How long do your computer usually last?

[Rob-F]

Still going strong are my:

1980 Apple IIe (I use it in the office for making forms)

1998 Compaq Presario Laptop (I use it in the office for billing)

Two year-old iMac, running Snow Leopard (Typing on it now)

Two year old 13" Macbook (For travel; wife has it on the plane currently)

Dead and buried is my 2003 (or so) Sony VAIO. The screen died after fewer than five years of use. Best Buy wanted $1000 to replace it. Most expensive ($2500) pile of junk I ever bought.

Averaging all my computers, I will vote for "more than 5 years."

[craygc]

Originally Posted by photomoof

There is really only one way for a computer to slow, the hard drive is so full that it is having a problem creating temp files. The processors and ram either work or don't, they can't slow down.

Unless subsequent OS or apps updates are slurping resources or leaking memory

[raydm6]

I had an AMD Quad-Core PC running Vista built for me over 3 years ago by a boutique house in NJ (Maingear) and it's still going strong. Prior, had a Win98 Dell box for over 5 years, and prior to that, Apples. May go to an iMac next after this PC dies.

[thegman]

Originally Posted by photomoof

What "cheap" Macs did you have break quick? Better question, what Macs do you consider "cheap?"

I run the least expensive Mac, the Mini, second one, never turn them off, nothing poorly made in then which would make me assume they will fail any more than the most expensive ones, the motherboard is quite elegant, HD Hatachi, memory Samsung.

My work bought maybe 5 iBooks, and they ALL failed, mostly the CD drives, but also screens and hard disks.

If I had to guess why the cheap ones fail more than the pricey ones, it's probably the small size, overheating etc. My old MacBook (which had an array of issues) ran far too hot to use on my lap.

Macs are no more likely to fail than PCs (anecdotally at least, they fail less). However, internally Macs are just the same as PCs nowadays, so your only hope for greater reliability is better parts, or better build. The build of less expensive Apple notebooks at least has historically been very bad, the build of the expensive ones is historically very good.

The quality of parts, well Apple can be the victim of what they buy every bit as much as any other PC OEM.

[maddoc]

My Thinkpad X30 died suddenly around three month ago after my son had dropped it a couple of times from a table ... I had bought it in October 2003 and it was still sufficient to scan film (IEEE1394 port) and some simple postprocessing in PS (Elements).

[tedwhite]

The OP's photograph of his computer - is that an Osborne I, circa 1981? I remember another metal-cased computer, had a name something like K-Pro? With the Osborne (British, I believe) it weighed 24 pounds, had a 5" built in display, 64K memory, 2 5 1/4 disk drives, and came with Wordstar 101.

[gb hill]

This Dell Dimension 4100 is been in use since 2001. Only upgrade is Windows XP. The memory is maxxed out & it's slowed a bit. One secert to long lasting is I never turn it off. I just let it sleep. Only goes off in a power failure. It's been proved if you want to kill the life of a computer or TV then turn it off & on.

[sepiareverb]

Originally Posted by photomoof

There is really only one way for a computer to slow, the hard drive is so full that it is having a problem creating temp files.

Another purge is in order.

Originally Posted by photomoof

The "static" is more disturbing. You may be eligible for a replacement computer logic board, since there is a known problem with some Nvidia video chips in the Mac Pro. The warranty was extended - but you may be outside that.

Likely outside of warranty yes. This is from early 2008. I do get occasional error messages in PS CS5 saying that there is a problem with the display drivers, the static is only when waking from sleep, and usually 5% of the screen for only a few seconds- ten at most. Jarring to say the least. I'm thinking of taking the Mac Mini route as well.

[Lilserenity]

Funny how I saw this thread yesterday but had a busy schedule and thought I'd check that out today...

...well my computer died today! GAH!

Thankfully my brother has left his stuff whilst he moves to London with me so I have snagged his PC for now.

Mine lasted just 3 years, which means I was expecting some more from it.

Pretty gutted really.

I have my Powerbook G4 15" still though, it's a bit slow but serviceable. It's the last ones they made with a high resolution screen (1400 x 960 or something like that) and the better graphics card.

