Where Have I Been? Moving
Hey there! It's been a long while since my last post hasn't it?
Last June, I moved from Austin, TX to Minneapolis, MN; here I am just over a year later, and it's been one of the hardest but best decisions I’ve made. I moved to Austin from Tennessee in January of 2016, and after nearly a decade there, both myself and my partner were ready for a real change. No cross-country move comes without its challenges, especially when you leave behind a stable job and friends you love and will miss dearly (Talking about you, Riley and Kade!).
Just before the move, I drove up to Minneapolis to find a place for my partner and I to live and job hunt. The goal was to sign for a place, get a job offer, then fly back to Austin to load up a U-Haul. I stayed at the Four Points hotel in Richfield for this trip; the bartender, Zander (I may be spelling that wrong), was kind enough to give me tips on how to introduce myself to the city and where to explore. Just a heads up, this bar has incredible blueberry cheesecake! After a few interviews, I landed a well-paying job with a local IT company, and I’m still with them today.
I’ll likely write more about the city in future posts, but one way I’ve gotten more involved in the community is by volunteering at Free Geek. To get back into blogging, I thought it would be fun to document the things that come through there while I help out.
Let's Talk About Free Geek Briefly
If you don’t know about Free Geek, it’s a nonprofit that takes donated electronics, refurbishes them, and puts them back in the hands of people who need them for very reasonable prices, especially useful in the age of AI-induced part scarcity. Volunteers do much of the work, from testing and repairing hardware to recycling what can’t be saved. It keeps e-waste out of landfills, and gives people without much experience a place to learn real skills. Check out the website for this location here.
I’d heard about Free Geek back in Texas but never had the chance to visit one until now. Their shelves are full of variety: vintage computers, audio equipment, modern machines, RAM and CPUs for every generation of computing that you can think of, and plenty of odd finds in between. I stop in often to grab extra power cables for my lab or just to browse, and I almost never leave without something. There’s always something I wasn’t looking for. It's a real treat to just stop by and see what they have that day.
Volunteering
Free Geek relies on volunteers to process the large volume of donations they receive, so I started volunteering on weekends from time to time, and this past Sunday was my first time. I've started in what they call their modern build lab, which focuses on hardware from 2012 to today. I signed up on their website which you can find here: https://www.freegeektwincities.org/volunteer
In the modern Build lab, you can tear down machines for salvage, set them up with Linux or Windows, clean then upgrade them, and get them ready for resale. The work ranges from older, slower laptops to recent servers and high-end desktops. Machines that don't support Windows 11 often get Linux Mint!
I plan to write a post after each volunteer shift showing some of the machines I work on, along with the fun and strange equipment that comes through their doors.
Let's get to the first few machines I worked on during my first visit! I only took a few photos for my first time, but as I make more posts, I will document them a bit better with each step I take while I work on them.
Behold, Laptops! HP Pavilion 15s
After introducing myself to the team, they handed me an older HP Pavilion 15 to see their general process. For most of the laptops in decent condition, they will often upgrade the RAM, add an SSD while removing any hard drives, then the laptop will find itself with an installation of Linux Mint before testing the laptop for full functionality and being physically cleaned.
For this particular unit, I added a simple 180GB Intel SATA SSD, and upgraded the RAM from 4GB to 16GB. I added a Linux Mint installer to my Ventoy drive, and got started. Once the OS is installed, Free Geek has a script that you can run on them which pulls everything from the CPU model to the battery health, and adds it to their inventory. This info is included on a printed sheet when it ends up on the store floor, containing all the system's specs with notes from the tech who worked on it. During my first shift, I worked on two of these.
HP EliteBook x360 1030 G2
After finishing the two HP 15s, I saw this one on the shelf. It had an i5-7200U and 8GB of RAM, which rules out Windows 11 (not that I’d want it here anyway). Linux Mint is their standard to install, which I am fine with, but I was told you can install whatever distro you'd like as long as it's user friendly for beginners. It’s a shame to see so many capable machines end up as e-waste simply because they miss the Windows 11 cutoff.
I installed a 500GB WD Black NVMe SSD, set up Mint, and tested every function just like the others. This laptop had some minor damage to the hinge (not enough to cause long term issues), and some nasty junk, nothing a little bit of alcohol and vinegar couldn't take care of.
Desktop Board Swap!
I ran into this one desktop with an older Asus Z87-Pro, and a GTX 980. I was informed this board was dead, and I could swap in a new board if I'd like.
I swapped it out with an ASRock B250M-HDV board with a newer CPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 256GB NVMe SSD. I can’t remember which CPU was on the board, but as I write more posts from my visits, I’ll document the details better.
It’s fun to watch the machines you work on make it to the store floor the same day. There’s a real sense of accomplishment in keeping them out of the landfill.
Volunteering Is Fun
As I get back into the ideas I’ve had for this blog, these weekly Free Geek posts will be a good way to keep myself grounded. I love volunteering there, and I plan to spend a lot more time there than I did this past weekend.
There’s something satisfying about spending a few hours with your hands on what would have been tossed by someone else, knowing it’s headed to someone who needs it. Every machine that leaves the bench is one less in the landfill. I’m looking forward to seeing what shows up for me next. These will be fairly short, but hopefully a fun quick read for someone.
Time to get back to blogging...
