My MS Windows PC has worn out...what's it like where you live?

**mips** · December 24th, 2011

Originally Posted by SteveDee

(although my birthday present this year was a second-hand Dell D600 costing £150...such decadence!)

That actually sounds a wee bit expensive for a machine from 2003.

**SteveDee** · December 24th, 2011

Originally Posted by mips

...sounds a wee bit expensive for a machine from 2003.

I thought the D600 was introduced in 2001, but either way, I'm hoping this particular specimen is a bit more recent.

I think it was £130 + £20 for extra RAM. I've also spent another £16 on a new battery, and I put in a larger HDD that I had salvaged from my previous Dell (which I was given...'cos it was too slow).

I'm now looking forward to Raspberry Pi (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ne/9504208.stm) which may induce me to spend £22 on a NEW computer!

**guyver_dio** · December 24th, 2011

I live in Australia, I guess it'd be like america, very wasteful. People chuck out older but still working devices just to get the latest.

However I build all my computers, any part that is still working is still in use, I don't chuck away anything that works. When I build a new computer some of the parts in the old one will migrate to the new one (depending on what I'm upgrading), and the rest will get shelved until someone in the family is needing a computer and buys the remaining parts to put it back together. My dad has a frankenstein pc made out of a few of my older computers. It's also handy for when parts break, like say if the video card dies, I'll have an older one in a box somewhere that can be used until I get the money to replace it.

I'm also a tinkerer, so I'd have fun playing around on any system, new or old. I reckon it'd be great to get an old pc (like maybe mid 90s) and see how far you can push it (get an ultra light distro and tweak the **** out of it). I have an old HP somewhere that my uncle threw away years ago that had something like 128mb of sd ram, but I'm pretty sure I harvested some parts out of it. Would have been a good challenge.

**cprofitt** · December 24th, 2011

I buy or build new, but I keep computers for 8-10 years.

**V for Vincent** · December 24th, 2011

Originally Posted by jjex22

I just told them it was like giving a car an oil change!

I like that. I'm amazed at how people (even young and intelligent people) always assume their entire system is useless. I bought my own desktop about 5.5 years ago and it's perfectly usable. I use my resources quite economically, so the original 1GB worth of RAM is enough for just about everything I do with it.