What is the typical useful life of your PC? ... 1, 2, 3+ years?

[Vermonter]

Highly recommend building your own. There are literally thousands of how to videos on youtube. From picking parts to putting it together to getting your OS of choice up and running. And not to mention you can usually reuse many parts and peripherals from build to build.

Also for Windows users, a clean install of an OS as opposed to a factory/dealer install will spare you mountains of bloatware issues and extend the life of the software. Even if I were buying from a store and planning on keeping windows, I'd still wipe it and reinstall once I got it home.

Have a clean install of W7 that has been problem free since 2012. It's on the desk behind me as a backup pc. It's definitely slowed down over 7 years, but still entirely functional. New build from last fall is currently running W10 in virtual machine on a linux host. Very happy with it for about 8 months now.

 

[Tom Woolford]

Highly recommend building your own. There are literally thousands of how to videos on youtube. From picking parts to putting it together to getting your OS of choice up and running. And not to mention you can usually reuse many parts and peripherals from build to build.

Also for Windows users, a clean install of an OS as opposed to a factory/dealer install will spare you mountains of bloatware issues and extend the life of the software. Even if I were buying from a store and planning on keeping windows, I'd still wipe it and reinstall once I got it home.

Have a clean install of W7 that has been problem free since 2012. It's on the desk behind me as a backup pc. It's definitely slowed down over 7 years, but still entirely functional. New build from last fall is currently running W10 in virtual machine on a linux host. Very happy with it for about 8 months now.

Agree completely with what you said except re-using old parts. One of the first things I learned when Racing is old parts will let you down every time. My experience with computers is the same. I've always used at least 3 monitors and invariably need a new video card if I want to take advantage of new technologies. Same with hard drives: I don't have any. I have small cards screwed to the motherboard etc. fir 1T in storage and 32K in memory. The newer cases are awesome for cable management. If you're gonna do it, go all the way.

 

[Michigander]

My desktop is 9-years old and works fine. My laptop is gaining on 2-years old and is starting to have issues. My Surface Pro 3 lasted less than a year. I am not at all savvy with technology.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

best addition is a battery backup to run the system

After a spike sent a bolt thru the motherboard, I went to multiple Battery UPSs and much fewer issues. No hard drive issues in years.

 

[CANative]

I am a low tech person and had no issues with Windows 10, why do people hate it? Seems to function okay. It runs my Alamode win total and gets email and internet that;s all I care about

Windows 10 is designed for girls and kids. Like that horrid Windows Vista.

I liken Windows 10 to those McDonalds cash registers that don't have words or numbers. Just pictures of hamburgers, french fries and chicken nuggets.

lol... jk

 

[CANative]

I use Dells, right off the shelf. They're inexpensive and easy to set up. I keep the hard drive from the old ones in a box, just in case. They last 5 to 10 years. For appraisal work and casual use they are fine and almost disposable. Not worth spending thousands for a fancy system.

 

[J in Florida]

When I was dragged kicking and screaming into the computer age, I wound up building several from scratch. They worked like champs (2000-2005 ish) then I started buying them from the stores and they went all Gainesville on me (Flesh Flakes for you Zappa fans). Since then, retiring and only doing "research" has kept them running quite well.

 

[Vermonter]

Agree completely with what you said except re-using old parts.

Honestly I've had good luck reusing old parts, but don't risk it on my work PC. I am using the same case, keyboard, mouse, speakers and 3 1080p monitors from my 2012 build. Along with an extra 1tb HDD (for backup). All work perfectly but none are critical to getting reports out.

Considering upsizing monitors and moving on from the trackball mouse. It's hard to give up tho especially with 5 feet of monitors to pan thru.

 

[CANative]

When I was dragged kicking and screaming into the computer age, I wound up building several from scratch. They worked like champs (2000-2005 ish) then I started buying them from the stores and they went all Gainesville on me (Flesh Flakes for you Zappa fans). Since then, retiring and only doing "research" has kept them running quite well.

I started using computers in about 1979 or so. Word processing on Hewlett-Packards in the Navy. When I got out, I began working as a news writer and then a commercial graphic artist. I set type using ancient Photon photomechanical typesetters programmed using an ASCII paper tape punch. Along came a former Photon technician that devised an interface that could be used to hook up an Apple IIe to the Photon via the AP (news) port on the Photon and "desktop publishing" was "born."

 

[Riick]

When you're building a computer for yourself, you always insure that the power supply and harddrive are high quality. I believe that PC manufacturers cheap out on these components.

Consumer grade drives are all pretty similar, IMO, power supplies are a horse of a different feather.
Put a few extra bucks ($25 in a build, $60-$85 in an upgrade) and get a quality 85-90% efficient PS, it's money well spent, have seen machines fried by a junk PS.
In addition, no one seems to remember you need a good surge protector, and it's best to shut your machine down when a thunderstorm hits.
( So you lose 20 minutes, but not your computer - good tradeoff )
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