Replace or Rejuvenate Your Desktop

[frederick]

I get asked this a lot from customers, "should I just replace it or should I upgrade it?"

With your OEM boxes, I say you can get about 10 years out of the box easy. Somewhere after the mid-point, upgrade the RAM, replace the PSU (that's just my thing), and if need be, clone and transfer the OS drive to a new one, and if need be, upgrade the OS to something more modern. Sometimtes I can knock out one of these boxes for less than the price of a new one. But it depends on what it is used for too. Casual web surfing, or a small home office system with nothing too important on there excpet all those pictures from the family vacation to the grand canyon.

The custom box, way too easy. Take my media server for example. About every 2-3 years, for about a few hundred, she gets something upgraded or replaced. She is coming up on a new MoBo and Processor as her old Core 2 Duo is just not cutting it anymore. Sure, she's running Vista, and you can complain all you want about that, but honestly, I have no need to upgrade the OS as it has not once caused me a single problem. In the 8 years I've owned her, she runs like new (just needs a power boost with a new CPU and board), and I've spent less than $500 on her in the time I've owned her. It is way to easy to customize, upgrade and keep them going for many moons to come with a little TLC here and there.

But, there are times, when I say replace. Still using DDR1? TOSS IT!!!! PATA HDD's? Take it to the shooting range and see how high you can get those MB's to go! What the hell is a P4 processor (in my old age, sometimes I forget about the 90's)? People still have those? What it really comes down to then is what is it going to cost the wallet to find outdated RAM that the MoBo or OS will actually support that can be considered an "upgrade". If I can buy new for less, then that's what I'm going to do. Normally, if I crack open a case, and I don't see a single SATA port, it's not worth rejuvenating.

It's been a hard road getting my customers to see computers the way I do. Which if done right, they can last for quite the time, sometimes longer than their car ever will. I'm curious to see how you guys view computers these days.

On a personal note, tablets, laptops, and those annoying all-in-ones are all considered "toss when broken" in my book.

 

[altrenda]

"With your OEM boxes, I say you can get about 10 years out of the box easy."

"Still using DDR1? TOSS IT!!!! PATA HDD's? Take it to the shooting range and see how high you can get those MB's to go! "

I am not sure these 2 statement jive. But I am generally in agreement with the second one.

If it shipped with XP, it's probably time to go. Depending on the client, but for most of my customers, if it's 32 bit, let's make plans to get a new one.

For Mac's it's easy, as soon as there is software that you can't run, upgrade. For most of my clients, 2 generations behind and it's time to go shopping.

 

[14049752]

One thing you forgot, that's really just becoming economical: Put in an SSD. My Macbook is eight years old, only supports 2gb of ram, but with the SSD it still seems much snappier than most systems I work on.

 

[altrenda]

One thing you forgot, that's really just becoming economical: Put in an SSD. My Macbook is eight years old, only supports 2gb of ram, but with the SSD it still seems much snappier than most systems I work on.

Great point. Even with limited ram, with an SSD there is not much of a penalty to swap to the drive.

 

[frederick]

I did forget the SSDs. Thanks for that. If it shipped with XP, chances are it might have to get tossed. But I've seen some XP boxes from the manufacturer that do have SATA and DDR2. Many I've upgraded with a bigger HDD and more RAM, and upgraded to 7. Informing the client that in about 5 years, its done. Find a new one after that. These are computers that are not your gaming machines. These are your facebook and MS Word machines.

MACs, mostly what I see are laptops, and in 2 to 3 years of use, the customer wants to toss it and get windows cause they haven't been able to do the things they could with ease on a windows. The programs they use, etc. Many prefer the iOS iPad series, and use them well with their Windows computers. But they've pretty much ended up calling it quits with whatever cat they are calling their systems these days.

 

[cypress]

I still have my first computer that i built myself almost 10 years ago running strong. Only thing I did with it was upgrade O/S to Windows 7 about 4 years ago. I now use it at my test bench. Never had any issues with it *knock on wood*

I agree if you take care of the machines and replace what is needed from time to time then they should last you awhile. I built another one last year for my birthday present and I plan on keeping this for another 5-7 years. Just swapping out CPU and Mobo when needed.

I haven't had this oppurtunity to mess with SSD. Don't know anyone around me with one and my clients don't use it. I really only use my computer for surfing online and streaming videos and the occasional gaming.

 

[brandonkick]

It all comes down to a machine by machine evaluation for me. If it's something that can be upgraded (say a machine that can take a Q6600) and needs a bit more ram then it might be worthwhile. For $100 you can take a system that can use the Q6600, throw in an extra 4GB of ram and put some zip in that system.

I'm finding that this system I built 4 years ago is running great.

Core i7 930
6GB DDR3
ASRock x58 Extreme
ATI X5870 2GB
850W Antec PSU

I'm finding that even stock, with a stock cooler that I'm not noticing any issues performance wise at all (gaming included). I have a pair of 24" ASUS IPS 1080p monitors so it's not because of a lower resolution.

I do software development for a living now, and this system does everything I need it to. The last system I built felt older in one year, then this one does in four years. Last one was a AMD Operton 930, DFI Lanparty UT nF4, 2GB DDR memory, X1800XT video card (built in 06)

I can see myself continuing to use this system for at least the next 2-3 years (if not more) unless a major component needs replaced. I could even replace the PSU, grab a SSD, a cooler master hyper 212+ and OC my 930 to around 4.0ghz and MAYBE even upgrade the GPU as mine is still fairly powerful. $300 could keep this system going for another 4 years or more.

For customers, if the cost of the repair approaches 50% + of the cost of a decent new machine then I recommend against the upgrade. Why roll the dice on an 8 + year old mother board that could need recapped, power supply could need replaced, fans probably need replaced, CPU is probably ancient, system probably doesn't even support enough memory to be feasible for today's uses.