A friend told me 4-5 years old or older PC's are better built than the newer PC's. He said they are more reliable and durable (although they might have less features and capacity). Is this true?
Older PC's
- Thread starter Rockslinger
- Start date
It's a meaningless statement... you could have bought a low-end computer 10 years ago with a flimsy case, cheap motherboard, under-powered powersupply, low-end optical drive, etc., etc. and you still can today. But you could then and still can now spend a little more and get quality components.
Exactly. Besides, PC hardware rarely fails. Maybe power supply the odd time but really, I've owned many PCs in 20+ years, from custom builts to cheapo barebones from Compaq with just enough power, and have never ever had a hardware problem, never. Computers will go obsolete in speed/memory well before any hardware failure.
The only thing in the old days was driver compatibility with non-brand name hardware (remember having to select your soundcard and graphics driver for games, and if yours wasn't on the list, doh!). But these days the integrated stuff is good enough for non-gaming/pro use.
BUT Laptops are a different story. All that moving around and plugging and unplugging power etc... I've seen many fail. This is one area where you may want to actually buy a good one.
The only thing in the old days was driver compatibility with non-brand name hardware (remember having to select your soundcard and graphics driver for games, and if yours wasn't on the list, doh!). But these days the integrated stuff is good enough for non-gaming/pro use.
BUT Laptops are a different story. All that moving around and plugging and unplugging power etc... I've seen many fail. This is one area where you may want to actually buy a good one.
Thanks. I have an older Compaq and an HP. Good to know that they have a 20 plus year lifespan.Hobbyer said:
While it is true that many Desktop PCs can keep going for 10, 15 or more years, some components will after time start to show their age... for example the PRAM battery. Every computer I have ever come across has a little battery inside which is used to help power the logic-board in the event of a crash to save critical system information.
Every 5 years or so that battery will probably need to be replaced. Not a big deal, just plop out the old battery, plop in a new one, and restart. If you are having a lot of unexplained crashes and display issues, and random freezings on an older computer it could very well be a PRAM battery issue.
Sometimes you get what you pay for. If you are paying $300 for a brand new computer it is not going to be anywhere near top of the line.
Keys to remember is WHAT you are using the computer for. If you are just a Word and use the email and internet kind of person, and you are not doing photo editing, video editing or playing video-games you can probably do quite well with an older Pentium III computer.
The things to spend money on is a good DISPLAY/MONITOR, a good external hard-drive as in my experience no matter how good the computer is, eventually your hard-drive WILL FAIL, and always at the worst possible time.
External drives are dirt cheap for top brand names, you can get 500 Gig drives, enough for 50 full-length DVD movies FYI, for about $200 now.
On the most part it is cheaper to upgrade computers versus buying new ones every 2-3 years. Stick with Windows XP on older PC's, and OS X Tiger on older Macintosh machines. VISTA and LEOPARD are both resource hogs and sometimes don't work so good on older machines, VISTA especially.
RAM memory, which is used to display video and photos and graphics and run applications in older computers is lacking as back then 512 megs was considered A LOT. Now that is usually bare minimum. If you ever want do want to run VISTA on an older computer that supports it, you should get as much memory as you can afford as VISTA needs about a good 1 GIG just for itself, then get another 512 megs or more for your applications. Fortunately RAM prices are also reasonably cheap right now.
If you get a $300-500 desktop computer, for about another $400 you can get a computer with upgraded RAM memory and a bigger internal or external hard-drive. If you play video-games or need to edit photos or videos a good graphics card upgrade should also be an option, those can go for $100+
So if you start with 300+200 for 500 gig hard-drive + 200 for 2 Gigs of RAM + 160 Graphics card, you have a really nice machine for $860. Cheaper than buying a comparable machine brand new.
Every 5 years or so that battery will probably need to be replaced. Not a big deal, just plop out the old battery, plop in a new one, and restart. If you are having a lot of unexplained crashes and display issues, and random freezings on an older computer it could very well be a PRAM battery issue.
Sometimes you get what you pay for. If you are paying $300 for a brand new computer it is not going to be anywhere near top of the line.
Keys to remember is WHAT you are using the computer for. If you are just a Word and use the email and internet kind of person, and you are not doing photo editing, video editing or playing video-games you can probably do quite well with an older Pentium III computer.
The things to spend money on is a good DISPLAY/MONITOR, a good external hard-drive as in my experience no matter how good the computer is, eventually your hard-drive WILL FAIL, and always at the worst possible time.
