Do you replace your computer...

I am a computer freak, plain and simple. If I could afford it, I would be constantly upgrading/replacing my computer through various new components. Since I can't affford it, I stay put. I am hoping to build a new rig in the next year or so, but bills and two house payments are keeping that date far, far away.

My current rig is about three years old. The CPU in it is newer (I upgraded it), as well as the graphics card (twice) and hard drive (added another one).

My old computer is now my wife's. It's about five years old. I have upgraded the RAM, hard drive, and graphics in it, as well as replacing the CD burner with a DVD burner and adding a second DVD drive, as well as a case fan.

 

I'm in the same boat as Trotter. If I could, I would replace it yearly because I'm a total geek. But since a nice desktop can run at least $800, it's not possible for me to make that kind of investment every year. So I only upgrade certain parts as needed (or when I find a great deal and happen to have some money to spend, which is rare). To make it "feel" like a new computer, I'll restore a fresh backup image every few months.

So as time passes, my computer slowly 'evolves' little by little. I'm not sure what part needs to be upgraded before it's officially considered a 'new' computer. My case, fan, power supply, TV tuner, and one of the hard drives were recycled (they were recent upgrades to my old computer). I haven't made any upgrades for over a year now, except for last month when I added 3x 160GB drives in RAID-5 since I needed reliable file storage.

I sold my newish laptop in February and bought an Eee PC 701 (broke even, so that I could afford). Now that they have out the new Atom powered 8.9" versions, I'm very tempted to upgrade. But I just can't afford that.

Why did I have to pick such an expensive hobby? Why can't I collect rocks...

 

Kubel, I think if your hobby was rocks - that would be expensive too

NO, not yearly and I use my computer for my part time work as a web designer. I'm fairly geeky. I do buy good ones, but I buy them on sale. I work them hard and love to get three years out of them. Then I'm fascinated at how the new one runs like the wind in comparison! :thumbs:

 

With a couple kids in college I got to purchase new computers three times in the past four years... but I don't get to use them :tear:

Mine's about 4 years old, it's showing it's age but I'm not really pleased with upgrading (downgrading?) to MSVista so I'm hanging on to this one until it dies.

The only program that stresses it a bit is my Bible program (Libronix) which can be slooow--oww during searches.
A new CPU and more RAM sure wouldn't hurt

I'll probably go with a laptop when it happens.
Everythings backed up for the inevitable... learned the hard way more than once.

Rob

 

I started a bit later, the most expensive computer I ever purchased was my first!
It was a Quantis; running a whopping 133 MHZ
and perhaps 66 RAM (I can't really remember though).
Cost me about $2300 at the time.
I still have it in the garage somewhere, probably a mouse's house. :laugh:
I upgraded a few things; I think it has Windows Millenium on it (but Windows Melanoma would have been a more appropriate name).

Rob

 

LOL! My dh, who is a computer guy, and I had the "how old are our computers anyway" discussion just the other day.

It came about because I dared to rearrange all the computer equipment and move it to a bigger table, so I could in turn rearrange all my sewing equipment.

He accused me of killing his machine. The same machine he'd been telling me for some time was on it's last leg. Turned out he had simply burned up the video card. I told him he had but of course "I" couldn't be right and "I" shouldn't have moved the computers and he wouldn't have the problem.

Anyhow, I was right and the computer that had been making noise for weeks is now quietly humming away in it's new spot on the bigger computer table that holds most of the computer equipment......

And we decided that his computer is at least 5 years old, mine is older than that, my daughter's laptop is around the same age, and my son's old desktop has to be at least 4 years old. The newest computer in the house is son's new laptop ($400 Acer from Wally world that son earned the money for) that DH spent hours ripping vista off of and installing XP. He's not a vista fan....

I'm not thinking that new computers are anywhere near the priority list for this house anytime in the near future.

 

LOL! Evidently! :laugh:

 

I put all mine together, one piece at a time like Johnny Cashes Cadillac. I currently am running a AMD 1.3 gig machine, with a total of 6 drives in it. 2 burners, 2 hard drives, a zip drive, and of course the old standard A drive. With about 12 combined USB ports, I run a lot of junk outside of the box. Oh yeah by the way all that is in an old Gateway case, I really don't know how old it is, but it was an old pentium ll - 350.

Its about 6 years old now, and I have no plans to replace it soon. The old saying goes "if it aint broke, don't fix it".

 

Sheesh....I ain't alone!!
Sorry..but I just got a newer computer & still ain't happy. This one is handbuilt, 1.7 processor...but only 256 ram. But it holds it's own...don't have to worry about melting a video card!
My old,(still have it) was a dell, about 97 or 98, with 450 cpu, but at least I had it up to 320 on ram. 16 mb video, with win2000 pro. Still works great!
Also have an older IBM laptop I just installed Linux on. 650 with 128 ram...works fine!
My dream...to have a computer like on the Enterprise!!

 

Well the very next day after I said, "if it ain't broke dont fix it". Mine got a virus from Torment, and went kerplunk.

But its fixed now, and still trucking.

There's a little more ram in this one than 256 mb, 768 to be exact, and that's its limit unfortunately. The video card is 64 megs. And I just spent another $32 on a five port usb 2.0 pci card, so I plan on it staying around maybe another 5 years or so. That is if the Lord does not come first.

 

I get a new computer when the last one dies.

About a year ago I bought a new laptop because I had to go back to school and the old machine wouldn't handle the needed programs.

It came with Vista :BangHead: . I still couldn't run the needed programs. I was going to get XP for it and I found that there were no drivers for some of the hardware writen for Vista. For several months I had a usless machine.