Why we bother telling you this
"Tested" is the most abused word in used hardware. It can mean a real bench session, or it can mean the part was plugged in once, sometime, by someone. Since you can't watch us work, the next best thing is to tell you exactly what happens between a part arriving here and appearing in the shop — so "tested" on our listings means something specific you can hold us to.
Where our parts come from
Most of our inventory starts as complete desktop machines — gaming PCs and workstations we buy locally around Columbus — plus hardware from upgrades and builds of our own. Buying whole machines means we know each part was running in a working system when it reached us, and it's why our stock skews toward the parts real builds are made of.
What we check, by category
- Graphics cards go on a bench, get run under sustained load, and have their temperatures and fans verified — not just a boot to desktop. Artifacts, driver resets, or a fan that won't hold speed mean the card doesn't get listed as working.
- CPUs are socketed into a compatible board and verified to POST and run stable. Pads and pins are inspected under light.
- Motherboards are POST-tested with slots and ports exercised — RAM slots, M.2, and the I/O that builds actually depend on. Bent-pin sockets are the first thing we look for and the most common reason a board gets a for-parts label instead.
- RAM is run through a memory test, and the label on the stick is cross-checked against what the system actually reports — generation, capacity, speed.
- Storage is judged by its own health data: SMART status and wear percentage, which we publish on the listing. A drive that works today but reports heavy wear gets priced and described as exactly that.
- Power supplies and coolers are load-checked and inspected; anything with a tired fan, swollen capacitor, or unknown history doesn't get sold as working.
What the listing tells you
The photos on our listings are of the actual item — the card, board, or stick you'll receive, not a stock render. Condition notes state what we found, including cosmetic wear that doesn't affect function. Prices come from the same live market data we publish publicly, so you can check our number against the market in one click.
When something fails
Parts that fail testing don't quietly become "untested — sold as-is" listings at a small discount. Anything sold for parts or repair is labeled clearly and loudly as broken, priced accordingly, and described with what's actually wrong as far as we know. And because no test catches everything, every working part carries a 30-day return window: if we missed something, that's our cost, not yours.
Who's doing the testing
We're a father-and-sons small business in the Columbus, Ohio area — the people testing the parts are the same people answering the email. If you want to know anything about a specific listing that the description doesn't cover, ask us and we'll go look at the actual item.