External drives are dirt cheap for top brand names, you can get 500 Gig drives, enough for 50 full-length DVD movies FYI, for about $200 now.
On the most part it is cheaper to upgrade computers versus buying new ones every 2-3 years. Stick with Windows XP on older PC's, and OS X Tiger on older Macintosh machines. VISTA and LEOPARD are both resource hogs and sometimes don't work so good on older machines, VISTA especially.
RAM memory, which is used to display video and photos and graphics and run applications in older computers is lacking as back then 512 megs was considered A LOT. Now that is usually bare minimum. If you ever want do want to run VISTA on an older computer that supports it, you should get as much memory as you can afford as VISTA needs about a good 1 GIG just for itself, then get another 512 megs or more for your applications. Fortunately RAM prices are also reasonably cheap right now.
If you get a $300-500 desktop computer, for about another $400 you can get a computer with upgraded RAM memory and a bigger internal or external hard-drive. If you play video-games or need to edit photos or videos a good graphics card upgrade should also be an option, those can go for $100+
So if you start with 300+200 for 500 gig hard-drive + 200 for 2 Gigs of RAM + 160 Graphics card, you have a really nice machine for $860. Cheaper than buying a comparable machine brand new.
This old PC still runs great
I still use a 12 yr old 400MHZ P2 Gateway desktop....using it right now. It came with Win95 but they sent a Win 98 Install CD a month later. Original ram was 64MB SDRAM 100 along with an 8.5GB HDD, considered 'massive' back then. It only has 100FSB.
Today I'm running XP Pro and Ubuntu 9.04 on it. XP is a little bit slow but Ubuntu 9.04 runs better than Ubuntu 8.10 did. Vista being the resource hog it is could never run on it.
The only upgrades were;
maxed RAM to 384MB,
put in a new 120GB 7200RPM HDD to replace the OEM 8.5GB 5400RPM drive,
put in a NIC CARD to really speed up internet access
and put in a 5 port USB 2.0 card to give it use of USB 2.0 from the old USB 1.0.
These critical upgrades significantly improved performance and only cost ~$120.
PS: squash500 mentioned a new cd/dvd rom drive below.
I forgot to mention I also 11 yrs ago put in a Plextor PleXWriter 12/10/32A burner for ~$160 back then. Didn't put a burner in at first because they burned much slower, didn't have 'Burn-proof' technology and cost more as an option. When Plextor came out with burn proof technology and faster burn speeds, I decided to get a burner and put it in. It was easy, like adding an extra HDD.
I still use a 12 yr old 400MHZ P2 Gateway desktop....using it right now. It came with Win95 but they sent a Win 98 Install CD a month later. Original ram was 64MB SDRAM 100 along with an 8.5GB HDD, considered 'massive' back then. It only has 100FSB.
Today I'm running XP Pro and Ubuntu 9.04 on it. XP is a little bit slow but Ubuntu 9.04 runs better than Ubuntu 8.10 did. Vista being the resource hog it is could never run on it.
The only upgrades were;
maxed RAM to 384MB,
put in a new 120GB 7200RPM HDD to replace the OEM 8.5GB 5400RPM drive,
put in a NIC CARD to really speed up internet access
and put in a 5 port USB 2.0 card to give it use of USB 2.0 from the old USB 1.0.
These critical upgrades significantly improved performance and only cost ~$120.
PS: squash500 mentioned a new cd/dvd rom drive below.
I forgot to mention I also 11 yrs ago put in a Plextor PleXWriter 12/10/32A burner for ~$160 back then. Didn't put a burner in at first because they burned much slower, didn't have 'Burn-proof' technology and cost more as an option. When Plextor came out with burn proof technology and faster burn speeds, I decided to get a burner and put it in. It was easy, like adding an extra HDD.
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I'm really enjoying reading this thread
. I previously thought that every 3-4 years that it was essential to buy a new PC.
However it is one thing for computer experts such as Woody and DH to upgrade their own computers.
On the other hand I would never have been able to upgrade my own PC if I didn't have a friend who knew about computers.
As mentioned in another thread for $158.50 tax in I got 2 GB of RAM and a new cd/dvd rom drive. I could never have installed these products myself. I'm not at all mechanically inclined.
If I would have gone to a place such as future shop or best Buy they were quoting me ridiculous amounts of money for both parts and labour.
If I had to rely on places like that it might have made more economic sense for me to just buy a new computer.
