My eagle-eyed daughter spotted a Dell PC by the side of the road on her way home from school, so we snagged it en passant to a school meeting later that evening. We dropped it in the workshop, figuring that she could do some forensics, then install Puppy Linux or some such.
The next morning the entire Basement Laboratory was filled with the unmistakable odor of stale piss and I noticed that the back panel of the PC had two missing card slot covers. I immediately hauled the carcass outside and set a bunch of mouse traps around the basement.
When we popped the cover, we found a very well-built mouse nest covering the entire surface of the system board. The previous owners had evidently run the PC flat on the floor (it’s a Dimension 8100 beside-the-desk tower) with two of the back-panel card slot covers missing and the mice decided this was just about the finest neighborhood in the building.
The power supply in this model covers the system board with an inch or so of clearance. We swung the supply box up on its hinges and found a thick layer of furry padding underneath; perhaps this was the sleeping quarters?
The mouse latrine was over by the CD burner, which was a dead loss, and corrosion had eaten one corner of the DVD ROM drive’s case. The previous owners had removed the hard drive (good for them!) and dislodged the CPU and heatsink. I think this model had an exhaust duct over the heatsink, which was missing.
We salvaged the CPU (for show-n-tell), heatsink (aluminum plate), DVD drive (amusement value), and the Soundblaster Live! audio card (on general principles). The rest wasn’t worth the risk of huffing more hantavirus; we tipped it into the trash. In theory, we’re supposed to recycle this stuff, but I’m not going to keep it around for a few months until hazmat day.
[Update: I just got a flyer saying that the next town hazmat day is mid-April, so I dug the damn thing out of the trash. I’ll run a bunch of dead PCs and toxins down the road; depending on the load, maybe I can use the bicycle trailer. That’s always good for a laugh around the dumpsters.]
All the prizes except the DVD drive’s guts went into a dishpan of hot soapy water and ought to be in good condition when they dry out. If the drive doesn’t smell bad, we’ll put it to some good use.
Now, you might think the mice moved into a dead PC stored in a corner. As nearly as I can tell, that’s not the case: the CPU chip was in (relatively) pristine condition and, when we removed the front cover, the air inlets were clogged with a thick layer of fuzz. So I think the mice had a nice, heated nest with plenty of ventilation, right up until the system quite literally crapped out.
According to Dell’s records, this box shipped 20 August 2001 with WinXP home, 64 MB of Rambus memory, and a 40 GB hard drive.
Times have changed since then, in more ways than one…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 