Exactly, the local recycling companies are a gold mine for these cheap machines. Many office companies now are closing doors or buying new machines. So they are selling a lot of 1-2 years old office PCs and miniPC. Very good for a node.

Like you said, even if you find a good base, that doesn't have enough RAM and disk, just buy those brand new from another place and you have a damn strong node. The Dell machines have the strongest power source. I still have a Dell PC from 2005 that still works just fine. Never failed.