5 year old computer too old?

[Ken Blake, MVP]

....

While I disagree with Ken's statement that "There's really very little
difference between a five-year-old computer and a new one",
there is really is a big difference, but that does not mean an old system
will not do the job. As you can see I upgraded a number of things over
the years on my 8 year old Dell 4100. My every day system now is a
home built system of about 2004 vintage and the latest home built was
a Core i7 Extreme with a Solid State Drive plus a 1TB hard drive,
12GB Memory and a video card that draws at least 100 Watts all by itself.
Just keep in mind the repair estimate as any entry level system
(see last item in list) ranging from $500 to $650 purchased just a few
months
ago can run circles around system sold in 2004

You're saying the newer system is faster than the older one, and
that's the difference between them. You say you "disagree with Ken's
statement that 'There's really very little difference between a
five-year-old computer and a new one,' " but you deleted the second
half of the sentence you quoted: "except for things like speed and
disk space." Sure the newer systems are faster than the old ones, but
in terms of what they contain and what they do, they are otherwise
almost the same.

....

June 2009 - HP m9600t $1611 (Mid Range)
Intel 2.66GHz Core i7-920 processor (1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache)
6GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs]
1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
768MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600GS [DVI, VGA, HDMI]
HP w2338h 23-inch 16:9 Full HD Widescreen Monitor
LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
Integrated 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) Ethernet
15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, 1394, audio
Integrated 7.1 channel sound with front audio ports
HP 2.1 30W stereo speakers with subwoofer and remote control
HP wireless keyboard and HP wireless optical mouse
Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)

Interestingly, that's very close to the specs on my new system, except
that I have three hard drives totaling 1.4TB, two 23" monitors, and I
run Windows 7 RTM.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thank you all so much for your advice. I feel better now that Ken said my
computer may not be too old to be repaired. I don't get any beeps though
when I turn on the tower, just the green and red lights and the lights on
the 2 drives flicker. The mouse and keyboard don't light up anymore either.
I hope it's not the CPU that is gone, I've heard that's expensive to
replace.

A five year old CPU is probably very inexpensive, and since it's easy
to replace, the labor to do it won't be high either.

I am in Australia so we don't have little red cars roaming around
with tech people to fix computers, at least not in my town. The tech guy I
am thinking of calling does work from home and other friends have used him
and are impressed with him. He doesn't charge if he can't fix the problem
I'm told. I won't go to a big computer store to get this fixed as I don't
know any that I trust. Should the worst happen and I have to buy another
desktop computer I hope I can get Windows XP, all the new ones seem to have
Vista. I do have my laptop but I prefer the desktop. Many thanks again
everyone for your valuable time.
Regards,
Pippa.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Please remember that after you spend $100-150 on that repair that the
remainder of the hardware is still 5 years old, and counting. If you have to
pay more than $150 I would put that toward a new computer for around $450.

Although I don't really disagree with that advice, I don't know what
Pippa's financial situation is, and $450US could be a big obstacle.

You will have a machine that is many times faster, and more powerful, than
the one you now have. You will also have much more disk space, as most new
desktops come with 300-500 meg hard drives.

All true of course, but again, we don't know what Pippa's needs are. A
friend of mine just replaced her old (about five years) XP machine
with a new Vista machine. Her new machine has a 320GB hard drive and
the old one had 16GB. The reason I mention this is that the 16GB drive
was more than big enough for her, and she never came close to filling
it up! The 320GB drive is clearly way overkill for her.

 

[Ian D]

Thank you all so much for your advice. I feel better now that Ken said my
computer may not be too old to be repaired. I don't get any beeps though
when I turn on the tower, just the green and red lights and the lights on
the 2 drives flicker. The mouse and keyboard don't light up anymore
either. I hope it's not the CPU that is gone, I've heard that's expensive
to replace. I am in Australia so we don't have little red cars roaming
around with tech people to fix computers, at least not in my town. The
tech guy I am thinking of calling does work from home and other friends
have used him and are impressed with him. He doesn't charge if he can't
fix the problem I'm told. I won't go to a big computer store to get this
fixed as I don't know any that I trust. Should the worst happen and I have
to buy another desktop computer I hope I can get Windows XP, all the new
ones seem to have Vista. I do have my laptop but I prefer the desktop.
Many thanks again everyone for your valuable time.
Regards,
Pippa.

From the symptoms you describe, I suspect it could be a
motherboard or power supply failure. It's not a hard drive
failure. The symptoms of, no BIOS post, no video, and no
mouse or keyboard power point to a power issue, but the
panel lights and drives initializing, indicates that at least
the +5V and +12V supply rails are working. If it is the
motherboard, I would suspect faulty electrolytic capacitors,
which are part of the on-board power circuits. The age of
the PC is about right for this issue to show up.

You can check visually for this yourself. Open the case,
and in the area of the CPU you will find the capacitors,
which look like little metal cans. If you see any sign of
brown or yellow ooze on a capacitor, there's the cause
of the failure. Even if you don't see anything, the
capacitors could still be leaking from the bottom, and
hard to see. Taking it to the tech you know is the
best option. If any capacitors are faulty, they should
all be replaced. The whole set should be less than $50,
but the person doing the job should be competent in
multilayer circuit board soldering.

