Used goods don't always equal bargains, so what should you be looking out for?
The option to get discounts on hardware by opting for second-hand and reconditioned goods is a tempting one, and if you're smart about the way you buy hardware, you can knock a fair amount of money off your purchase by doing so. But there's a risk inherent in buying second-hand hardware that might mean you end up enduring a lot of hassle for a very small saving.
If you want to avoid subjecting yourself to unnecessary risks and inconveniences, it's important to be a little discerning about the type of second-hand goods you go for. Some components are fine to buy second hand, others are risky, and a small number should even be avoided altogether. In case you're planning to do some second-hand shopping, here's the advice you'll need so that you can tell the difference.
Hard Drives
Hard drives are some of the most precarious components in a PC. As well as having moving parts that can fail after an unspecified amount of use, hard drives are kept under constant wear, because they're in use virtually from the moment you switch your PC on. They're also especially vulnerable to aging and dirt, which can be introduced through completely normal use.
For that reason, any attempt to buy a hard drive second hand should be carefully considered. You have no way of knowing how the drive has been treated since it was initially sold - it could be in perfect condition or it could be hours away from a catastrophic failure. The problem is that second-hand drives have even less reliability than first-hand ones, and if you can't trust a hard drive to store your data correctly, it's not really fit for purpose.
Of course, you might be okay with that. If you want a drive for nonessential purposes where data loss would be an acceptable risk, then you'll probably get a great deal on the second-hand market simply because hard drives are dirt-cheap to begin with. If you buy one sold as-is, it should be a fraction of the cost new, and all you have to do is test it for established errors before you use it.
It’s worth noting that hard drives can't really be refurbished. It is technically possible to repair and recondition hard drives, but only in a literally forensic environment. Even if the problem is with the electronics only, you're looking at a lengthy and expensive process to get a broken drive in working order again. The cost of refurbishing a hard drive would be considerably higher than buying a new one. It is possible to get drives recertified, though, which offers some reassurance that they're in full working condition and free of errors.
Open box drives are a slightly safer bet, but we'd be wary of buying any drive that isn't fresh or at least certified. It's never 100% certain that a hard drive will be free from bad sectors -they can appear on drives virtually spontaneously - but the more a hard drive has been used, the more likely they are to appear. If you're buying a second hard system, we advise that you insist on a new hard drive, even if the existing one is fully tested and considered in full working order. If you're looking to buy a stand-alone drive second hand, we'd simply advise that you don't.
Processors
As with hard drives, it's not really possible to refurbish a CPU, but unlike hard drives, there's a better chance that a second-hand or open-box unit will be in good enough condition to safely buy -not least because if a CPU fails, it's an inconvenience rather than a disaster. Your system is unlikely to suffer any serious damage or data loss due to CPU malfunction.
The fact that processors can't be refurbished, even by manufacturers, actually works in favour of buyers. You know that if a second-hand unit is on sale it's because someone has tested it and deemed it to be in full working order. If it's being sold as-is (i.e. untested), then it's worth checking the returns policy of the person or business you're buying it from. If they allow you to return faulty items, you might as well take the gamble. If they specifically exclude open box and ex-display models from returns, it probably isn't worth the risk, purely because processors are hugely expensive even when purchased second hand.
The only other question to ask is whether the CPU is likely to have been overclocked during its usage. Most CPUs will comfortably last for years before developing any faults, but overclocked chips have a vastly reduced lifespan. Chips usually fail when the materials inside them become damaged by constant heating and cooling. Overclocked chips have been heated up more quickly and to higher temperatures than their manufacturer intended, and that means they've already travelled further towards their inevitable failure.
So while second-hand CPUs are a better prospect than most secondhand components, we'd advise that you don't get complacent. Open box items are probably fine, because they won't have been used for long (if at all), but secondhand CPUs should be treated with caution. At the very least, insist on a substantial discount!
Graphics Cards
Second-hand graphics cards should be treated with similar caution to second-hand CPUs. After all, the main component of a graphics card is a type of CPU that is often subject to overclocking by the kind of enthusiastic gamers who are likely to sell off good cards while they're still worth buying to fund the purchase of the next one.
But the complexity of graphics cards does mean that they can be refurbished. There's a lot that can go wrong and therefore plenty to repair. The good news is that most of their parts can only be replaced by the manufacturer, so if you buy a refurbished card, you can virtually guarantee good-quality repairs. Those parts that can be replaced by users aren't exactly critical in the first place.
