Quick Poll, how old is your computer.

[Bazzer Smith]

This is you main computer.
I am particularly interested if anyone (truthfully) has a main
computer 10 years or more old. (relates to an earlier post).

To start the ball rolling my computer is in its first year ( ~3 months old).

 

[philo]

This is you main computer.
I am particularly interested if anyone (truthfully) has a main
computer 10 years or more old. (relates to an earlier post).

To start the ball rolling my computer is in its first year ( ~3 months old).

i use a celeron 2.6ghz and a p-IV 1.6 ghz

i use AMD whenver i can but the two machines i have were essentially
freebies
which i found in the alley near my house.

prior to the machines i now use...
i retired my amd-1000 about 6 months ago...


and the p-75 that i had upgraded to a p-200 was in use until maybe three
years ago...
had i not started to do a little bit of video editing...the amd-1000 would
have been plenty good

 

[Bazzer Smith]

i use a celeron 2.6ghz and a p-IV 1.6 ghz

i use AMD whenver i can but the two machines i have were essentially
freebies
which i found in the alley near my house.

prior to the machines i now use...
i retired my amd-1000 about 6 months ago...


and the p-75 that i had upgraded to a p-200 was in use until maybe three
years ago...
had i not started to do a little bit of video editing...the amd-1000 would
have been plenty good

My new machine is a Sempron 3000 1.8gig, not lightening fast but
scores tops in the value for money stakes.
The old one was a Cyrix MII 300, about the same as a p-200
it too was crippled by modern video files so I finally got rid,
it was fine for news reading and some surfing, but modern 'flashy' sites
pretty much crippled it too.
I could have spent an extra £100 on the processor, but I doubt I would
have noticed any difference!
I had never watched streaming video footage on the old machine it
was way too much, this one does it fine with plenty of 'umph' to spare :O)

 

[Yugo]

i use a celeron 2.6ghz and a p-IV 1.6 ghz

i use AMD whenver i can but the two machines i have were essentially
freebies
which i found in the alley near my house.

You find Celerons 2.6ghz and p-IVs 1.6 ghz systems in your alley? Maybe
you could tell me where you live and I could change my Celeron 850 for one
of those "finds".

 

[paulmd]

This is you main computer.
I am particularly interested if anyone (truthfully) has a main
computer 10 years or more old. (relates to an earlier post).

To start the ball rolling my computer is in its first year ( ~3 months old).

Case and Zip drive, 10 years old. The rest of the guts are variuos
ages.

 

[paulmd]

This is you main computer.
I am particularly interested if anyone (truthfully) has a main
computer 10 years or more old. (relates to an earlier post).

To start the ball rolling my computer is in its first year ( ~3 months old).

Case and Zip drive, 10 years old. The rest of the guts are variuos
ages.

 

[philo]

You find Celerons 2.6ghz and p-IVs 1.6 ghz systems in your alley? Maybe
you could tell me where you live and I could change my Celeron 850 for one
of those "finds".

I live near the University of Wisconsin (Milwaukee)
and I'm sure most of the stuff is from students discarding their "old junk"

Although the p-IV and Celeron were a bit beyond my average find...

stuff like p-III's are quite common in the trash!

also, with everyone buying flat screen monitors...
good crt's are also fairly common now

 

[philo]

).

old).

Case and Zip drive, 10 years old. The rest of the guts are variuos
ages.

ah yes...those old cases...
I should have mentioned that my Celeron was recased into a Gateway 2000
large tower from a 486 DX2-66

I had to do a little metalwork...but I really like the looks of the case!

 

[rantonrave]

This is you main computer.

The CPUs are ~1 GHz Tualitin Celeron and Sempron64 3100+, the cases
full size AT desktops from 1985, about as large as full size ATX towers
but designed for 11" x 17" motherboards. The original back panels were
removed and replaced with pieces made to fit ATX motherboards and power
supplies. I like desktop cases because the monitors sit at the
perfect viewing height on top of them, and these old cases are made of
metal thick enough to support their heavy 21" CRT monitors.

