How long do your computer usually last?

[Benjamin Marks]

I have had a series of hard drive and other failures over the last 6 years. Gone through an extraordinary 4 CPUs (Systemax, Dell, HP). Sometimes it is the motherboard (or a component on the MB, like the LAN connection) that fails; in another case the operating system has become corrupt. I just lost the HD on a less-than-one-year-old HP, along with, apparently, a corrupted registry. Will have to do a clean install of the operating system and then re-install all software. I have good data back-ups, but the thing is a huge time-suck. Soo: average age of your CPUs/laptops? What do you mentally budget when you get a new machine? 3 years? More? Less?

 

[tunalegs]

My current laptop is going on five now. I back things up on an external hard drive to be careful, but I just bought a new battery for it last year so I'm hoping to at least get another year out of it.

On the other hand, this sheet metal beauty is going on 25, and still running strong!:

 

[Dektol Dan]

Oldest Working Laptops?

Oldest Working Laptops?

My oldest working lap top is an Apple 550c (1994), first with track pad, first with a TFT screen, and first with wireless (yes, it's wireless). It still works as new, but now on the net I can only retrieve mail, no web pages will open. It was up dated to a Power PC, the first! I still have the original processor with math co-processor.

Next, I have a 1998 apple 2400C. Everything works just fine. It was updated to a G3, the first!

Those from there are not so uncommon, but they all work fine.

I stick with Mac, hardware and OS is integrated and first class and I've only had one hard drive fail on all may many computers. I keep some old ones around so I can run old titles, like Photoshop 2.

 

[brainwood]

My previous computer was a Windows XP running desktop bought fairly cheaply new. It lasted about 5 years before it creaked and ground to a halt. I had repair cover with it which was handy as it consumed a new Motherboard and power supply in that time. I replaced it with an iMac which I hope will do better than five years but five years seems to be good going for a computer these days. 18 months into the Mac and no problems it just works. ( I should probably be touching some wood or such like as I say that)

 

[Adanac]

Depending on the purpose of the machine, I might look to upgrade it within three to four years. I've never had a computer completely fail on me, although once did have a string of ten, yes, 10, Seagate hard drives all fail within a year of purchase. While they had something of a warranty on them the hassle factor was very large. I've not bought one of theirs since.

Aside from laptops I have always "built" my own machines, buying good quality parts and assembling them myself. This isn't always the most cost effective way of acquiring a computer but I like being able to make my own choices.

Old computers that I no longer need get donated to worthy causes or, often enough, to aging parents.

 

[f16sunshine]

I've just replaced my 2008 Macbook pro17. That's 3 years. It had not failed But I expect it would soon. As well a faster CPU/drive/larger memory capacity is running 64bit Aperture3 faster. My Guess is that the machine I just sold is likely to give good service another 3 years but who knows. For me it seems the technology cycle outdates most of these machines before failure. From that standpoint I would (and do) budget for an every 3-4 years full replacement (not including storage which is as needed). I just got a Macbook air for travel. The little beast I'm shocked at it's speed and dependability. Has yet to lock up on me while using Aperture3. Very impressive and has no moving parts so runs quite cool. I will use solid state drives for onboard storage from this point forward.

 

[dct]

I suppose you are talking of your personal desktop PC, not a dedicated server machine.

Working in the IT my daily work notebook is always sponsored by my firm. But that doesn't mean I own always le dernier cri, because I like to configure my computer exactly to my own taste. All the bells and whistles and the 90 % unused function are de-installted or hided and all the automatics, which newer Windows versions have always enabled, will be switched off.

I don't need most of a big Office package or the power of multi-core CPUs. I mostly write mails (90 % text only), work often with spreadsheet and do some presentation work. Additionally I remotely work on servers, which also doesn't need local power. Privately it's quiet the same, plus some image processing work.

If I had to re-install and re-configure all that stuff, although well documented, I will loose up to a week off my working time. And that's why I try to use the one I have until it will be imposed by the company that I have to change.

Worn out keyboard? You can change it! Defective other parts? Take the same or similar model with your own hard disk and you have a new PC!

In the last decades I arranged to change after an average of five years.

 

[Spleenrippa]

I usually build a new PC every 1.5 years or so

 

[benlees]

I usually get a new one every 5-6 years but usually just to take advantage of more RAM. Having a speedy machine is nice. Never actually one that really needed to be replaced. Such a waster!

