How old, or how long have the notebooks you know of lasted?

[handy]

Provoked by a statement in another thread; I'm interested in how long different brands of notebooks are lasting.

Unfortunately it is not possible to make a poll that has brand's, models & age.

If you could post what model & any other details of interest that would be helpful.

Thanks.

[Edit:] I may be helpful if people say what make & model the notebook is?

[handy]

I'm surprised at the lack of interest in this thread.

I thought that all of those who have or do own notebooks would be interested to see just what kind of average lifespan the things have.

The posts even have the potential to demonstrate what makes & models are consistently living into their greying & balding years instead of dying prematurely like most do.

[Skripka]

I'm surprised at the lack of interest in this thread.

I thought that all of those who have or do own notebooks would be interested to see just what kind of average lifespan the things have.

The posts even have the potential to demonstrate what makes & models are consistently living into their greying & balding years instead of dying prematurely like most do.

I missed it actually ;)

Toshiba Satellite 3005-S303, P3 850mHz, 384MB DDR RAM.
-Fine for 3 years....random invertor card getting fried under warranty....never found cause...but repeated shipping and replacement and continually frying invertors led to Toshiba basically giving me a new laptop over the course of 6 months....all in all 4 or 5 invertor cards were fried under warranty with cause never found-8 or 10 rounds of overnight air shipping footed by Toshiba.
-After this went I was a MacFanboi for a while, and gave this machine off to a friend...partyl due to rep, also because after 3 years of WinME-I had had enough of Windows.
-3 years after the above, keyboard has dead

Apple UnderPoweredBook G4, Alu 1.5gHz 15"
-Just under 3 years of use....b0rked thermostats leading to erratic and random shutdowns.
-The death of this machine led me to install Linux on my tower :D

Both machines used as mobile laptops (not desktop replacements).

[OutOfReach]

Same here, didn't see this thread till now.

Dell XPS M140 (from '05) is still working perfectly no problems whatsoever, there aren't even many scratches on it, maybe just 1 or 2. But other than that, it's perfect and running fine. No broken parts, repairs, nothing.

[linuxisevolution]

I have a Toshiba 100CS with netbsd. 16mb ram 75mhz cpu. 15 years old. It runs FREEDOS and win95 very well too. No OS has crashed on it yet. I also have a macintosh powerbook 3400C with 32mb ram 240mhz cpu and MAC OS 8.1. About 10 years old. Then my IBM Thinkpad is 4 years old with decent specs.

[Skripka]

Same here, didn't see this thread till now.

This thread is Handy's way of doing an OH SNAP. ;)

[lykwydchykyn]

I was trying to come up with an answer for this thread, but it's trickier than it seems. At home, I've only had one notebook die, and it was second-hand bought off ebay so I have no idea how old it actually was.

At work, I've retired some ancient notebooks (Pentium 166 and Pentium II 350) that worked just fine, but were just too old to do anything with (they aren't interested in running puppy linux at my office, unfortunately). Then again, we've had newer equipment than that die, but they were doing duty in a police car so you can imagine the beating they were taking (physically and electrically).

Then of course, "die" is a relative term. Anything short of a mainboard failure is usually reparable if you care enough, so retiring a laptop is usually more a question of when it stops being worth repairing.

Anyway, those are my lame excuses for not answering your poll. That, and the dog ate my homework.

[lng80]

My Compaq Presario C501NR is now just over two years old and working fine. The only problem I've had with it is the power adapter, but I've had this problem with every laptop I've had.

[OutOfReach]

This thread is Handy's way of doing an OH SNAP. ;)

lol, very interesting chart there.

[hardyn]

my first notebook an asus z70 never really worked right, failures, POS; traded it in for a Z71vp and it has been going strong for 4 years, but doesn't look at nice as the Z70 did.

[Skripka]

lol, very interesting chart there.

Never leave home, or boot linux without a valid flow-chart.