 

[David Fairbrother]

main PC is 5 months old.
i have a p133 from 1996, old HP Pavilion 7222. hdd died in 2002 (i'm
surprised how long it lasted) - HP made machines well back then.

 

[kony]

This is you main computer.
I am particularly interested if anyone (truthfully) has a main
computer 10 years or more old. (relates to an earlier post).

To start the ball rolling my computer is in its first year ( ~3 months old).

Why would it matter and how would you expect to get a good
sample of user's systems by polling in only a computer
hardware newsgroup?

What I mean is, for someone's main system we'd expect that
to be far newer than 10 years old in this group, but perhaps
more interesting would be the oldest system they use at
least once a year and what they use it for.

I have a ton of old systems... though I think I threw out
anything older than Pentium 2 era last year. I keep them
around as parts spares for other people's systems, and
testing purposes. Oldest thing running regularly is a
Celeron 500 system as a fileserver... it just won't die.

 

[Bazzer Smith]

main PC is 5 months old.
i have a p133 from 1996, old HP Pavilion 7222. hdd died in 2002 (i'm
surprised how long it lasted) - HP made machines well back then.

Well my new one is a HP so lets hope they still make em well.

 

[Bazzer Smith]

Why would it matter and how would you expect to get a good
sample of user's systems by polling in only a computer
hardware newsgroup?

What I mean is, for someone's main system we'd expect that
to be far newer than 10 years old in this group, but perhaps
more interesting would be the oldest system they use at
least once a year and what they use it for.

I have a ton of old systems... though I think I threw out
anything older than Pentium 2 era last year. I keep them
around as parts spares for other people's systems, and
testing purposes. Oldest thing running regularly is a
Celeron 500 system as a fileserver... it just won't die.

It just relates to whether it is worth doing anythinig to
extend the life time of a PC.
It seems most will be obsolete before they fail.

 

[Yugo]

I live near the University of Wisconsin (Milwaukee)
and I'm sure most of the stuff is from students discarding their "old junk"

Although the p-IV and Celeron were a bit beyond my average find...

Next time I move, it will be near a university... hoping that it receives
many students from UAE

 

[meow2222]

my main ones nothing like that age, but there are certainly a
significant number of people using P1s as their main home machine
still. At one site a couple of years ago it was normal to find some of
the staff and visitors using P1 kit. Never spotted a 486 there. I
expect they'd be a bit alienated from groups like this though, as whats
discussed is mostly not P1 relevant, and theyre evidently not going to
do any upgrading, not even spending a few notes on a cpu.


I got one well over a decade old that still sees use, its still fit for
purpose. I saw corporate 486s that were in use last year.

In some places there are a few 80s PCs still in use, but not here. I
was told at one point 386s had been spotted as web servers, but I
couldnt swear to that. I had some contact with folks running 286s in
the 2nd half of the 90s for business word processing / database use.

It just relates to whether it is worth doing anythinig to
extend the life time of a PC.
It seems most will be obsolete before they fail.

I've seen around 33% death rate for P2 era machines so far. But this
probably isnt an accurate reflection of overall death rate from new.
I'm not sure that anything much could be done to extend life though.
Soldering additional caps to mobos maybe.


NT

 

[kony]

It just relates to whether it is worth doing anythinig to
extend the life time of a PC.
It seems most will be obsolete before they fail.

Lots of systems fail but are repaired, if/when the value of
the system is higher than repair cost.

If it relates to whether it's worth doing anything to extend
the life, it would have a lot to do with what you'd do, how
long you consider to be the useable life, and the value of
the system.

I suspect today's systems will have a longer viable lifespan
than those from '96, at that point they were still sluggish
running a basic GUI while today the most common applications
run easily.

 

[JohnS]

This is you main computer.
I am particularly interested if anyone (truthfully) has a main
computer 10 years or more old. (relates to an earlier post).

To start the ball rolling my computer is in its first year ( ~3 months old).

