Mon
Jan
10
2011
How long should a computer last?
People ask me how long they should expect their new computer to last. Two years? Five years?
Over time I have found the answer to that question can be broken down into two parts.
Part One
This is simple; a computer will last as long as the software needs of the user don’t exceed the capabilities of the computer.
If you purchased a PC to run Microsoft Office 2000 in 2001 and that is all you will ever do with that computer than all you really have to worry about is the hard-drive crashing or some other catastrophic disaster (which is Part Two).
The problem is you may be forced to use software that exceeds the capabilities of a perfectly functioning computer.
Let’s say you own a business and when you bought that computer you installed QuickBooks Pro 2000, but you now need to upgrade to QuickBooks Pro 2011.
Don’t even think about loading QuickBooks Pro 2010 on that computer.
That computer you bought in ’01 won’t run QuickBooks Pro 2010. Your software needs now exceed the capabilities of that trusty computer.
Or take for instance anti-virus security software. If you run out and buy McAfee Antivirus or Norton Antivirus you will discover neither will install on Windows 98. Not that there isn’t antivirus software available for Windows 98, but you can’t load McAfee or Norton.
You see Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 98 on July 11, 2006. Due to Microsoft’s decision to stop supporting Windows 98 most commercial software developers stopped building software that will install and run on Windows 98.
That might not seem fair, but that’s the reality.
As long as you only need to run software that was built to run on your computer that computer will not become obsolete, it will last nearly forever.
Unfortunately the odds are extremely great that at some point you will be forced to buy new software and the useful lifespan of your computer will come to an abrupt halt.
Part Two
A computer is a machine and how long it will ‘last’ depends on the parts of the computer.
If you back up all your data (and we all should) any competent computer repair person can build you a machine with which to load your operating system and restore your data.
If you are interested, or if you have a need, you can check out eBay and look at all the old computers, and old computer parts, for sale. Many online auction sites sell old computers and old computer parts; it is possible to keep an old computer running for the foreseeable future.
The bottom line
It is not a good idea to keep a computer for more than 5 years. Between Microsoft, Apple, whatever strain of Linux or BSD that you embrace, there are just to many changes over a five year time frame that push computer hardware past it’s pleasant usefulness. While it may be possible to keep a computer running for 10 or 20 years I wouldn’t recommend going that direction.
Some people have unlimited financial resources, most of us don’t. The longer you own a computer the more expensive and frustrating you will find it is to have it repaired as the machine approaches antiquity. Computer technicians come into the field and move on, finding a computer technician in 2011 who knows what to do with Mac OS 7.2.2 or DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 not easy.
So my advice is to save $200 to $300 a year for a new computer you will buy every five years and stay on top of the technology.
A $1000 dollar computer is a pretty sweet machine, and your friends won’t make fun of that TRS-80 when they visit.
Finally, a simple and to the point answer.
thanks!
— Bill Jennings · Nov 7, 02:10 pm · #
Just to let you know that when a friend or relative asks me this question I now just point them to you website. Thanks. You’ve saved me many an hour!
— Dr. Arnold Baker · Nov 27, 04:57 pm · #
I have had a Power Macintosh G4 Sawtooth ever since I bought it back in 1999, and it is running Mac OS X 10.5.8 (from 2009), and it is running smoother than ever. Next to it, I have a totally different machine, a Mac Pro early 2010 “Nehalem”, and it runs Mac OS X 10.6.4 just the same as my sawtooth does, that is, after some upgrades.
— Mark Eagle · Jun 26, 09:15 pm · #
I came across this article purely by accident, and yet somehow I felt compelled to comment, so here it goes…
First, let me say that I am in my mid thirties, and am still an avid computer enthusiast. My first computer was a Ti-99/4A. I have built many systems for many people, from cheap to stupid fast.
So when I read this article I both agreed and disagreed strongly.
First let me tell you about the last two desktop computers I have built (there’s a reason to this). The older computer was built in 1999, used an Abit BE6 motherboard with a PIII 450 cpu and a 3Dfx video card, it had all the other components of a typical computer, and they were all close to top notch for the time, the computer cost me almost $2500 to build.
At this time I was still an avid gamer and used the computer for school, but about 3 years, my young spirited PC was a grandpa. So I did what any budget minded person would do… Upgrades!
More ram, bigger hard drive, upgraded and over clocked the cpu and bought a big shiny red ATI Radion 9500pro. Well the joy was short lived, in about one short year (around 2003) the old PIII was just too slow for the new games. In just four short years my lightning was barely a spark.
It was time to upgrade. This time it would be huge… enter the second computer.
So I purchased new parts (Abit IC7-Max3 and a 2.4C northwood, 1GB OC ram, two WD hard drives for raid and all the other goodies). I ripped the 9500pro from the depths of the PIII and plugged it into the new system. Oh the power!!! And it cost me under $2G.
Everything was shiny and new again, since that day, it has had an ATI x850xt and currently has an ATI x1950pro with an extra 1/2GB of ram, the cpu is a 3.2C running at 3.6GHz.
So where does this story go, now that I am older, I don’t play as many games or as often, but I still like a good RPG. That said, I have just completed Fallout 3 and downloaded the Demo of Mafia II (which is being released in a few days).
The first played fine on above medium settings and Mafia, well it looks good and is actually playable on medium-low settings, and still looks decent.
As for any type of business applications, throw anything at this computer and it will do it, no problem. If it runs on XP it will run here. And hence the problem, much like Win98, XP’s life is coming to an end sometime in 2014. That’s probably the magic bullet for developers, some may end support early some may hang on. But some hardware won’t be able to make the switch to Win7.
So my comment is this. As technology improves, the life cycle of a computer improves too. My P3 system can’t even compare to my P4 system and my P4 system is so far, far, far behind the current (2010) systems, that it’s not even a competition. However it still manages Photoshop, HD video, internet, MS Office and games, all at a good speed, where my P3 couldn’t.
So for the average user, don’t be cheap. If you don’t know what to buy ask questions and read reviews. Todays i3/i5/i7 computers paired with a quality graphics card, ram and other goodies should easily perform video/audio/internet/application duties for the next decade.
— MP · Aug 19, 01:05 pm · #
A lot of is political mind games that computer manufacturers impose. I have an extremely power and fast Power Mac dual G5 from mid 2004, going on 7 years. A few simple upgrades of RAM to 8 GB for $150 off ebay, installation of a solid-state drive ($150 newegg), video card ($100 ebay) make this computer faster than most new ones even. But because Apple’s new OS doesn’t support the PowerPC chip, a lot of new software is built only for machines running the Intel processor. Very lame and unfair since my computer does all the things new computers does, and many times even better and faster. From a purely capabilities standpoint, I know this computer is good enough to last an additional 6 years, but I will probably “upgrade” sooner simply because they stopped writing software for my non-Intel machine..but theoretically if software WAS written for it, this beast could handle it easily.
I agree with the article in general though. A $1000 computer should last about 5 years. Mine was $3000 new, so I expect it to last 15 years.
— lance · Jan 31, 07:18 am · #