[NintendoTogepi]

My first one was a VPR Matrix. Had serious overheating and screen problems within the first year. Almost completely died by two years.

It's actually been functional since. The screen is broken and cannot be shut or else it would break off, and it needs to be adjusted just right to work, the fan is super loud and it can still overheat, but it's actually pretty good as a test computer. It's currently broken because I messed it up with too much Linux.

My current main laptop is four years old. The screen is starting to go again (has been replaced thrice before, but not since 2 years ago...)

I was hoping to get an extra year out of it, but it looks like that's not gonna happen.

[elmago79]

I have an old Toshiba Satellite P3 750mHz, 256MB DDR RAM. It's still working, after 10+ years of (ab)use. I'm amazed by it's resilience. Currently running Xubuntu.

[Gramps]

I've had my current Dell Latitude D820 for at least 2 years now and it's still good as new, maybe better now that it doen't have XP on it.

I also have a Dell Latitude D600 it got to be close to 7 years maybe more. The only problem it has is that the battery is no longer good and I don't want to invest $100 in it so will only run as a tethered laptop now. Wife uses it everyday,

[hellion0]

Thinkpad 600, Pentium 2 @ 300MHz. I've had it since 2006, but it's seen a ton of use before I got it. Its CD-ROM drive died last year, hard drive's seen an upgrade, and it's survived various OS reinstalls. Otherwise it's still running like new.

[Incense]

I'm using a Compaq Presario v4310r with a 1.6Ghz Pent M. that I bought new in early 2006. Hard drive died last year, and the ram was upgraded in Jan, but no other problems at all. Ubuntu runs perfectly on it out of the box.

[handy]

Yes, it's good when only the easily replaceable components need attention.

Once the motherboard & usually any daughter boards die that finishes them.

The screen hinges on many notebooks are weak, I've seen quite a few where the stiffness causes fractures in the plastic case on the lid around the hinges.

My wife had an Acer notebook years ago, that I had to sandwich the lid around the area of the two outer hinges with light stainless steel plate, in an effort to reinforce it to extend its life as long as possible.

There was no way it was getting sent back to Acer, the repair would have cost far more than the notebook was worth, even in those days.

[vandorjw]

Dell Inspiron 1520
--> Almost at 2 year.
Intent to keep it for about 5.

[Arkenzor]

My mother bought an HP laptop in ~99 and only got rid of it last year.

My own "old" Dell latitude was acquired in September 2006 and is still kicking. I had some hardware worries after I took it went camping in Scotland with it last summer, but it seems to have made a complete recovery. I'd expect it to last 2-3 more years still.

The Eee PC I got last August probably won't live that long, I entered "3 years" for it in the poll but that might be too optimistic.

[styven]

2 x HP NX6310 laptops, 3 years plus and both still going strong, never had a fault or issue with either of them. Paid 299GBP each for them.

Steve.

[handy]

The Eee PC I got last August probably won't live that long, I entered "3 years" for it in the poll but that might be too optimistic.

The meaning of my questions is for how long a notebook lasted before it became an uneconomical repair, or how old a notebook is that is still functioning.

We don't want any projected life expectancies in the poll please; be they imagined, supposed, desired or required age estimates.

Please, we don't want to give statistics a bad name. :lolflag:

[gn2]

I have had two Toshiba Portege 3440CT laptops, one I sold to a friend, it still works, the other is used by my wife.
Both are in their tenth year I think.

In their day these were very high quality high-spec items designed "for the road" with all metal casings, so I'm not at all surprised they have lasted well.

When new they were £2000, the first one I got was £150 on eBay some years ago, the second one was £35 on eBay last year.

IMO Many modern low end laptops are unlikely to last as long if transported a lot due to cheap and nasty plastic construction.

