Donating Equipment

FreeGeek Chicago accepts computers and computer-related hardware in any condition. If you are donating equipment that is known to be broken or a computer older than a Pentium I PC or PPC Mac, we ask that you donate what you can to help with our processing costs.

There is a $15.00 disposal fee per monitor, working or not.  This includes computers with built-in monitors.  At this time, there are no exceptions to this fee.

Making a donation

We accept donations any time we are open to the public. To make a donation outside of regular hours, e-mail us at donate@freegeekchicago.org or call us at (773) 451-7133. We do not currently pick up equipment unless there area exceptional circumstances (we have made exceptions for disabled persons).

If you will be bringing in pallet-loads of equipment, please call ahead and set up an appointment.

Accepted equipment

Required fee

  • Monitors ($15.00 ea.)
  • Terminals ($10.00 ea.)
  • Printers ($10.00 ea.)
  • CPU/CRT combos ($15.00 ea.)

Suggested donation

  • Computers ($5.00 ea.)
  • External Modems ($2.00 ea.)
  • Keyboards and Mice ($1.00 ea.)
  • Fax Machines ($4.00 ea.)
  • Media (no packaging please)
  • Floppy diskettes ($2.00/total donation)
  • CDs ($1.00/total donation)
  • Computer cables ($1.00/donation)

Software and manuals

We accept software and manuals. Additionally, if you have the manuals for specific pieces of equipment (i.e. motherboards) please bring them with the equipment.

We do not accept

  • Cardboard
  • Telephones
  • Styrofoam
  • Televisions
  • Microwave Ovens
  • Copiers
  • Appliances (including air conditioners)

Preparing your donation for drop-off:

Please bring as little packaging as possible. It is also helpful to us if you remove any stickers, notes, etc. We do not recycle styrofoam.

Please try to untangle all cords and cables. Coil them up with a rubber band or twist tie.

Attach power adapters (AC adaptors, transformers) to their associated equipment (such as powered speakers, printers or external modems) as best you can; we suggest wrapping with clear packing tape.

What happens to donated hard drives?

FreeGeek Chicago wipes every viable hard drive it receives using Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN), which performs a complete drive wipe and writes random data to the entire drive at least five times. In the case of broken or obsolete drives, FreeGeek Chicago renders the drive physically unusable (typically with a large hammer) before sending it to any downstream recycler.

If you require certified compliance with one or more forms of data-destruction and retention regulation (HIPPA, SarbOx, et al.), you must do so prior to donating your equipment. While in practice DBAN complies with these regulations in most cases, the author cannot guarantee such compliance under the terms of DBAN's license.