How long have you had your computer?

Blimey, checking upthread I guess the VAIO is nearing its 2nd birthday. The subtitling software all worked perfectly so I suppose it's paid for itself several times over.

However...headphone mini-jack was the first thing to flake out (around 2 months), so bought a USB soundcard almost immediately (and another one since, after that died too). Then the DVD+/-RW drive started playing up - struggling to burn CD-Rs (after 4-5 months), then failing to read CD-Rs (after a year) and now barely capable of ripping CDs without glitches. Fine with CD-ROM/all DVD media though. Keyboard started to play up after 18 months (two keys came off, got replacements via eBay but little plastic "nipple" had become so desensitised by us pressing hard on it to get an "M" that keys didn't actually work once fitted).

Sometime late last year I knocked the laptop off the arm of the sofa and it SLAMMED into the wooden floor with a sickening crack; turned out the only thing broken was the left-hand screen hinge which means we haven't been able to close the thing since (kinda limiting its portability) as the display cables run through there and I didn't fancy damaging them by forcing the thing shut.

WinXP has been pretty solid though - very few crashes - and the internal wireless adaptor has always worked happily anywhere in the house with the Livebox. Fast enough for our purposes too. We've been running at <2GB space on both C: and D: partitions for months, though - archiving stuff off to a WD 250GB HDD. 80GB is enough until it isn't (especially when your last two major birthday/Xmas gifts are a D-SLR [which can take 8MB RAW images] and a Handycam [DV-AVI ain't small]).

How do you guys manage to make your computers last more than 2-3 years? That's how long mine last every time before some important piece of hardware dies and the standard cpu/motherboard architectures available have all changed so I end up getting almost a complete new set of innards. All the storage and peripherals stay the same though, and 6 months ago I finally moved it all into a new case for the first time in 9 years.

(I do have an 8-year-old laptop which is still running xubuntu happily, but it's only been mine for a year or two and it doesn't get much use)

(the electricity at home runs permanently over-voltage, maybe that's why mine like to die so fast? I acquired a UPS recently, I'll be interested to see if things stay working for any longer now)

I've had my iBook for two years.

pc, three years-ish. mac, few months. they both have a lot of life left.

how can you be so confident?

if my mac dies, there's a nice warranty. if my pc dies, fuck it, it was cheap to begin with. but it won't.

Much like treefell upthread I have several computers in the house. Mine are all cobbled together from bits and have been upgraded piecemeal, so it's difficult to tell.

The server dates back to 1/2003 and has the most original parts. New HDD and PSU today actually.
The case of my main PC dates back to early 2001, two different mainboard and a ton of other stuff has passed through it in that time.
Secondary PC was built early 2004 from parts removed from the main PC after it's first mainboard and PSU burnt out.

Mostly since then just the usual replacement fans, etc..

:(

Two weeks! Bought the components over a couple of weeks and put it together only two weeks ago.

I may have to turn myself in though, since one of the operating systems I use is the terrorist black screen with white letters one.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/boston-college-prompt-commands-are-suspicious

Current Mac Pro is about 2 years old. Still using the 23" Cinema Display I got in, uh, 2004?

macbook i have at home is 10 months old. imac i have at work is 7 months

i love them both, best computers i've ever owned

tho i guess i don't own my work imac

I have a power mac G4 tower that was made in 2002...I got it in 2005. I'm about at the point where I'm tired of saying to my husband 'oh, it does everything I need' while it sits there thinking and thinking of a rainbow spinny wheel. I can't afford another compy anytime soon. Does Mac even make towers anymore, or just iMacs that have everything hidden in the monitor? Bcz those are not so rad. (Love love love the G4 iMac, tho. OTOH I wld be replacing a G4.)

Okay why am I even looking at Macs thinking they'll maybe be in the 3-digit price range.

The Mac Mini is 3 digits and is like a tower in that it lacks a monitor, but is way smaller.

And also has 2 GB of hard drive space....uhh....

mac minis are a great deal i think

nah, 2 gigahertz processor, 1 gb of RAM, 120 gb hard drive (in the base model), for $550 in the education store.

(xxpost) I have a laptop here with a 60MB hard drive

oops lol Euler I think you just sold me

Yeah, that Mac Mini isn't a really great buy... but I suppose if you can't go up to the 24' iMac it's your next best option.

A: About 2 months, and it's my first.

How are your hands? They must be feeling better, because you're back to your cranky old miserable self on politics and baseball threads.

my right hand is still carpally.

I've had this same eMac since 2001 or 2002. Came with that dinosaur game on it and something about capturing bee-hive ladies with UFOs.

Feb '03, Athlon 1800 PC w/256MB RAM, running Windows XP (color: PC beige). Only upgrade has been adding an internal DVD writer and an external HD (iomega 160MB, USB 2.0).

― nickn, Sunday, October 14, 2007

Still got it, but it now resets within about 30 minutes of turning it on (and usually not thereafter, even if I use it for hours more). I'm checking every Fry's ad I see to find my next one, though.

This thread is good as it reminds me my latest laptops still within its 2yr warranty. Which is good, because the power supply plug has gone flaky. The plug, when plugged in, wont stay contacted with the inner plug...thing, so it flicks between AC charge and battery constantly.Which can't be good for the damn battery. If I knew it was easy to fix myself I would have a try... sigh.

one day!!!!11 turned on the imac for the first time and realised it has tiger rather than leopard :( more spending awaits.

If you don't need soon, you might want to wait for Snow Leopard which will probably come out within.. 6 months? Then again it was supposed to have come out by now, so who knows.

Happy Birthday to my mid-2007 iMac - seven years old today and still going strong....

I had a 2004 iMac which just gave up the other day.

Bought my laptop in Dec 2011 and it already feels like a hulking mess of a thing.

took it apart (and i mean literally to tiny pieces) just to clean the fan the other day and ended up with 8 screws left over.

my laptop dates from late 2009 i think. put an ssd in it last christmas and it's fine, no need to update.

(actually, battery is shot and one of the usb sockets is dodgy but...)

I think our laptop is from 2011? MacBook Air.