[athaki]

My wife and I both had Dell Inspirons and the plug for the power cable was ripped off the motherboard and had to be re-soldered. That was becoming more expensive then they were worth so I sold them to a local pc repair guy (who was a window$ fan) but they were at least going to be repaired and given to people who couldn't afford a computer.

[ugm6hr]

I just sold a Dell 5000e that I bought in 2000.

Was working fine (Windows Me replaced with Xubuntu).

Even the original HD was still going. I had added an additional 128MB RAM to it at some stage.

My brother's similarly aged Toshiba (uncertain model) had its hinges break after 5 years, essentially makinng the LCD screen a separate part (and useless). Gave that away after salvaging the HD and RAM to someone who needed the PSU.

[mips]

HP nx6110 purchased May 2005.

Still going strong, not a scratch on it and the hinges are still tight.

Upgraded RAM in 2008 from 512MB to 1.25GB.

I suspect the lifetime of a laptop is determined by how well the owner looks after it as with other things in life.

[billgoldberg]

Provoked by a statement in another thread; I'm interested in how long different brands of notebooks are lasting.

Unfortunately it is not possible to make a poll that has brand's, models & age.

If you could post what model & any other details of interest that would be helpful.

Thanks.

HP pavilion dv4000 (1500 Euro, 1900 USD, 1300 BP!!!!).

Died after 1.5 years. Went to the factory, got completely new motherboard, hdd, cpu, ...

It died 5 months later.

It's out of warranty and I'm not putting a penny in it any more.

[billgoldberg]

I suspect the lifetime of a laptop is determined by how well the owner looks after it as with other things in life.

If only that were true.

[handy]

HP pavilion dv4000 (1500 Euro, 1900 USD, 1300 BP).

Died after 1.5 years. Went to the factory, got completely new motherboard, hdd, cpu, ...

It died 5 months later.

It's out of warranty and I'm not putting a penny in it any more.

Ow! I'm sorry to hear that one. :(

[spupy]

Cheap 2.5 years-old Toshiba Satellite. Turned out to be very solid computer, working perfectly with Linux. The hinges are wicked! So tight I can't open the lid with one hand only. :) The keys and the wrist-rests are starting to get shiny (worn out) from the usage.

Sadly, just yesterday I scratched the lid very badly on some staples while it was in my bag. :(
I hope it lasts 1 more year.

[handy]

I find it interesting that people speak of the hinges being tight as a positive, as I've known an acer notebook that broke it's lid due to the hinges being too tight.

Maybe a little silicon spray could have given it a longer life?

[K.Mandla]

I'll submit this as my data to the poll.

http://kmandla.wordpress.com/hardware

I have a hard time determining when a machine has reached its practical end-of-life, though. I have been known to cobble together working laptops from junk piles, but also to swap out screens on year-old machines.

Does that mean either of them has "lasted" to its limit? Or does the poll make allowances for machines that receive attention and last beyond their initial failure? What about machines that are techncially deficient, but still on duty?

Hmm. With this many questions, it appears I have lapsed back to age 2. :roll:

[mips]

I find it interesting that people speak of the hinges being tight as a positive, as I've known an acer notebook that broke it's lid due to the hinges being too tight.

I suppose no that tight ;)

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

Funny this thread appeared. Today, the "See" key stopped working on my 10 month old Dell Inspiron 1420.

Edit: I went to Dell's on-line customer support. The Tech gave me the solution to the problem on his first try.

I'm happy.

See, it works CcCcCcCcCcC. hehe

[der_joachim]

I have an eleven year old Packard Bell easynote. Although it was shipped with windows ME, I put Arch on it a few years ago. The maximum resolution is 800 by 600, which is why I never quite satisfactorily used it.

However, it still lives and all parts are original. Never thought I'd say that about a Packard Bell Piece of Yesterday's Food. ;)

[Erik Trybom]

Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook C1020, seven years old and still going strong. I have replaced the optical drive and the battery. (To tell the truth, many of my classmates who got the same setup have fared far worse - this is an error-prone model.)

