Comments on: Your PC is NOT Old

By: Benny Goodler

Benny Goodler — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:17:22 +0000

I was wondering about this – do you have any suggestions? I've done some research but haven't been getting very far. Looking for some guidance I guess…

By: nancy Kurtz

nancy Kurtz — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:10:32 +0000

Great article, but lacks the "how to". Why not be really helpful and tell us how to do all the things that you wrote about?
Nancy

By: chris paul uk

chris paul uk — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:48:55 +0000

I have had the suggested 2.5 yearly pc change and yes what a waste of money etc and damage environmentally. Our work place sends hundreds (honestly) to be recycled??yearly.
I have a great main machine with XP etc. But my favourite machine is the "latest" old one I have rebuilt out of reclaimed pc bits in my work shop – kind of backward engineering if you like.
They are cheap and will run on win eg win 2000 I have learned more this way than i could even from the internet. The "last model" are great for kids "coz yu aint screaming when they have downloaded something". When the XP machines start to age they will still be plenty fast enough for the average dude even if VISTA is then the oldie
So yes moving forwards is necessary but try going back just a bit and you may save a buck and your ist cardiac arrest.
PS I built a working pc flat on an old kitchen cupboard door (yes it was electrically safe)it was hung on the work shop wall, connections were intentionally "heath Robinson" and it worked a treat.Our IT manager loved it!!!! truly.

By: Paula

Paula — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:23:04 +0000

I refurbish old computers. I have found that the ones that run the best and upgrade easily are IBM Thinkpad laptops. These were designed for business users with more emphasis on performance rather than frills and prettiness, are sturdier, do not rely on "proprietary" software, peripherals, drivers or add-ons. IBMs used to be the standard that everyone else tried to match – remember "IBM-Compatible"? I can install an O/S in my IBM, take that hard drive, stick it in any laptop and it will boot-up like a champ. Try that with a Dell, Compaq or Gateway. 9 times out of 10 there are problems. My P3 IBM runs better than a P4 ANYTHING with twice the memory. The only other ones that come close are older Toshibas; they were ahead of their time but now the rest have caught up.

By: friedemann

friedemann — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:24:38 +0000

Whatever. It made some sense, but was hoping to see some programs to use to do this instead of having to "f" thru the "myriad" of programs that claim to be of benefit(and really turn out to be spamware or worse). I have been on computers before Microsoft was a "twinkle" in anybody's eye(so meaning the internet was no-net yet. I have gone thru alot of programs in the beginning when they came out-some good, some bad, some(really evil). Computers don't get old IF you use them for same old office procedures. However, if you want to upgrade to a newer version of the procedure chances are, the machine is not up to the task. This would also apply to going onto the net.
It doesn't help when OS are writing in DATA files(behind your back) that you can't clear out, unless you wipe the whole machine. I don't have old email files that I am aware of (unless the pc is keeping a copy). I don't want it, or a record of where I have been on the net(and that is the way it should be). So fixing that issue is more my concern.

By: jannorman

jannorman — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 04:51:04 +0000

Yes, sometimes new is NOT better. I am running win98se on a pentium III processor with a 19 gig hard drive. She does just fine for general web surfing and my wordsmith work. Sure she could be a litter faster, but she was given to me by my brother the tinkerer, Bob. My brother has now passed on, but his machines still live. I could afford a 'newer, faster, smaller, laptop, but I 'cut my teeth' being a computer operator(remember those guys) on an IBM 360/40 mainframe that had a total of like 10,000 kilobytes of memory. So there, wippersnappers. I'm saving my money for retirement.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:17:47 +0000

I am a serial games and application user, tryer, discarder and it is amazing no matter the program large or small simple or complex how many of them call home over the net whether to check for updates or otherwise. They also mostly insert themselves in the system startup without permisssion causing slow startup and shutdown. I have anti virus, antispyware, antimalware, ip blacklists etc all taking up CPU processes and ram causing it to slowdown.
If I was to stick to word processing and Email checking my PC would be like a rocketship saying that I would not need over half a terrabyte of hd space (which is full), 2 gig of 800mhz ram, 9600gt graphics and a dual core cpu. Oh dear my pc is getting old.

By: Merlin

Merlin — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:02:31 +0000

You forgot to mention the constant stream of updates, especially for Windows and Java, while Windows hides itself my Java updates are over 100 megs each and there are at least 7 of them now. My machine got real insistent that I let it install SP3 last week, on top of all the other updates over the last 18 months. At some point those two, at least, among many others, should just issue a new condensed version, let you delete all the updates that are spread out all over who knows where on your drive, thus cutting down the seek time dramatically. It would be the decent thing to do. My desktop is 99% dead right now, and Windows is the culprit. It is not my drivers being out of date as their additional information page you're sent to from a Blue Screen of Death event claims, which is also the only possible solution they ever mention. I pulled the drive, put in a new blank one and installed Linux, works perfect now. And I may never go back to that lopsided EULA leased lousy performance, non controllable software and OS.

By: jorge

jorge — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:59:18 +0000

Designed obsolescence.
I bought a HP desktop in 2002 with 512MB installed. Today's computers are able to access a lot more than 1GB of memory, yet that's the max I can install. Had I known it then, I would not have bought it. I know that more installable RAM = more $$$. Also, unless you like to spend money, there are free programs that are equal to if not better than their commercial counterpart.
Jorge

By: karl

karl — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:28:51 +0000

Much of what I read above in this blog makes allot of sense.
Software is getting bigger and bigger (takes up more RAM and Hard-Drive space), mainly I think because of lazy programmers who feel because memory and hard drive space is getting cheaper, then why should they bother to try to optimize their code writing. Applications do reach a point where they can no longer be run on an older machine because the BIOS or operating system won't support their needs. Power supplys do fail, Fans do fail, Hard drives eventually wear out. But no matter what you do there is a time that a computer will no longer be able to run with top efficiency, even if you are only running the older verisons of software and operating system. This is because ROM's and RAM's can only last up to a certain amount of write and read cycles (usually several 100,000's) before they become degraded. Their access time as a result of degradation will slowly decrease over time. The more you use your computer and the more times you have to boot it up; the quicker this degradation will occur. If during the assembly process the electronic components were accidently exposed to high sources of ESD, then the components (memory, Processor, etc.) can become damaged but still function and the device can fail much quicker then it was initially designed to do so. Most components on a computer motherboard are designed to last for approximately 10-15 years with a failure rate of around 1 ppm (part per million).

I finally had to buy a new computer (old one was about 6-7 years old) about 1-1/2 years ago, (even though I kept things cleaned out, defragged well and protected from viruses and other suspicious destructive software) because it got to the point that when I attempted to open a folder it took what seemed like forever (5-20 seconds or longer) to do so. It got to the point that when I changed an entry in one of my Excel spreadsheets cells it would take just as long or even much longer than the time described above for it to finally become visible. I suspect that one of the components on my mother board finally became so degraded that the computer was now almost finally worthless. Removing everything, including the OS and re-installing it seemed to make no difference. I don't use my computers for allot of fancy games and large amounts of internet downloading, and I still had tons of disk space left on that computer (used only about 6GB of 30GB hard drive); yet it still became practically unusable for the most part.