How long has your computer lasted?

[Shawn]

I agree with the guy who said they could last decades. I still have an IBM PC jr from 1983 that still works (or at least it did last time I powered it on a few years back). One of the floppy drives no longer reads discs but it has a second drive that still works.

With that being said, most of the floppy discs have become unreadable. Luckily I still had a dos disk that worked so I was able to get it to boot. I don't know if it would still work if it had been used everyday since 83, however it lost it's usefulness long ago.

My granddad still used it all the time for word processing though until 1999 when we finally got him a modern computer (He was really resistant to windows and a mouse at first). Still, that's 16 years of frequent use.



On another note, I've had my current rig for 5 years now. Just a few months ago I swapped out my C2D E6300 for a C2Q Q8200 and got an SSD in order to help speed things up a bit and squeeze some more years out of it. Hoping to get it to last me another 3-4 years before I have to replace the CPU, mobo, ram, and video card. Already have 8GB of ram, but it's DDR2 so I'd have to re-buy again.

I don't see any reason to upgrade... I am using my computer as a DVR with a cablecard tuner and it is plenty fast enough for that.

 

[drizek]

My laptop is 15 months old, but it has a Core 2 Duo and it is time for an upgrade to a newer Macbook Air. Thankfully, macs have good resale value.

My desktop is... I have no idea. I basically rebuilt the whole thing last summer, but it is still running a Phenom II X3 720 BE. I bought that nearly 3 years ago. Everything else in the system has changed though, slowly. Mobo, all new ram, ssd, I have the HDD still but it is actually an RMA replacement, blu ray drive, new PSU, case is the same, USB 3 adapter, I took out my sound card... basically it's a whole new computer. But up until last summer the Phenom II was the only new part and the rest of it was from... a really long time ago, running an Athlon X2 5000+

 

[NAC]

I upgrade a part of the computer about once a year - either a new monitor, HD, SSD, video card, more memory etc.

I do a large upgrade of MB, CPU and memory on a five year cycle it seems: in 2002, 2007, and in 2012 - soon to go to Ivy Bridge.

In 2007, my PC had a E4300, 2 gigs ram, I forget what video card - perhaps an 8800GT, and I believe a 300 gig HD. It now has a Q8300, 4 gigs ram, a 6950, 3tb of hard drives and a SSD.

I've only had three components fail on me in about 20 years of computer tinkering:
A CPU I fried with incorrect voltage.
A video card expired after about a year
And a HD which I fried when experimenting with giving 7 volts to a fan.

 

[tweakboy]

From 1996 - 2002 I did upgrades / system builds every other year.

However, since 2002 I have only done 2 upgrades, one big one in 2007 after 5 years (E6600, 8800 GTX) and another small one 4 years later last fall 2011 (E8400, GTX 460 768MB).

Blame it on the console generations.

The PC in my sig was the 2002 build I did.

I had same mobo ASUS A7N8X-E , its a beauty LOL, I mean its never gonna go bad if your a proper person and user.......... I remember back when if you had a a64 2 core, you had a beast.....before Core 2 came out and crushed AMD.......

 

[Pantlegz]

Lately not nearly long enough but I think this last one will last a while. About 2 years ago I made the jump from my E8400 to an i7 950 and from 2xgtx 260's to 2xGTX460's. Somewhere between then and now I picked up an SSD. Early this year I upgraded to an i7 3280, the old motherboard died and it was a good excuse to upgrade. And I got a pair of GTX 680's when they came out. My current setup should last me at least 3-4 years, hopefully more. Probably more because I'm finding less and less time to play video games. In a few years I may simply have a super powerful internet surfer.

 

[johnnyjohnson]

Almost 4 years - my current build dates from the summer of 2008. It's an e8400 oc'd to 3.5Ghz on a Gigabyte EP45-DS3R board. It's been a great system but I just got myself a 2600K and will be building a new system this week.

 

[Sephire]

I plan to upgrade as soon as Windows 8 is released.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I plan to upgrade as soon as Windows 8 is released.

Hopefully, you don't mean to upgrade TO a Windows 8 machine, however.

 

[JimmiG]

Mobo is from 2007, CPU from 2009, GPU from 2010. Don't know what constitutes a "computer"..

It will soon be time for a total rebuild however. I need more RAM for virtualization (can't find DDR2 RAM for cheap any more), and a faster CPU for flight sims (X-Plane and FSX are both CPU hogs). Might keep the GTX460 for a little while since I just have a 22" screen at 1680x1050.

 

[MountainKing]

My PC is a nearly 6 year old Conroe E6600. Ive added a HDD with it and one 1GB RAM from its stock 2GB (losing the dual channel config) but I will not be upgrading until Blueray is really common where I live because I would do much encoding and the more I wait, the more faster my encodes will be once I upgrade my rig when blueray becomes the norm!