I would have replaced it long ago if I could afford to though.

[argie]

Toshiba Portege 660 CDT - 8 years. My dad's. Finally failed when the BIOS battery leaked all over the motherboard.
Dell XPS M1330 - So far it hasn't lasted even one year. I've gone through two motherboards (due to the overheating GPU problem).

[init1]

I've got a Dell from 2000 that still works. I can't do anything useful with it though since it doesn't have a NIC or wireless. I would buy a USB wireless card, but I'm not sure whether it has USB 1.0 or 2.0.
My main computer is a 2 year old Compaq Presario. I'll probably replace it sometime this year.

[spupy]

I forgot, there is a pretty old Compaq Contura 410 at my parents house. http://geek-supply.com/images/6892305101.jpg
The battery doesn't hold much, the hinges are broken. But last time I saw it it was still running Windows 95 just fine. Of course it is pretty useless, although you can still play nethack on it! :D

[GreyShadow]

Have 2 10+ yo Systamax N20 laptops running Antix. Library discards!
Nice screens, bad batteries and cracking around the edges but they work great for most apps.

My Dell Inspirons e1505 and 1420 are doing well and are about 4 and 3 yo. I am careful with them and expect them to last more than 5 years.:)

[a fenderson]

I had to replace the hard drive once (and the battery eventually died), but I had my iBook g4 for 4 years until I sold it.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Compaq Portable 3. 21 years old, it's currently being used as a serial terminal to test microcontrollers.

[RandomJoe]

I was always satisfied with how the Dell Latitude series lasted at work, so when I bought a laptop I went with a refurb C840. Best I can recall, that was around 2001-2002 somewhere in there. Still going just fine, although it has had a few parts replaced along the way.

I dropped a book on the keyboard and broke a key, got that replaced under warranty. And the cooling fans started making noise, that too was covered under warranty. (Although I had to replace them myself, the idi... ah, fine individual who they sent to replace them actually gutted the machine, removed the fans, then put the ORIGINAL bad fans back in AND left them unplugged!)

I don't use it a whole lot right now, so it sees a lot less wear and tear than it used to, but it still works just fine.

I also have another C-series laptop of about the same age (can't recall the model number right off) that was "surplus" from the office. No one wanted it, as it was "too slow" and ran hot as a firecracker. Well, yes that's to be expected - the bearings were going out on the hard drive! I replaced it, and that machine too is working well. Removing Windows helped the slow part too! ;)

The only real issue I have at this point is batteries. I had a fair collection of them, but they are starting to die now. I'm used to batteries losing life over time, but these went fairly strong then just quit charging one day. The diagnostic lights give a funky flash pattern that Dell helpfully describes as "replace battery". Ah well, when most people complain of only getting 1-2 years out of batteries, I won't begrudge 5-6 years!

[handy]

I'll submit this as my data to the poll.

http://kmandla.wordpress.com/hardware

Thanks K.Mandla for the link, it is a very informative read.



I have a hard time determining when a machine has reached its practical end-of-life, though. I have been known to cobble together working laptops from junk piles, but also to swap out screens on year-old machines.

Does that mean either of them has "lasted" to its limit? Or does the poll make allowances for machines that receive attention and last beyond their initial failure? What about machines that are techncially deficient, but still on duty?

K.Mandla, I'm sure you have been told before that you have an abnormal fetish that involves the disembowelling of types of computers that the vast majority of users wouldn't know how to even make the first incision, let alone have the desire to do so.

The term uneconomical repair is probably not in your vocabulary. ;)

[handy]

Compaq Portable 3. 21 years old, it's currently being used as a serial terminal to test microcontrollers.

Hey, that's not a notebook!

Does it weigh more than a portable sewing machine. :D

[zmjjmz]

I have yet to have a notebook die on me due to non-accidents, but I'll list the ones I have here:

Gateway Solo 5300: 10 years old, 700MHz PIII, 256MB RAM, 10GB HDD. No component has died yet, but it used to be my aunts so I'm not sure what had been replaced.