I hope to win a Dell Vostro 400 local to me on eBay tonight, it comes with a widescreen monitor which will be a change from my CRT I guess.

Still gutted. Thank god the hard disk and for that matter the backup hard disk is OK.

Generally speaking I begrudge spending any money on computers, so I do generally expect at least 5 years out of a computer; so 3 years is pretty bad in my book.



Vicky

[Mablo]

I generally hate Macs because they represent the worst kind of technological silo I've ever seen in the IT industry. But I do have one. A Mini that I've installed to run a Linux. Only to piss off that certain type of Mac users.

[mugent]

I've really only bought mid to high end macs, and they've all been faultless. My experience with PCs is much more limited, but the only computer in my house that has a hardware fault is a PC laptop, more through poor treatment than anything, but the built quality is noticeably worse than any mac I've had, it cost less too of course.

Some macs in the past have had bulld issues, but I don't think any do at the moment.

[Vasilis]

Usually 4-5 years, i make all maintenance and upgrades myself.
If it was a heavy gaming pc , i would probably have to upgrade each year, :P

[Thardy]

Originally Posted by photomoof

You are among several who note their machines have slowed. There is really only one way for a computer to slow, the hard drive is so full that it is having a problem creating temp files. The processors and ram either work or don't, they can't slow down.

My iMac's HD is pretty much full now (200+ gb out of 250) It rapidly filled when my scanner dumped all the raw files onto it. A salesgirl at Best Buy clued me to Time Machine and a 4T external HD. I guess it's time for a big purge of the internal HD.

[Thardy]

Originally Posted by Mablo

I generally hate Macs because they represent the worst kind of technological silo I've ever seen in the IT industry. But I do have one. A Mini that I've installed to run a Linux. Only to piss off that certain type of Mac users.

I'm so mad ... I could spit!

[bwcolor]

Originally Posted by Mablo

I generally hate Macs because they represent the worst kind of technological silo I've ever seen in the IT industry. But I do have one. A Mini that I've installed to run a Linux. Only to piss off that certain type of Mac users.

What do you mean by "technological silo"? Are you saying that the whole mess, hardware and software is defective, antiquated, or poorly designed? I must admit that I have many Macs, but I do enjoy the simplicity, speed and stability of Linux..Ubuntu distro.

[sepiareverb]

Just about done opening up about 75GB of space on my internal drive.

[Rogier]

Sound like the NVDiA graphics chip is on it's way out. When it finally fails take it to Apple where they can test if it's indeed this chip. MLB replacement will be covered under an extended warranty program paid by NVDiA !

Originally Posted by sepiareverb

I'm going into my fourth year on this MacBook Pro, and it is beginning to show its age, slowing down despite regular maintenance. My screen has been getting bouts of static as well- I'm just starting the process of finding a new machine.

[Rogier]

Production of iBooks stopped at least 6 years ago.......

Originally Posted by thegman

My work bought maybe 5 iBooks, and they ALL failed, mostly the CD drives, but also screens and hard disks.

If I had to guess why the cheap ones fail more than the pricey ones, it's probably the small size, overheating etc. My old MacBook (which had an array of issues) ran far too hot to use on my lap.

Macs are no more likely to fail than PCs (anecdotally at least, they fail less). However, internally Macs are just the same as PCs nowadays, so your only hope for greater reliability is better parts, or better build. The build of less expensive Apple notebooks at least has historically been very bad, the build of the expensive ones is historically very good.

The quality of parts, well Apple can be the victim of what they buy every bit as much as any other PC OEM.

[biomed]

I like to build a new machine every 3 - 4 years. I can't remember ever having a computer completely fail. My son and daughter have had hard drive problems and other assorted maladies on their computers, which dad has to fix. My latest computer was built to have as much airflow through the case as possible with minimal fan noise. Managing heat seems to be the secret of long life, for a computer at least. I tend not to buy the latest and greatest hardware, so most of my builds are a bit conservative. I still have my first "real" computer, a trash 80 4P. A Z80, 64k of ram, an internal 300 baud modem and no hard drive. Life was much simpler then.

