The things people ask
before they call.

Laptops, desktops, tablets, phones, monitors, keyboards, mice, printers, docking stations, drives, cables, adapters, speakers, webcams, networking gear. Any brand. Any operating system — Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, Linux, or something long discontinued. Any age.

Working or not. A machine that will not power on is still useful to us: it is where the screen, the memory, the drive caddy and the keyboard for the next machine come from.

Not so far. If you are looking at something and wondering whether it is too old, too broken or too odd, that is exactly the thing we would like you to offer us. Send it and let us make the call — that is our job, not yours.

The drive gets erased before the machine goes anywhere near the bench. Overwritten, not just “deleted” — nothing is recoverable afterwards. Tick the box when you book and we’ll email you written confirmation with the machine’s reference number once it’s done.

If a drive fails to wipe, it is physically destroyed rather than reused or resold. And if you’d rather keep the drive entirely, pull it before we arrive or hand it over and watch us remove it. Both are completely normal.

Yes, anywhere in El Paso and the towns around it, at no cost. One laptop or a storage room full — both are worth the trip. Tell us if anything is heavy or awkward and we’ll bring two people and a bigger vehicle. If you are further out than that, ask anyway; we’d rather work something out than turn hardware away.

Yes, and plenty of people do. There is a checkbox at the top of the nomination form that collapses it down to just your own details. A self-nomination is treated exactly the same as one that comes from a teacher or a neighbor.

No. No proof of income, no benefits letter, no application fee, and nothing to pay back. We ask what the machine is for and what is going on, in your own words, because that is what tells us which machine to build for you.

It depends entirely on what has come in recently. Machines go out as they come off the bench, so a month with a big office donation moves much faster than a quiet one. We’ll email you either way, including when the honest answer is that it will be a while.

Not out of the blue. We come back to you first. Nobody finds out they were nominated from a stranger’s email.

Ask when you book and we’ll send you an itemised receipt listing what you handed over and when. Whether you can claim it on your return depends on your own circumstances — we’ll tell you exactly what our current status is, and your tax preparer is the right person to advise on the rest.

We can always use hands on the bench, drivers for pickup runs, and people who are good at explaining a new machine to someone using one for the first time. Email info@c4cep.com and tell us what you’re good at.