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How long did your computer last?

T

taelan28

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 15, 2014
130
6
I loved my Samsung 11 inch notebook I bought years ago, but the breaking hinges and subsequent freezing from paying someone to open it up and fix the hinges twice cause me to hulk out and smash it... spent too much time on the internet anyways and I didnt want to go back and fix it a 3rd time immediately after spending $80 to fix hinges a second time.

MOVING ON NOW!

How long have your computers (mac, PC, laptop, desktop) lasted and what cause you to get something new?
 
I have two xp machines , one desktop and one laptop from 2005 still going albeit very slowly. Used for specific legacy windows software. We have two 2009 macs still in production use. Usually upgrade main editing machine every two to three years. Older machines get relegated to file management, printing and office admin.
 
Custom built PC desktop (bought in 2004): RAID controller went haywire in 2005, one of the SATA connectors physically broke off the motherboard and the Ethernet chip just up and died in 2006, a second SATA connector physically broke off in 2007 (didn't even disconnect anything, just moved the machine with the case closed) and the southbridge broke down in 2009 turining it into a really big and heavy paperweight. On the software side I suffered from plenty of bluescreens caused by various drivers, two Windows registry failures in the span of 15 months and various other problems.

Macbook Pro 15" (bought in 2007): Suffered the Nvidia GPU defect in 2007 and replaced in 2010 because I thought it was on it's last legs (turns out those Kernel panics were just caused by Opera). Still works flawlessly despite all the spillage accidents I had with it (more careful now) and a replacement topcase from a dead machine of the same model (after the keyboard backlight died).

Macbook Pro 15" (bought in 2010): Zero breakdowns thou it did fall off a table on to it's side and took a cosmetic dent to the side. My insurance company offered to pay for a replacement and I took the deal. When they didn't want my old machine I sold it on for a lot more than my self risk. Still works problem free for the new owner.

Macbook Pro 15" (bought in 2011): Zero breakdowns and the problems have been software related (Opera pre "Chromification" causing Kernel Panics and 10.9.2 causing an HDMI output bug with the miniDisplayPort).

Lessons learned? Never buy anything made by Asus (repeated that mistake by buying a first gen Nexus 7 that suffers from awful backlight bleed which they refuse to fix), never trust Microsoft with anything safety critical and no OS or piece of hardware is free from problems. Some OS's and hardware vendors just have a whole lot less problems.
 
My computers last me a while, I still have a 2010 MBP, though its mostly used for my kids now and 2009 Mac Mini also used for the kids.

My rMBP is 2 years old, I'm hoping to get another 2 years out before I start getting tempted to replace it.
 
PC? 10 years.. Crapple Macintrash? not even two. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice? Shame on me. Never again, apple.
 
I had a 2009 iMac 20" that frankly, if it wasn't stolen last week in a burglary, was going to last me until the OSX version that dropped it came out.

RAM, a boot SSD, and a 3TB internal made that thing smooth as silk.

Also in the burglary, my beloved 2011 quad core 17" antiglare, dual ssd/hdd set up. Since Apple dropped the form factor, I was going to hold onto that forever. The expressslot 34 was perfect for my field cameras cards.

So, consider me a forced upgrader. I've just bought a 2009 Mac Pro I'm putting new CPUs and GPU in, and a top spec rMBP. That should do me for 4-5 more years.
 
Acer Aspire: Bought in 2010, still works great.

Asus Vivobook: Bought in 2012, works as new

PowerBook G4: Made in 2005, bought in March, still works great

2011 MBP: Bought a month ago or so, works great

Dell 4700: Bought in 2005. Works great.

Other than hard drive failures (all Seagates), I have never had hardware fail regardless of brand.
 
I have a mac mini from 2005 which is just too slow. it still works tho.
My imac from 2007 is still going strong, but i gave it to my mother this year.

I bought now a 2014 rmbp for myself. I hope it will last me, well forever. :)
 
My 2009 13" MBP is still working fine, although I don't use it anymore, but my parents do. They've also got a 2006 Core2 Duo MacBook that works fine even after several drops. It does look like hell, though.

Hank Meyer said:
PC? 10 years.. Crapple Macintrash? not even two. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice? Shame on me. Never again, apple.
Click to expand...

10 year old computers, regardless of the OS or manufacturer, aren't usually very useful. :rolleyes:
 
Laptops:
2002 Powerbook G4 667 Mhz, 15": RAM upgraded to 768MB, one of the USB ports is kind of dodgy due to the plastic tab supporting the contacts snapping off, and the battery no longer holds a charge, but otherwise works. Runs 10.4.11, slowly, but usable for web browsing, and emails. - Still working @ 12 years of age.

2006 Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.33 Ghz: HDD upgraded to 500MB, screen hinge somewhat loose, and an unfortunate dent in the back of the case, in otherwise working order. Battery charge lasts about 50 minutes though. Fairly usable for anything except gaming or heavy graphics work. - Still working @ 8 years of age.

