why people reject linux so much?
  
  Your understanding of Linux is about 10 years out of date my friend. Linux has made massive strides in ease of install and use in recent years.
  If you're not playing games - and the people buying these machines probably aren't - then you'll have as stable and easy an experience with Linux as you would with Windows
If you think that 210€ is full price for a pc then you require some research assistance.
- I just got an N150 Mini PC for about that. Should be decent as a Jellyfin server.
I got the one on the top (minus storage and ram) from a local university surplus store for $30 a few years ago. Lenovo brand but same form factor.
lol, the one on top is the same i bought in 2016, crazy still on the market. I still have the CPU, replaced motherboard, case, and other goodies over the years
I cosiddetti pc spazzatura
Thrift stores and pawn shops have some great deals on PC's that will run Linux just fine if you're concerned about Amazon prices and e-waste. If you have a local radio-shack-like mom and pop shop, those are treasure hunts and you're guaranteed to find gold. Encourage folks to go local.

131 comments