Computers

[Janice]

How often do you upgrade and buy a new computer? Mine is four years old, 82% free space, and still hanging in there. I find no reason to buy a new one now.

[kevin]

(copied from my answer in the other thread)
Computers never really lose processing power though eventually they will break. I think the longest I'll use one is around 7 years. By then the hard drive is usually somewhat corrupted and I feel like getting an upgrade. We also do hand me down computers, since Grandma has no need to be on a computer that can add three billion numbers together in a second. Interestingly enough this is the opposite of the general hand me down pattern.

Recycle your computers if at all possible!

[Janice]

You are allowed to recopy I just thought I would get more answers by making this a new topic. Thanks

I basically just use my computer for surfing and playing, so I will hang on as long as it works.

[lurkey]

I held on to my last laptop until I saved up for new laptop. The amount of RAM and the size of the hard drive were the driving factors in getting a new one. I had the old laptop for 2 1/2 yrs and my sister had it before me for almost 2 years.
The old laptop was upgraded to a larger hard drive (original one was fried) and more RAM, but I got tired of the slowness and sluggishness.

[angelwing]

I've got 3 or 4 old computers given to me by my old job, they've been butchered for parts for the others that are in use, so technically we could use a new one as its about 5 years old. We just keep getting harddrives mostly now.
The laptop is used when we travel, he has to watch his MLB

[NEWeatherguy]

From 1996 to 2000, I had a 486 (remember those?). I actually liked it. It had one application on it where I could act like I was NOAA Weather Radio and type in statements into a Word Processor to make it sound computer-generated. (Ah, I miss those days!) The computer began to show its age.

In 2000, I upgraded to a store-bought, name-brand Compaq. It was great: I had Windows 98! LOL It was much faster, but it began to experience problems a year later. Once we had to re-install everything, including an expensive reconfiguration of the computer's networking (for broadband). I had a lot of stupid problems with the computer not booting correctly or not shutting down correctly.

Finally in 2003, I did a factory-direct, customer-designed computer from Dell. It has been much more reliable, not as many problems have been dealt with, except with the Dell printer (another story for another time!). Probably going to stick with this unit for several more years at least.

[abajan]

I'm pretty sure I use the oldest computer of any member here. It's a 1996 Gateway2000 I got in February 1997. It came 16 Megs of RAM (which is all it still has!) and Windows 95 but when I tried to connect to the Net, an error kept popping up. The computer repair store couldn't figure out what was wrong, so they upgraded it to Windows 98 SE for me (which is really meant to be operated with at least 32 Megs of RAM, I think).

The original 2.5 Gig hard drive eventually had to be replaced with a secondhand 9.5 Gig drive because the old one developed several irreparable bad sectors and the computer was having trouble restarting after each shut down and some files became inaccessible.

The floppy drive, CD-ROM drive and monitor also had to be replaced along the way. (Presently, I still use that second monitor which is one of those old fashioned bulky CRT types.)

The soundcard hasn't worked for some time now but IMO that's not such a big deal. (Though it would be nice to hear what some of those e-cards friends send me have to say LOL.)

And I dare not try to play one of those YouTube videos for fear of freezing my computer!

[coriolis]

I never bought a new computer. I've had some given to me and bought some cheap.

I'm typing now on a Dell Dimension P-2 350 WIN-ME, upgraded to 256 meg RAM, which I bought as surplus from my work. It has MS Word and Works on it and it does everything I need it to.

Our best running computer is a Micron Millenia P-3 600 WIN-XP with an odd combination of RAM somewhere around 300 meg which I let the kids use to play Runescape virtually all day and night. I also bought that as surplus from work for like $28.

We also have a Micro One P-2 400 WIN-NT with 256 meg RAM which we use when the others are busy. I'll tell you, NT is solid as a rock, but it has it's limitations. It only lets you open one instance of Internet Explorer at a time. I bought it as surplus from work too.

I have a mini-case Gateway P-3 866 waiting until I have the money to buy a new OS for it. I'll probably go with XP on it. It was given to me free with Win-ME that was FUBAR.

I have a Gateway AMD-500 box that has had some parts "borrowed" from it, but if I put it back together would still be ok.
I also have an older P-1 machine with windows 95 that would run if I set it up.

To answer your question, Janice, I really don't buy new to upgrade. I just juggle parts around and occasionally add a new used machine to the collection when I stumble across one.

[Kim_in_MN]

From 1996 to 2000, I had a 486 (remember those?).

I have a 386 in my basement - complete with the big 14.4 modem!!!

Kim

[MississippiHurricane]

Compaq Presario mutt (two of the same computer) 5030 from 1998 pentium 2 processor here

[alicia-w]

since my husband does so much photography work on the computer, we replace ours every three years or so.