Things are looking pretty grim out there economically speaking. People aren’t spending money because people aren’t spending money. That means we all need to hunker down until people tire of not spending money. Here are some suggestions for hunkering down with your aged computer and not spending much money to do so.

Obviously it makes sense to keep your computer in top operating condition all the time. That message needs to be heeded carefully now that you may find yourself unable to go out and drop a few thousand dollars on a new computer system just because the old one starts to act up. Stretching your money, and your investment in your PC or Mac, is possible and necessary.

The typical computer has a lifespan of about 7 years. That wasn’t always the case. Back in the 1990s, I replaced my computers every 2 years. Then I boosted that up to every 4 years. Recently I retired a computer of mine after 9 years of service. (It still works, despite being relegated to the “bone yard” in the garage.)

Normally, if your PC were pushing 7 years, I’d recommend replacing it at once. Heck, I think if you’re in business and your computer is pushing 5 years, you should retire it. These are not, however, normal times.

The first thing to go on an older computer is the hard drive. Disks have only so many spins in them. Once that final spin number draws closer, the hard drive will start to fail. As the hard drive is your PC’s primary storage device — containing the operating system, your programs, plus all the stuff you collect and create — a failed hard drive is bad news. It’s a system-killer.

Part of regular PC maintenance is backing up the hard drive. If you don’t have an external hard drive, get one and use it for backup. The investment you make is going to be less than $100, but that’s far cheaper than buying an entire new computer.

If you want to be more bold, get a second internal hard drive for your older computer. Clone your PCs first hard drive to the second hard drive, then start using that second hard drive as the computer’s main hard drive. (I’ll write a future post about cloning a hard drive.)

You may find the optical drive going, but that’s cheap and easy to replace. More difficult is replacing memory: computer memory will go bad over time, though not as quickly as the hard drive will fail. So you’re probably okay for several years on computer memory. If it needs replacing, then the operation is simple and not horrendously expensive; you could probably replace all your PC’s memory for well under $200.

Fatal disaster, of course, requires replacing the PC: Water damage, motherboard failure, and similar peril means that you must plunge into a new computer investment.

The replacement problem is worse for a laptop computer: Laptops have a shorter lifespan than their desktop brethren. The battery will often be the first to go, well before the hard drive dies. Sadly, there’s no easy way to repair or replace laptop parts. If you have an extended warranty, as I recommend in Laptops For Dummies, then you’ll be okay, but I’ve not seen an extended warranty longer than 5 years. So just keep your fingers crossed and be careful!

Economic downturns last long only when the government tries to help. Hopefully this downturn doesn’t last long and things return to normal soon. My advice: Hold tight, you’ll be okay.