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deconstruct60

macrumors G5
Mar 10, 2009
12,298
3,893
HP gives out support even for 10 years old machines?

For free? Kind of. At the same service levels as the first 2-4 years for free? Not really.

"..Typically, HP stops supporting most products after 10 years. .."
https://support.hp.com/us-en/retired-products

That is also the 'official' dropping of support. The amount of effort and diligence put in on firmware fixes and tracking the latest bleed edge OS release with ultra modern drivers. Microsoft the same way. The "happens to work" status gets 'good enough'.

Most "do everything for everybody" organizations typically hollow out what is actually there for support toward the tail end. ( unless there is some kind of 4-5+ digit yearly support contraction. ). For customers making few changes it often falls into the happens to work status because the system is mostly in a time bubble. So it ends up being a variation of "don't ask for support, don't tell there basically nothing there to provide support"

Over time Windows 10 may change this. That "don't ask don't tell" will get exposed more often.

That would be impressive. Because that's what we're talking here: Mac Pros made ~10 years ago, not new ones.

If make folks (at some decent percentage of those left) pay for it then it isn't so surprising. I don't think Apple wants to go to that kind of model. In the context of nobody explicitly even paying at any point along the way ( support is bundled in the original price of the system. it isn't "free". So that finite amount gets burned up over time. ).

Apple on a Mac Pro update cadence of every 2-3 years could be about 9-10 also. 2019 + 2 or 3 . 2011-2022 . Add 6-7 to that and get 2027-2029.

It would shorten up if Apple iterates every year. With track record over the last 10 years , I wouldn't hold my breath expecting that. If they went every 2 that would be a colossal change for them at this point.
 
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startergo

macrumors 601
Sep 20, 2018
4,786
2,190
It is worth trying POP_OS. It comes in 2 flavors: AMD and Intel and the other one is Nvidia. The drivers come preinstalled and work quite well even for gaming. Plus it has integrated nice power management suite.
 

AidenShaw

macrumors P6
Feb 8, 2003
18,667
4,676
The Peninsula
For free? Kind of. At the same service levels as the first 2-4 years for free? Not really.

"..Typically, HP stops supporting most products after 10 years. .."
https://support.hp.com/us-en/retired-products

That is also the 'official' dropping of support. The amount of effort and diligence put in on firmware fixes and tracking the latest bleed edge OS release with ultra modern drivers. Microsoft the same way. The "happens to work" status gets 'good enough'.

Most "do everything for everybody" organizations typically hollow out what is actually there for support toward the tail end. ( unless there is some kind of 4-5+ digit yearly support contraction. ). For customers making few changes it often falls into the happens to work status because the system is mostly in a time bubble. So it ends up being a variation of "don't ask for support, don't tell there basically nothing there to provide support".
Sorry, but there are several fallacies exposed here.

I did a wholesale lab refresh in mid-2013 to early 2014 - about 30 new dual socket E5-26xx v2 HPE ProLiant servers. I'm currently working applying the firmware and OS patches to mitigate the MDS vulnerability on those systems. HPE is still supporting these six year old servers - for free.

A second fallacy regards the basic issue of the frequency of firmware updates. Most of the time, the rate of change of firmware patches drops drastically after the first year of release. The MDS/Spectre/Meltdown vulnerabilities represent an outlier - some servers were 'current' with BIOS versions from mid-2015 - until the MDS updates for modern CPUs were released.

Most of the time, if a "latest bleed edge OS release with ultra modern drivers" has an issue - the problem is not with the firmware, it's with the "latest bleed edge OS release with ultra modern drivers" and the fix is in the drivers on the "latest bleed edge OS release with ultra modern drivers", not a firmware change for systems that have been around for years.
 

MacsRSour

macrumors newbie
Jan 25, 2019
19
2
Sorry, but there are several fallacies exposed here.

I did a wholesale lab refresh in mid-2013 to early 2014 - about 30 new dual socket E5-26xx v2 HPE ProLiant servers. I'm currently working applying the firmware and OS patches to mitigate the MDS vulnerability on those systems. HPE is still supporting these six year old servers - for free.

A) You're blaming Apple when it's Intel not providing the microcode updates- https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210107. Apple made firmware changes to support the old Mac Pro even earlier this year.
B) 10+ Years old is VERY different from 5+ years worth of support by Vendors
C) HP is has a lot of enterprise contracts spanning 3-5 years. Apple is not comparable to HP in enterprise sales & support.
 
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