Why is it people hang on to their computers way too long?
There seems to be a rash of people discovering that their computers are slow. Yes, there are many things that cause a slow PC, but the number one reason — which apparently too many people are in denial over — is that the computer you’re using is an antique.
Old computers are slow.
Let me say that again: Old computers are slow. Yet people just can’t give them up.
Perhaps it’s that the computer still works. Yes, it’s slow, but it still gets e-mail and visits the Internet. It can play a game or two, perhaps not too insufferably. But the system is flakey; it’s unstable. It’s slow. Yet, it works, so all that is forgiven.
Perhaps it’s that the gizmos we have do tend to last longer and we’re used to that. No one would think of using a cell phone from 10 years ago. They were huge! They had bulky batteries that lasted maybe 4 hours. They had no features and only a two-line text screen, if that. You’d look like an utter dork if you carried one around. You’d look like a bigger dork if you complained that it was slow.
Cars do last longer. No one looks foolish driving around a 10-year-old car. Of course, cars don’t get slower with age. (Well, much slower.) Then again, today’s computers are as different from a system 10 years ago as today’s cars are different from a car of 80 years ago.
Perhaps people just forget that the computer is, at its core, technology. Technology marches forward. To keep pace, you should buy a new computer at least every six years or so.
Six years? Heck, I once replaced all my computers every two years.
Yeah, you could stretch that out to eight years, but you get my point: replace the computer after a given time. The new one will be cheaper and faster than the one it replaces, and you’ll be happier with the purchase.
I think I can stretch mine a little bit more than 6 years. Right now it is 4 years and 7 months old. Some specs:
3.00GHz Pentium 4 Processor w/ HT Tech
4GB of DDR2-533 RAM
1.25TB of SATA-150 hard drives (7,200rpm)
450 Watt Power Supply
10 USB 2.0 ports, 4 FireWire 400 ports
Gigabit Ethernet card + 100mbps integrated Ethernet
5.1 Surround Sound Audio
And I’m going to upgrade the video card soon to an NVidia, at least 512MB of GDDR3 (had to wait a lot since they were always pretty expensive).
What do you think? Could I stretch it a little more than 6 years?
Comment by samus250 — May 28, 2009 @ 11:35 pm
Certainly. At some point, get a second internal hard drive and “clone” the first hard drive to it. Then make the second drive your PC’s primary drive. That will help extend its life. Otherwise you have a great system!
Comment by admin — May 29, 2009 @ 6:15 am
Yes, I’ll keep upgrading mine until its not possible anymore, after that I’ll have to buy a new one. But about old computers being slow… I’ve noticed that anti-virus and firewall software make them extremely slow at startup and at doing regular tasks. The computer I mentioned above has been running its installation of Windows XP SP3 for two years. I remember when I first installed it, it was unbelievably fast. Now, I have to wait 5 minutes for it to load completely, and just opening firefox seems to be a hard task. By uninstalling firewall and antivirus software, it became significantly faster but not as fast as the first time I installed Windows. On the other hand, I have Ubuntu 9.04 installed (and I’m using it right now). It is extremely fast, I have to wait tops 30 seconds for it to be completely ready.
It’s just an observation, maybe that’s the reason why people complain about their computers being so slow.
Oh and I forgot to mention… I’m on a Dell Dimension 4700. Dell desktops are great.
Comment by samus250 — May 29, 2009 @ 9:41 am
How long as Ubuntu been installed? I’m wondering if the slow problem is due to operating system detritus, just the slow accumulation of files and updates and eventually clogs the pipes? I don’t recommend re-installing the operating system, but I’m just curious whether that stuff contributes.
Try cleaning out the cache in Firefox. That might speed it up.
Comment by admin — May 29, 2009 @ 9:45 am
“I don’t recommend re-installing the operating system…”
I’m surprised to hear you say that, Dan. Any reason for the statement?
In my experience, things get slow because people forget that the hardware needs to keep pace with software. It is very easy to write software that needs huge resources – hardware is tougher to speed up. I had a box till 2007 that was bought around 2000 that I used for running Windows 98. It ran beautifully. I had no intention of putting XP or windows 2000, even though it met the “minimum” system requirements. I used programs from the Windows 98 era as often as possible. Sure, many newer, fancier programs were compatible with 98, but I knew they would likely run slow – you don’t strap a trailer to a bicycle.
I also like to wipe my hard drive clean every year or two – though, as I have become more experienced with keeping crud out, I have had less and less need to do it.
Comment by sriksrid — May 29, 2009 @ 12:45 pm
I recommend against reinstalling Windows in all of my books. The reason is that a few years back, reinstalling Windows was suggested by cheap-ass tech support dorks as a cure-all for Windows. So a lot of people just blindly re-installed Windows — or worse, reformatted their hard drives — to solve simple problems that could otherwise be fixed without such drastic steps. Again, it was that tech support was in the money-making business, not the helping-people business.
There are plenty of tools available for fixing Windows that ameliorate the need for a complete reinstall. Only if the OS becomes obnoxiously damaged is there any need to re-install Windows.
Comment by admin — May 29, 2009 @ 3:12 pm
We’ve known each other, for so long… oh wait. Wrong topic.
The oldest computer I have is an old 486 computer. And, i actually like vintage computing. I even have an old pentium 1 with OS/2 Warp 3. It’s fun working with older computers, though i can see why people want to put Windows Vista on a Pentium III with only 256MB of RAM…
Comment by linuxlove — May 29, 2009 @ 3:20 pm
Yeah, you don’t know how much I was tempted to rickroll this post… 😉
Comment by admin — May 29, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
Dan: to answer your question. I’ve had Ubuntu installed since version 7.04, also for 2 years. When I re-installed Windows XP, I wiped out every hard drive completely. I don’t think that the slowness in Windows XP is due to having Ubuntu installed, since it is in a completely separate partition that Windows can’t even detect.
Windows XP is just a crappy OS. I hope that Microsoft fixes these problems in Windows 7.
Comment by samus250 — May 29, 2009 @ 7:46 pm
Don’t hold your breath. Windows 7 is Windows Vista+. It’s what Windows Vista should have been three years ago.
Comment by admin — May 29, 2009 @ 8:22 pm