 

[chubbyfatazn]

My laptop is 15 months old, but it has a Core 2 Duo and it is time for an upgrade to a newer Macbook Air. Thankfully, macs have good resale value.

Only 1.25 years? My C2D from 2007 still runs great and snippy after I put an SSD in. I put in an old 40GB SSD into a mid-2006 Core Duo laptop for my aunt, and it runs super sexy (I'm on my meds now and about to fall asleep).

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Only 1.25 years? My C2D from 2007 still runs great and snippy after I put an SSD in. I put in an old 40GB SSD into a mid-2006 Core Duo laptop for my aunt, and it runs super sexy (I'm on my meds now and about to fall asleep).

Lol

 

[destey]

Two years ago I upgraded to a K8. Then I recently upgraded to a core 2. I figure I'm about 5 years behind. It all comes down to money.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I bought an Athlon XP 2400 in 2003. I used it until 2007, gave it to a friend, he's still using it.

I replaced it with a Q6600 in '07, still using it. No plans to upgrade soon.

 

[HOOfan 1]

I have a Petium 4 1.9 Ghz which was never upgraded at all. I bought it in 2001 but I barely use it anymore. My mom has a Pentium 4 1.8Ghz which she bought in 2002 and has used it virtually every day for the past 10 years. I added some RAM to it. Of course it is slow as crap.
I have a 1.7ghz Pentium M laptop from 2003 that gets used virtually every day. It is also getting kind of slow.

I played games on a Commodore 64 well into the 90's. I bet I could pull it out and it would still work.

 

[Yellowsamuel]

Had my Inspiron 9400 since late 2005 I think, upgraded the HDD to 500 gig 7200 to replace the 120 gig 5400 one it shipped with. The GPU burnt out and dell replace it in 2009, the battery light is always on now but I always have it plugged in when I use it anyway. Built my desktop last August (I5 2500K) I can see it lasting a LONG time.

 

[thaf]

AMD 3800+, 2gb RAM, 7800gt still rocking it for well over 6 years and I'm finally considering a new build. I will most likely repurpose my current box to a MAME build.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I built a 1.1ghz Athlon machine in 2001 or something. Feb 2001, my join date. I kept it running til maybe 2008 or so. I stopped using it in 2005, but my parents used it for a while til I got a $50 motherboard+CPU from my friend and stuck that in for them.

In 2005 I built me an Athlon 64 system. I upgraded to dual core in 2006, but I stuck with the same system til about 2010 when I cashed in a bonus check for a i7 920. I make my systems last a LONG time. I'm thinking of waiting a while before upgrading this system I'm on now.

The only thing holding me back is its 2008 video card (4850). With that said I finally upgraded my parents to an i3 last year and the Athlon64 systems serve as Bitcoin rigs now, so the fact that the A64 systems went for 6 years is pretty darn impressive.

 

[MustISO]

I have a Pentium D system from 2006 which works perfectly. Runs XP, Vista and Windows 7 very well. My gaming system is only a year old but I'm guessing it's going to last a very long time. All of my systems have always been home built and I've only had 1 bad motherboard, 1 bad PSU and a 2 bad HD's in about 17 years.

 

[georgec84]

Dell Dimension 4500 from 2002 (Pentium 4, 1.8 GHz) still rocking. Not my primary PC by any means but I use it for occasional web browsing and music storage.

I did a clean install last year, and it was amazing how seamless the Windows XP updates were from the factory version through SP3.

 

[crownjules]

My last machine was pieced together in Jan 2008. E8400, P35 board, and an 8800GT. Lasted until this month with only upgrading the video first to a 5770 then a GTX460. I'm pretty sure I could have stretched it another year or so if I had to but I got the parts to upgrade for my bday.

 

[jmagg]

I submit this from a P3 600mhz, 512 laptop.

 

[Onita]

I built this computer in 2009. Only thing I've changed is vid card.

 

[PrinceXizor]

Still using my build from around 2002 (I think). Used Thunderbird Athlon XP, 1GB Ram, 80GB HD, Radeon 9500, XP SP3. Definitely ready to upgrade but I'm reluctant to mess w/ new software since I don't do anything special with it. Guess I'm officially old

P-X

 

[coldpower27]

As long as I needed it too, I have never had a computer die on me before.

Pentium 200 MMX was my first PC, that was replaced with a Pentium 3 800 MHZ in 2000, then didn't have money for sometime and didn't get it replaced till something like 06 with a Celeron D 347, then shortly after a Core 2 Duo E4300.

After that saw a deal on a Core 2 Duo E8400 and built a system around that, and finally got a deal on a Core i7 970, so built system around that... Going to hold off for now until Haswell based processors come out.