 

[JS]

...

While I disagree with Ken's statement that "There's really very little
difference between a five-year-old computer and a new one",
there is really is a big difference, but that does not mean an old system
will not do the job. As you can see I upgraded a number of things over
the years on my 8 year old Dell 4100. My every day system now is a
home built system of about 2004 vintage and the latest home built was
a Core i7 Extreme with a Solid State Drive plus a 1TB hard drive,
12GB Memory and a video card that draws at least 100 Watts all by itself.
Just keep in mind the repair estimate as any entry level system
(see last item in list) ranging from $500 to $650 purchased just a few
months
ago can run circles around system sold in 2004

You're saying the newer system is faster than the older one, and
that's the difference between them. You say you "disagree with Ken's
statement that 'There's really very little difference between a
five-year-old computer and a new one,' " but you deleted the second
half of the sentence you quoted: "except for things like speed and
disk space." Sure the newer systems are faster than the old ones, but
in terms of what they contain and what they do, they are otherwise
almost the same.

...

June 2009 - HP m9600t $1611 (Mid Range)
Intel 2.66GHz Core i7-920 processor (1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache)
6GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs]
1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
768MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600GS [DVI, VGA, HDMI]
HP w2338h 23-inch 16:9 Full HD Widescreen Monitor
LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
Integrated 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) Ethernet
15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, 1394, audio
Integrated 7.1 channel sound with front audio ports
HP 2.1 30W stereo speakers with subwoofer and remote control
HP wireless keyboard and HP wireless optical mouse
Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)

Interestingly, that's very close to the specs on my new system, except
that I have three hard drives totaling 1.4TB, two 23" monitors, and I
run Windows 7 RTM.

You will notice that I used mid range systems as examples.
(And there is a reason, but that's another topic)

Some 5 year old systems, most likely to low cost computers
may not be able to support a wide screen displays, may only
have USB 1 and not USB 2.0 ports. May not support
SATA-II drives only SATA-I and most SATA drives today
do not have a jumper to fall back/support SATA-I mode.
So you need to be very careful if you plan to install a larger drive.
Some PCs this old may not even support 48-bit LBA.

While XP runs fine with 512MB of memory you better
hope that old PC has 4 memory slots to you can upgrade
to a least 1GB of memory, but preferably 2GB for Win-7

They most likely have AGP video cards and not PCI-E.
This makes upgrading a Video card to support Windows 7
very limited, with most AGP cards that are still available limited
to 4 or 5 generations old (like the NVIDIA 6200 which will
support Aero) models, unless you want to spend $$$ for
a few more recent AGP cards.

Of course if you plan to stay with XP non of the above may matter.

 

[JS]

Once again, its age is not what's important. It's what needs replacing
that's important. If enough is wrong with it, it can be a better buy
to replace it.


Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

Good advice Ken.

At some point the cost to fix the old system
may come too close to the cost of buying an
entry level system and if you do your homework
you may still be able find a few new computers
that still may be able to run XP, Vista and or Windows 7.

If you plan to "Downgrade" to XP though make certain
the new PC has XP drivers available or you may be stuck
with Vista. Also your old PC must have a retail copy of XP
installed if for plan to ditch the old system, as OEM versions
of XP or a 'Recovery' CD that came with the old system will not work on a
new PC.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Good advice Ken.

Thanks.


At some point the cost to fix the old system
may come too close to the cost of buying an
entry level system and if you do your homework
you may still be able find a few new computers
that still may be able to run XP, Vista and or Windows 7.

Almost all new desktops *can* run XP, but Pippa said that what was
desired was a computer that *came with* XP.

If you plan to "Downgrade" to XP though make certain
the new PC has XP drivers available or you may be stuck
with Vista.

Yes, that's certainly an issue if it's a laptop. But Pippa said a
desktop was desired, so probably not.

Also your old PC must have a retail copy of XP
installed if for plan to ditch the old system,

You mean if Pippa plans to move the existing copy of XP to a new
system.

as OEM versions
of XP or a 'Recovery' CD that came with the old system will not work on a
new PC.

Moving an OEM version that came with the old system to a new system is
always against the licensing rules. However, whether it *will* work is
a different question; some will and some won't. If it came
preinstalled, you are probably right that it won't work. But if it's a
generic OEM bought separately, it almost certainly will work.

But if Pippa wants XP strongly enough and buys a new system that
doesn't come with XP, a copy of XP can still be bought separately.

 

[JS]

Almost all new desktops *can* run XP, but Pippa said that what was
desired was a computer that *came with* XP.




Yes, that's certainly an issue if it's a laptop. But Pippa said a
desktop was desired, so probably not.




You mean if Pippa plans to move the existing copy of XP to a new
system.




Moving an OEM version that came with the old system to a new system is
always against the licensing rules. However, whether it *will* work is
a different question; some will and some won't. If it came
preinstalled, you are probably right that it won't work. But if it's a
generic OEM bought separately, it almost certainly will work.

But if Pippa wants XP strongly enough and buys a new system that
doesn't come with XP, a copy of XP can still be bought separately.

That's true both eBay and Newegg are willing to sell you XP media.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

That's true both eBay and Newegg are willing to sell you XP media.

And Amazon.com. And probably lots of other smaller companies.