IBM Thinkpad T20: 1999, 700MHz PIII, 256MB/384MB RAM, 12GB/20GB HDD. I actually have two of these. One of them is being used at my dad's factory, and he hasn't forwarded any complaints about it to me so I assume it's going fine. The other one is my Windows machine that I test random Windows things with but the screen's cable needs some tightening.

IBM Thinkpad 560: 1997, 133MHz PI, 40MB RAM, 4GB CF card. Although the HDD died (it came with an 800MB one, then it was replaced with a 2GB one) and I put a CF card in it, it's working fine otherwise with DSL. I've taken it apart a lot.

Psion Series 3a: 1993, 16-bit NEC V30H@7.68MHz, 512KB RAM, 4MB + 256KB SSD + 512KB ROM. Yes this counts. I love it.

[Faolan84]

I had an HP Pavillion dv6000 series that dies in less than two years. The screen went black and I had to reboot. The screen would not display on reboot and the system would was not even accessing the hard drives (they remained silent). To top that off the system would reboot every thirty seconds or so.

I think my next notebook will be a nice, big, System76 desktop replacement that I'll put OpenSuSE on.

[khaelo]

Voted "5 years" for my Dell Inspiron 600m that just passed away. It was purchased in 2003 and had been my primary computer, heavily used. It no longer accepts AC/DC power -- any power cord makes a horrible shrieking noise when plugged into the computer. The battery was never great to begin with, and it's unchargeable now.

No vote: My Dell Inspiron 5000, bought in 2000, is still marginally operational, provided you have 10+ minutes to wait for it to boot Windows 98. Even with Xubuntu, it takes a long time to do anything fancy like move the mouse or open a terminal. :shock: One of these days I'm going to put Puppy Linux on it, see if that improves things any. It was my primary computer for 3 years before it got so slow and irritated me enough to replace it with the 600m.

No vote: My mother's laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1250 (?), lasted about 4 years before the screen started to act up. As a novice computer user, she found that too upsetting to handle, so she replaced it with a desktop. It was actually 5 years old, but the first year she didn't know how to use it. ;) I've been experimenting with it since it retired, and it seems to be working fine now.

My brothers' laptops haven't lasted as long as these (2-3 years each), but I have no idea what's been done to them. One brother fixes *everything* by reformatting his hard drive. The other's laptop suffered a freak accident just a week after it arrived (elderly dog made mess on first floor, laptop in basement got showered).

[Flying caveman]

I had toshiba m35x that made it just past the 1 year warranty before it died. There was even a class action lawsuit over their crappy product, but it would'a cost me even more to get anything out of it. I sent it in to a place that charged me way too much to fix it, they still never fixed it right. I finally decided to solder the power jack myself a few times. before it really died.

I moved everything over to a bare bones ASUS Z71v. I had to move to ddr2 memory. Oh, I couldn't re-install Windows so I installed Ubuntu 5.10. The wireless worked and I was a happy camper when I figured out how to get flash working.

I've upgraded the hard drive, the memory and the cpu in that thing and its still going strong. Still way faster than many new computers running Vista.

[smartboyathome]

I've got a Gateway Solo which has lasted 8 or so years, and it still runs! All my other computers have died within 2-3 years of getting them.

[avaralom]

My laptop is going on 4 years old, and still works fine. It's pretty slow, but that's to be expected. I haven't really made any changes to the hardware or repaired anything.

[handy]

It may be helpful if people say what make & model the notebook is?

[Ioky]

Toshiba Portege M100 From around 2003-2004. Work perfectly with Ubuntu 8.04. 8.10 doesn't have support for Toshiba laptop because the X.org and kernel have some conflict. Will try 9.04. (Boot faster than my desktop too)

But anyway, In term of Laptop, this is nothing to do with Brand, it is more like Models. "Top of its age" usually last longer, because they are finish under better quality. Yes, they are expensive at their time, but after 2 to 3 years, they worth nothing.

