If you can go with a recycler/refurb shop, check that they offer a warranty. More on reddit.com

Did you purchase the laptops from the official Dell Outlet or from a third-party, perhaps one of the refurbishers selling through Amazon or E-Bay? Mu guess is that you purchased the laptops from a third-party, not from Dell. If you purchased the laptops from a third-party, "Refurbished to Dell Specifications by FedEx Supply Chain" means "scam". I have purchased all my computers (Dell Optiplex and Dell Latitude) from the official Dell Outlet for close to a decade. None of the computers I've bought from the Outlet -- not one -- arrived in the condition you are describing. Every one of them was spotlessly clean and worked perfectly. All computers purchased from the official Dell Outlet are refurbished by Dell, certified by Dell, supported by Dell, and come with the original factory warranty. The computer refurbishing industry has more than its share of disreputable vendors, vendors who do a schlock job of "refurbishing", and then say things like "Refurbished to Dell Specifications by FedEx Supply Chain" to make it sound like they are operating above board. It looks like you got mixed up with one of the disreputable refurbishers. Reputable refurbishers do exist, but I've had so many friends have bad experiences that I tell all and sundry: "If you want a refurbished Dell, buy from the official Dell Outlet and nowhere else." I'm sorry that you had a bad experience, and I hope that you will be able to return the laptops and get your money back. More on reddit.com

We watch ebay for most of our shop test systems. We’ve grabbed a few 7810’s and 5810’s with way more memory than we’d ever need for a few hundred bucks. Sadly they lack NVMe but with a boss card they still perform quite well. Good enough for general purpose VM test rigs. Otherwise, 3620/3630 are relatively inexpensive as well and support one NVMe. I don’t recall if the 3650 has dual NVMe or not, 3660’s do but their the current model so you’ll pay a premium. More on reddit.com

Very few people want a big desktop computer anymore when laptops and iPads are just as good for 98% of what "normal" people need. Power users don't want out of date hardware at any price. Some of these servers can be quite loud and power hungry as well. So there's nothing wrong with them, but like any used PC, they hold value very poorly. The Xeon you describe is a 140W processor from 2017. Sure it was a beast then, but it is a very poor power to performance ratio for 2024. The CPUmark is 12658 multi and 2262 single core. A Core 3 100u beats both handily on 15W. More on reddit.com