As it stands, only manufacturers can replace the GPU or memory chips on a graphics card, and those are the components that matter the most. Users may be able to repair a graphics card's heatsink or fan, but assuming they're guaranteed to arrive in working order, this shouldn't present much of a problem.
The only thing to be careful of is open-box graphics cards, which haven't been repaired or refurbished. There's a strong possibility - especially at the high end of the market - that an open box graphics card was overclocked but couldn't handle higher speeds and was returned for that reason. Overclocking a card even for a short amount of time can introduce minor flaws that cause the card to fail much earlier than if it has been run normally, but there's no way to tell whether you're buying a card that has been thrashed to within an inch of failure or returned unused. Open-box graphics cards should be treated with far more caution than any claiming to be refurbished, simply because of the culture surrounding them.
There's at least one good thing about refurbished graphics cards, though, and that's how inessential a graphics card is to the normal operation of any system at the moment. If you're running a recent Intel or AMD CPU, there's a strong chance it has an on-board GPU, which you could use temporarily should your graphics card fail. This makes the risk slightly easier to swallow: if the card fails, you'll still have immediate access to your system while you claim your refund.
RAM
Memory is already quite cheap when bought new, but there are second-hand bargains to be found if you're looking for specialist gaming RAM or units with niche compatibility.
At best, you may find open-box RAM, but even then it's probably not going to offer a considerable saving. If you're looking into buying old or specialist memory, 'refurbished' might mean that it's been recovered from an old system, then cleaned up and then tested for integrity. In any case, you’re dealing with the same issues you'll face on other items that can't be manufacturer refurbished: essentially, it's just second-hand hardware.
The low price of RAM means that it's not necessarily worth buying it second hand even if you can. If you're running an older system and need DDR2, then buying second-hand might be your best option just because older types of RAM are becoming more scarce, but it's hard to recommend it for newer systems.
That said, in the next year or two you're likely to see a lot of perfectly serviceable DDR3 modules become available on the second-hand market as users upgrade to DDR4. When this happens, the glut of availability might drop second-hand prices to the point where they're worth considering. If you're likely to be on the lookout for RAM bargains in the future, keep that in mind!
If you do buy your memory second hand, it's important to run it through some rigorous testing before you set about using it. Don't just check it for data integrity either - do a stress test. If there are any serious flaws, they should become evident as soon as you get the heat pumping into it, and it's better to realise sooner rather than later. A bad stick of RAM can cause problems and instability that might look like the result of a fault in literally any component of your system, so before you do anything you need to know that the memory isn't causing any problems.
Monitors
Most components require you to exercise a degree of caution if you spot a refurbished example. For monitors, the opposite is true: as soon as you know roughly what model you want, you should do basically everything you can to actively seek out an open-box or refurbished model.
The reason for this is that monitors are one of the most frequently returned pieces of hardware on the market. Many of the returns will simply be because the buyer didn't like the look of the screen, and refurbished ones are normally returned within days of purchase because they have a couple of stuck or dead pixels.
In case you're not sure what that means, stuck pixels are those that remain a single colour rather than changing with the on-screen picture, while dead pixels are pixels that don't light up at all, appearing as black dots. Most LCD screens have at least one or two stuck or dead pixels, purely because weeding them all out would financially cripple manufacturers. Retailers, however, may have a less rigid policy. If a buyer doesn't like the stuck or dead pixels, the retailer might take a return just to keep them happy. Assuming you can live with the odd intrusive pixel, the money you save makes open-box monitors worth buying.
But better-still are the genuine, man ufacturer-refurbished monitors. If the number of stuck or dead pixels exceeds a certain amount or if the pixels are in the main area of the panel (i.e. the middle), then screens can be sent back for manufacturer refurbishment. When that happens, they're essentially replacing the whole screen with a new one. A fresh LCD panel will be swapped into the existing shell, free from stuck pixels and ready for action.
Thankfully, refurb monitors aren't any more likely to break than completely new ones. At worst, you’ll have an annoying pixel or two to contend with, but for the amount of money you save, you can just use that pixel as a way to remember how much fatter your wallet is as a result.
As for buying second-hand, again there's very little to worry about. As long as the monitor is in working order, the worst you'll have to contend with are scuffs, dents and scratches. You can get a very good deal on truly secondhand monitors too - a 40% discount is about standard if you buy one off eBay, and considering that modern monitors last for far longer than most people use them, that's a bargain worth taking advantage of.