IBM seem like a good Brand for Laptop, up until T42 maybe T43. After that, they aren't not as quality as they were.

Toshiba seem like a ****** brand for computer, but for some reason, their laptop do last long.

Some of the Sony are good too (not all), however, not as Linux friendly, simply because they are too "unique".

Panasonic is good, but they don't make many laptop, it seem not worth it to get them too at this time.

Apple makes good laptop too

DO NOT get another other brand, They all suck, And they are getting worst. Getting a Laptop should be thinking about quality over ability. Computer getting out of date really fast, so it is pointless to shooting for fancy feature such as touch control, Bio reader, and all of those things. Not just they doesn't do much, they add the rick of breaking things as well. Avoid "Shiny" things if you want your laptop last.

It is too sad, that company now are making laptop for sell, not for use. They all have pretty looking shell that only last a very short period of time. Not just that, the config is non-sense. Such as putting Vista in a 1GB Ram laptop. Which only give you about 256MB of ram to run your software, which is what actually useful. OR putting 4GB of Ram, with 32Bit System. Taking resource for useless stuff.

It is indeed super hard to find a good laptop these days. I try to reply my 5 years old laptop, but yet, can't find anything, that is as well as balance as my old one.

[RichardLinx]

Sony VAIO (Forget the model name) is on it's fourth year right now. The battery has died. I'm not sure weather I can put the blame on Linux or not. Either way it's still working fine to this day, apart from the dead battery ofcourse.

[markbuntu]

I had a Toshiba Satellite with a P-133 that I bought in 1998 and gave away to a friend a few years ago and it is still in use today. I used to work on ships, Toshiba had the ONLY laptops that could deal with the vibration and g forces of a pitching and rolling and vibrating ship, nothing else ever lasted more than 3 months. Toshibas lasted years.

In the early 90s Toshiba got out of the laptop market but, due to over 1million letters from customers, they got back in a year later.

[handy]

In the early 90s Toshiba got out of the laptop market but, due to over 1million letters from customers, they got back in a year later.

I find it so interesting that so many people think that writing letters that express their views/desires on a subject, or to signing petitions that do the same thing is a waste of time.

So, often it is public outcry in these forms that cause (usually positive) changes to be made.

We are battling mining interests in our town, & getting people to understand that writing letters to the political representatives is the most powerful thing they can do is a tough job.

Anyway, I'll get off that, & stop diverting the thread. ;)

[Grant A.]

Model: Toshiba Satellite M55
Year: 2005
Month: Febuary

*Specs:
*--Graphics Card: Intel GMA i810 integrated GPU
*--Processor: Intel Centrino Processor
*--BIOS: PheonixBIOS
*--Screen Dimensions: 1280x1024 px
*--Sound Card: SRS TruSurroundXT
*--Wireless Card: Intel ipw2200 w/ togglable on/off switch
*--USB 2.0 Ports: 4
*--RAM: 512MB
*--LAN Ports: 1
*--Phone Cable Ports: 1
*--Keyboard: QWERTY

Life: 4 years, and still kickin'!

[miluns]

approx 10-12 years old Toshiba protege' I bought it used. I forget exact model and I'm not going to the garage to find out

pentium 1 150 mhz
16 meg ram

Still kicking running duel boot win98 and Debian 2.0 something. Added a 20 gig HD to it in 2001. I use it for playing music in the garage.


Also 2 toshiba satelite l-40's, 3 years old

Hp Pavillion died after 1 1/2 years

Acer aspire 5100 two years old.

New Toshiba satelite



IMHO Toshiba has the best lasting laptops. YMMV

[Dex73]

My current computer is my first and I've had it for 2 years. It's a Gateway.