[Prest_400]

My first computer was a 1998 PC which I got in 2001, at age 6, Dad got it free from his company. It was a PII, 4 GB hard drive, 128MB RAM with windows 98.
It got some upgrades, like a new HDD (20 GB), extra RAM and Windows ME. I hated windows ME because I couldn't play some of the games I had.

It still works fine. Although now it's in it's retirement, as storage, in one of the rooms of our old house. Sadly obselescense took it's toll. It probably couldn't even browse the net, because it wouldn't support flash or a new browser.

It's funny that nowadays a small thingly like an iPod touch has better specs than my first desktop.

My next computer was bought in September 2006. It was a PC with great specs back then and they are still decent. It works fine but sadly it takes 10 minutes to turn on. Probably needs an HDD formatting because I messed with double boot and partitions, and reverted it to one partition.

The other one is an ASUS laptop bought in Feb 2010. Very fine working. Only has some odd spontaneous BSOD crashes from time to time.

[Bingley]

Originally Posted by tunalegs

My current laptop is going on five now. I back things up on an external hard drive to be careful, but I just bought a new battery for it last year so I'm hoping to at least get another year out of it.

On the other hand, this sheet metal beauty is going on 25, and still running strong!:

Cool Kaypro, right? I've got a Kaypro sitting out in the garage that I used in the mid-1980s, back when IBM XT innards and a 10MB hard drive were cutting edge.

I keep my computers for about 5 years. I've never had one fail on me. They just get slow, and the hard drives fill up. I just replaced the one I'd used for the previous 5 years or so for that reason.

[Rico]

My daily driver is a PC w/ dual Pentium 933MHz, Serverworks HE chipset, 66/64 PCI, five SCSI buses, expandable to 8GB RAM. This 24/7 machine was cutting edge in 2001, and been fixed over the decade: new PS, new SCSI HD (killed when I hot-plugged it), new CDRW drive. I'm currently running it with dead CPU fans. At home, the Pentium Pro 200 box gets some use. Laptops are Panasonic Toughbooks - made in Japan - with one CF-73 at six years old. Not recently powered up are two Amiga 3000UX (Amiga UNIX editions), and this collectible:

[jarski]

my only "fail" was when ~4 yo. MacBook was stolen.

been lucky HD wise, never lost one (in ~15 years). I suspect this is because havent used heavy duty virus checkers, that usually bring any computer to stone age by constantly scanning the disk.

[thegman]

@Rogier: Indeed, and my more recent MacBook suffered similar issues, cracks in the case, flickering screen etc. It's CD drive last OK though.

@Rico, BeBox, awesome!

[Benjamin Marks]

Thank you all for your input. Hmm, it does seem like the Mac users are happier as a group than the Windows users. Or maybe the Windows users rave less. This was not the point of the poll, but it does seem to be borne out anecdotally.

Any thoughts about the difficulty of porting one's expensive software life over to another platform (CS5, Lightroom, Topaz, Silver EFX plug ins, etc.?).

In any event, my current plan will be to do a clean install of Windows 7 on the current box with mirrored enterprise drives. Hopefully this will reduce the chance of my being in the same position again if the primary drive fails. I have tried the on-24x7 approach and also the turn-on-when-needed approach. Neither seemed to result in more computer longevity, particularly with rural power dips as we have them. The ability to use more RAM is what tipped me over into the W7 camp. Also that upgrade path is an order of magnitude less expensive, when you consider software expense, than going with a Mac at this point.

For all of you who posted pix of beloved dinosaurs, I did have an IBM luggable (8088) with dual disk drives from 1985, which I toted around the world with me. Very robust machine. It is fair to say that they don't make them like that anymore. Since Windows 2000, I have had less luck with keeping machines up and running. If this machine craps out in the next 24 months, maybe it will be time to consider switching camps. All things considered it does seem to make more sense to spend $1500 every five years than $800 every 3, particularly when you factor in the amount of time it takes to move programs and files from one computer to another.

Ben Marks