I was also lucky that my friend didn't charge me for labour.
. I previously thought that every 3-4 years that it was essential to buy a new PC.However it is one thing for computer experts such as Woody and DH to upgrade their own computers.
On the other hand I would never have been able to upgrade my own PC if I didn't have a friend who knew about computers.
As mentioned in another thread for $158.50 tax in I got 2 GB of RAM and a new cd/dvd rom drive. I could never have installed these products myself. I'm not at all mechanically inclined.
If I would have gone to a place such as future shop or best Buy they were quoting me ridiculous amounts of money for both parts and labour.
If I had to rely on places like that it might have made more economic sense for me to just buy a new computer.
I was also lucky that my friend didn't charge me for labour.
LOL!squash500 said:I'm really enjoying reading this thread
I was also lucky that my friend didn't charge me for labour.
That's because they want to sell you a new PC.
Having a friend will help you from being ripped off.
Working on PCs are not hard at all. Stores scare you here to so they can do it and make the bucks. I had a couple friends show me and showed me what web sites to go for extra help. A PC is basically like putting a component stero system together. You get the parts and plug them in together.
Adding RAM is the easiest/cheapest upgrade you can do.
Maxing out the RAM on my laptop was easier (Took 5 minutes) than maxing out the RAM on my desktop. The Toshiba laptop manual even gave directions for it.
The durability of any PC is dependent on how it is used. If it's left running 24-7 or overclocked, it will have a much shorter lifespan.Rockslinger said:
Key here is the electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard, in the power supply and everywhere else. Even the best caps have a 5000 hour lifespan according to the parts makers, after which they gradually decline and eventually fail. As they decline the computer becomes slower to boot and eventaully won't boot at all.
There was a period several years ago where some capacitor makers used faulty electrolytes in their caps, bankrupting some electronics manufacturers because of warranty RMA returns.
ASUS used high-quality Rubycon caps almost exclusively, and thereby earned a reputation as the best 3rd-party motherboard manufacturer.
High-end machines have recently moved to solid capacitors which in theory have an unlimited lifespan.
That said, the development cycle in computers is so short, that there are bound to be problems, reflected in high RMA rates.
Newer computers employ ultra low-voltage circuits, and I suspect, are much less tolerant of power surges. One reason that there are $350 motherboards is probably that there is a very good chance they will be RMAd.
Older computers were less highly-stressed, and as there was a seller's market for computers, the good stuff was pretty good.
The amzing thing is how fast older computers are when maxed on RAM
using SCSI drives, and running Linux.
I have an IBM think pad, about 10 years old, cost me 200 bucks, and its cr*p! I think its better to just buy a new one.
That or just do a format and reinstal XP.
As long as the HDD is intact and nothing else is wrong with that IBM, it will act like a new Think Pad after a fresh format.
As long as the HDD is intact and nothing else is wrong with that IBM, it will act like a new Think Pad after a fresh format.
Finally found someone with an old box than mine!WoodPeckr said:
Mine was born as a 600 MHz, 64 Meg RAM, 10 GB HDD running win 98. It had internet access over dial-up only.
Now it's a 1200 MHz, 768 Meg, 120 GB running XP. Also has a NIC, USB 2.0, DVI video, CD writer installed.
The thing is, I knew very little about PCs when I started upgrading so just about anyone can do it if you want to put in the time to figure out how these things work. Although it helps a lot to technically inclined, and be patient.
The worst thing I did was install XP over win 98. It was not a clean install. I ended up save my data then wiping my larger hdd clean and re-installing the o/s
LOL!emvee said:
I'm jealous, your P3 is smokin' compared to my P2!...
I did a clean install of XP Pro, I heard about what can happen if you do it the way you did first. Clean install is always better especially with M$.
Your's is a perfect candidate for Ubuntu either 9.04 or 8.10.
Do a dual boot setup for XP/Ubuntu.
You only need to dedicate a 20GB partition for linux.
This way you can run either OS while learning linux at your own pace.
Then after awhile when you see how neat linux is you can dump M$ like I did and be M$ free.
It won't cost you a penny and you will find Ubuntu outperforming XP.
Because i repair computers i always have a system with a different OS up and running for testing purposes. The worst piece of crap i have is a P1, 100mhz, 32mb of ram, floppy only, OS windows 3.1. Its actually a scream trying to remember how it works but from time to time i run across someones grandma using 3.1 to keep her recipes. I truthfully don't even know if i can connect it to the net. Never tried.
