How often to buy a new 'puter?For non-techie folks

Subject: RE: Tech: How often to buy a new 'puter?
From: GUEST,zigger
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 12:06 AM

When you stop holing the puts....

Subject: RE: Tech: How often to buy a new 'puter?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 11:06 PM

One of my hobbies is refurbing laptops. I just had a very good Dell 600 series [2004] which lost its hard drive. I replaced the hard drive and gave it to a friend to operate his ham radio setup. The data on the crashed hard drive is being recovered onto an external hard drive [originally from a pentium 3 computer]. We have 4 other active laptops right now.

Two Dells with XP and a couple of HP's are active right now. The HP's are a mini 110 with Windows 7 for which I replaced the monitor and another DV2000 which got raised from XP to Windows 7.

We also have a couple of desktops with XP, One serves as the hub for our system. The other is a 10 year old "spare" which also operates the CD printer/burner that Brother Greenhaus gave me. Even a somewhat tired machine is better than spending a lot of money when starting a business.

Lady Hillary and I attended a rollout of some business software last May. They told us that the current business software would not work with XP. That made the decision easy for us. We need to be compatible with the others in our business network.

If we did not need to upgrade, the only computer we have that would have 7 would be the Mini. That came with 7.

Any decision you make should include the question of future compatibility.

What I am saying is that there is no real reason to replace a computer unless the cost of repair is greater than the cost of replacement. Even when the computer dies, just stick the old hard drive in an external drive casing and keep working.

Subject: RE: Tech: How often to buy a new 'puter?
From: Gurney
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 11:01 PM

Unlike Jeri, 'my' Gateway, a W98 castoff that was given to me, is still going strong and co-habits with a big double-sided scanner/copier for which no no-later-than-W98 driver exists. But it isn't on the web, and doesn't get viruses.
This computer is on XP and I'll keep it until Microshaft stops the support. Like Leeneia.
I don't do anything that requires a lot of grunt. Since updating Microshaft O/S systems is an expensive option, this one will probably go onto Linux and I will have to learn a new 'language.'

Subject: RE: Tech: How often to buy a new 'puter?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 10:32 PM

I don't change things unless I absolutely have to. I don't believe that any new platform (Windows 7, Vista blah blah blah) is worth the trouble of changing years of habit.

Every few years something goes wrong, and I take it to the neighborhood shop, where the guys put in some new parts. I won't change from my XP until forced.

My computer is like George Washington's hammer - it's had four handles and three different heads, but it's still his hammer.

Subject: RE: Tech: How often to buy a new 'puter?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 09:39 PM

My BH is an on again off again technophile and I normally inherit his cast-off (laptop) after 18 to 30 months. Usually my oldie lasts until his next cast-off becomes available; once in a while he has to go shopping for something new to provide me with his cast-off. I'm not a techie at all. I do word processing, surfing, e-mail and bits of sound file editing, so my computer requirements are not nearly as high as the leading edge of what's available. What was available even 4 years ago is more than enough speed and storage for me. I stopped using desktops 2 or 3 computers ago when we got a wireless router, preferring to be flexible about where I sit. That's also when laptops reached what I considered to be a price worth paying.

So I guess our combined answer is, "when we have to."

There's a charity in the nearby city that repairs/refurbishes dead computers for needy kids, which is where the corpses go.

Subject: RE: Tech: How often to buy a new 'puter?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 09:37 PM

I started with a Commodore 128 (still in the basement), but I don't think it counts.

Yrs
7+ I bought a Gateway in 1998
   Replaced it in 2005 with another Gateway which was a piece of crap.
4 It died in 2009. As far as I know, the older one still works (I haven't tried starting it for 5 or 6 years)
6+ I then relied solely on a laptop I'd also bought in 2005. Still works great.
<1   Bought this last laptop in July.

These are all PCs. Except for the piece-of-crap Gateway that died, the other new computers were purchased because of new/better technology. If I'd needed to use the computers for work, I probably would have upgraded more frequently.

Subject: RE: Tech: How often to buy a new 'puter?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 09:29 PM

I'm not sure why techie or non techie should be different?

Anyway, at home here, I think it's more a matter of policy than need in terms of the old PC not being able to cope with the software on it.

We try to replace a PC after 4 years. The replacement is usually something near entry level (they have been Athlon dual cores for a while with 2GB RAM - although the motherboard bundle I got for the webserver had 4).

This policy seems fine for our Linux usage which does include updating to the newest version of the O/S within about a month of release.

Subject: Tech: How often to buy a new 'puter?
From: Janie
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 09:03 PM

If there had been room in the title, would have added - for non-techie folks.

Also interested in the frequency with which, for non-techies, one needs to buy a new pc vs a new Mac.