When a decent MB/cpu combo comes around I jump on it. Every 6mos -1 yr
theres a clearance of a pretty good combo as prices are cut so its
nuts to keep using some ancient system. I think its torture to use
anything older than a 1 yr unless you are one of those users with
really modest needs. However there are times when a 2-3 yr system can
still be decent if certain things dont change much.

My main system is a 3800 X2 dual core which was upgraded from a 3000
AMD 64 I bought last yearand Im still using the same motherboard after
selling my CPU. Right now is a great time with prices really falling
on both AMDs and INTELs this month - to upgrade.

My other systems though were getting really old. The 2nd and 3rd
systems are the ones that tend to be OLD. I had an Athlon 1 gig whch I
was using for years as a 2nd system. I upgraded it to a 1600 all last
year and then sold that and upgraded to a 2800 sempron which I bought
for two systems. The other one replaced a 1.4 Tbird which was in use
for the last couple of years for a person who mainly just used it for
the net and word processing etc. Since you can get a combo sempron and
MB for $60-70 now its kind silly not to upgrade unless you are on a
really tight budget. I aslo have another 3200 AMD 64 system since I
got that on a killer deal. You find so many great deals the last 2
years its hard to justify not upgrading unless you REALLY dont care
much about PCs and are a real light user. I got a 9600 though a weird
variant with only 64 megs for someone for $22 the last month.

 

[Bazzer Smith]

Lots of systems fail but are repaired, if/when the value of
the system is higher than repair cost.

If it relates to whether it's worth doing anything to extend
the life, it would have a lot to do with what you'd do, how
long you consider to be the useable life, and the value of
the system.

I suspect today's systems will have a longer viable lifespan
than those from '96, at that point they were still sluggish
running a basic GUI while today the most common applications
run easily.

Well my old system circa 1998 system still runs fine (was using it today),
cost me £500 including monitor, and that was a 'rock bottom' system.
The new system (minus monitor) cost £280, taking inflation into account
you could say £200? (or less).
It would be utterly pointless repairing my old system now if it failed,
waste of time and money. (you can buy MP3 players with more memory!!!).

I think I have to conclude that computers are now disposable items,
if my new system failed I would probably just buy a new one!!
( I certaintly would pay to have it repaired, I would expect to do
that myself anway).
I think the truth is old systems only have a value as scrap metal,
as indeed is the case now.

 

[Bazzer Smith]

Well my old system circa 1998 system still runs fine (was using it today),
cost me £500 including monitor, and that was a 'rock bottom' system.
The new system (minus monitor) cost £280, taking inflation into account
you could say £200? (or less).
It would be utterly pointless repairing my old system now if it failed,
waste of time and money. (you can buy MP3 players with more memory!!!).

I think I have to conclude that computers are now disposable items,
if my new system failed I would probably just buy a new one!!
( I certaintly would pay to have it repaired, I would expect to do
that myself anway).
I think the truth is old systems only have a value as scrap metal,
as indeed is the case now.

Indeed the 'case' is probably the most valauble part of my old system!!

 

[Bazzer Smith]

my main ones nothing like that age, but there are certainly a
significant number of people using P1s as their main home machine
still. At one site a couple of years ago it was normal to find some of
the staff and visitors using P1 kit. Never spotted a 486 there. I
expect they'd be a bit alienated from groups like this though, as whats
discussed is mostly not P1 relevant, and theyre evidently not going to
do any upgrading, not even spending a few notes on a cpu.



I got one well over a decade old that still sees use, its still fit for
purpose. I saw corporate 486s that were in use last year.

In some places there are a few 80s PCs still in use, but not here. I
was told at one point 386s had been spotted as web servers, but I
couldnt swear to that. I had some contact with folks running 286s in
the 2nd half of the 90s for business word processing / database use.



I've seen around 33% death rate for P2 era machines so far. But this
probably isnt an accurate reflection of overall death rate from new.
I'm not sure that anything much could be done to extend life though.
Soldering additional caps to mobos maybe.

As far as the net is concerned any system over about 5 year old
is not worth repairing.