 

[dave lackey]

Nine years and counting...works like a champ! It is NOT a crappy laptop.😉

 

[ruby.monkey]

I tend to assemble a new one every two to three years; at the moment I'm waiting for Ivy Bridge to hit the shelves before embarking on my next build.

 

[250swb]

As long as Microsoft and Adobe say they will last by whatever software advance they make.

Steve

 

[Frank Petronio]

As long as you have clean power, Mac desktops are hard to kill. The laptops last a long time but motherboards tend to get zapped by surges more and laptop hard drives fail more frequently because they are small, hot, and abused.

But I just turned on my 1990 Mac IIci and it ran just fine, even the monitor.

 

[Landshark]

1st EMAC for 6yr. didn't fail, soft ware compatibility problems
Mini Mac this time, so far 2 yr. no problem.

What's a blue screen?

 

[Benjamin Marks]

Ah. Clean power. We don't have it. We are on a rural Vermont highway and have brown-outs or voltage sags that are sufficient to reset all of the electronic clocks in the house 1-2 times a month. I bought a UPS for my computer, figuring that it would protect the electro-innards from the worst of it. My computer at home is not even turned on most days -- it is mostly a weekend thing. That is why I am a little surprised at the short life-span of the machines I have owned in the house. Of course, any component can fail, but to have three machines go belly up because of corrupted registries or boot sectors? That seems unlikely.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

One of the Nixie tubes went out on my Calculator. Also picked up a bad bit in the arithmetic unit. I'll have to disassemble it ans try to find the bad card. The core memory still works in it. 1967 Wang 360K.

On a humorous note, i still use DOS for embedded systems, running on an 800Mhz processor. "Screaming". I found a note made to myself in one assembly language routine that the fixup in the 8th bit position for the value for "year" read out of the battery backed clock would have to be changed in "2000". I changed it today, works fine. I left myself that note in 1990.

 

[Frank Petronio]

Unplug it

Unplug it

A UPS won't protect you from everything, the best thing is to leave it unplugged when you're not using it and don't have it on around thunderstorms. And Saturday nights when drunks run into telephone poles.

Ah. Clean power. We don't have it. We are on a rural Vermont highway and have brown-outs or voltage sags that are sufficient to reset all of the electronic clocks in the house 1-2 times a month. I bought a UPS for my computer, figuring that it would protect the electro-innards from the worst of it. My computer at home is not even turned on most days -- it is mostly a weekend thing. That is why I am a little surprised at the short life-span of the machines I have owned in the house. Of course, any component can fail, but to have three machines go belly up because of corrupted registries or boot sectors? That seems unlikely.

 

[Jani_from_Finland]

Mac(crap)book was the worst, about 10 months only and Apple refused to service it and claimed it was my own fault, well i found out this week it was a standard failure but did they come in contact with me again, nope! I hate that company now!
Then my Sony Vaio, probably the same designer fault (overheating) causes the HDD or motherboard to fry, its in service now (hopefully).
I think about buying those big monster block computer and istalling some serious cooling to them, but anyway i am not going to pay anything over 500€ in the future as they just dont last that long. My old HP laptop that cost me 600€ in 2004 lasted until 2009 and man did it have some serious smashes and crashes (worked at sea previously mainly on cargo ships amd this one flew aroud the cabin in storms etc and the power source was not constant Hz and Amps or reliable), but it always worked on and on with minimal cranks, i think it had more beer on the keybord than i can consumate on an evening. So HEY HP, you're the best and long lasting!

 

[Chris C]

I got this Macbook at the end of 2007, so about 4 years and still going strong. I'll probably upgrade the hard drive on it's birthday (bigger and 7200rpm) but other than that I have no real need to upgrade.

 

[Stuart John]

My first PC I bought in 2000 with a 196 mb ram and a 433 celeron I used it until mid 2006, I finally upgraded it as I could not process 6mp RAW files with any kind of efficiency.

My second PC a P4ht I used until a couple or 3 of weeks ago when it suddenly became very unstable and would crash repeatedly or not even boot up. At first I thought it was a windows problems so I tried my live linux CD and even that would crash after a couple of minutes so there was some kind of hardware problem when the computer starts to warm up. I had planned to replace it around December/January time,I did hope it would still by working but what can you do.

For now I am using a used PC that I bought with Pentium D processor so it has to be pretty old (but slightly newer than the previous one). I will try to get as much use out of it as I can but it will need to be replace at some point.