Late 2013 Retina Macbook Pro, 2.3 Ghz: Still "new" and in perfect working order :D

Desktops:
Macintosh 512k E - broken disk controller in internal drive sometime in 1993-4?

1992 LC II - Upgraded the processor with a MicroMac upgrade card to double the speed to 32Mhz, RAM maxed out at 10 MB. - Worked until the logic board failed around 2001.

1997 Power Computing Power Center Pro 180 - RAM upgraded to 64 MB, still boots OS 9.1. Optical drive starting to go, no longer reads most burned CDs. Otherwise going strong ~ 17 years later.

2001 Digital Audio Dual 533 Mhz G4 - HDD added and upgraded to 750GB, 500GB x 2, RAM upgraded to 1GB, processors upgraded to dual 1.6 Ghz G4, video card upgraded to ATI Radeon 9600 AGP 8x 256 MB, running 10.4.11, works perfectly, can even do some light gaming (Halo works well). Going strong ~ 13 years on.
 
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I never had a computer dying on me. Then again, I always get rid of them after 2-3 years. My first mac ever, which was a 2007 plastic Macbook, I sold to a fellow student, and its apparently still working fine.
 
My first PC was a Gateway in 2000, and was still functioning, though a little slow at the time when I upgraded to my first mac, a first gen 12" G4 PowerBook in 2003. I ran the PowerBook until it started having display issues and felt pretty sluggish in 2008. I then moved to an early 2008 2.4 GHz MacBook, which was a great machine. This spring, I had a disk corruption issue and rolled it back with a clean install of Snow Leopard, and it was running great, and I had plans of eking another year or so out of it. A couple weeks later my 1 year old spilled a glass of tea on it while it was resting next to an end table. This forced me into buying a new machine on a tight budget with me settling on the 13" cMBP with plans to upgrade with an SSD and more RAM.

My Macs have each taken 5+ years of being transported nearly daily in a backpack or messenger bag with books and other stuff in an academic environment. While I don't beat and bang them around, I don't baby them either. I couldn't be happier with the performance and longevity I have gotten out of each of them.

Additionally, we have a 2006 CoreDuo iMac that my 4 year old daughter uses in her room. It served admirably as a stop gap between my MB and cMBP. The only issue it has is a single vertical column of pixels not functioning properly (not sure whether it's the display or GPU that is the issue). My wife is using a great 2010 i7 quad core iMac for her photography. It's a phenomenal machine.
 
Dell Latitude D610 (2005/2.0 Celeron/512MB->2GB) The biggest knock against this computer was that it didn't have driver support for Vista/7. It had a ... colorful history of needing service done to it, (the only thing original on that machine is the top case) and I finally needed replacement due to a broken hinge after the warranty ended. I continued to use it as a headless server for a couple years, but today is sitting OS-less in a case, because I haven't bothered to find a DVD burner to re-install XP or Ubuntu after I last wiped it.

Macbook 13" (Late 2008 Aluminum/2.0 C2D/2GB->8GB) The Latitude had a 1400x1050 screen, and I learned quickly that 1280x800 is cramped for me. I thoroughly enjoyed this machine, but it showed it's age quickly for me, even after shelling out for an 80GB SSD in 2011. I passed the machine off to my dad, who is still using it.

Macbook Pro 15" (Late 2011/2.2 i7/4GB->16GB) My current machine, which hasn't had an issue. It has the upgraded 1680x1050 panel, and is about as spec'd out as you can get.

---

So, I'm on 2.5yr with my current machine, my previous machine is at 5.5yrs and is still running with family, and my Dell (@ 8.5yrs) is running, though hasn't been used in quite some time. I try to hold to a 3-year cycle of upgrades, so I'll likely upgrade again on the Broadwell refresh.
 
Had a HP that lasted right outside the 3 year mark because the GPU failed. Then I got an Asus, same thing GPU died, right within 3 years and had this replaced and sold it. Both were gamed on very hard and long. Just wished they lasted longer. Hoping my Rmbp will last longer, which I'm sure it will as I dont game as much on the laptop anymore.
 
2009 Packard bell core2duo laptop one plater of HDD failed replaced with 120 GB SSD broken hinges, 4 GB of Ram still running!

2003 Powermac G5 1.8 Ghz maxed out 8GB Ram still running!

2014 custom built hackintosh core i5 4GB Ram 120 GB SSD 1 TB HDD still running!

1999 Powermac G4 350 mhz 1GB Ram still running but the graphics failed :(

So far all of my PCs have held up pretty well!
 
It took me until 2010 to migrate to an Intel Mac... my 2004 12" PowerBook G4 is still running but only kept around for some older software.

Same can be said of my 2007 era Thinkpad, is my main "OneNote" PC however that changed with Microsoft making 2013 free... so I have little reason to keep a old PC around :cool:
 
taelan28 said:
I loved my Samsung 11 inch notebook I bought years ago, but the breaking hinges and subsequent freezing from paying someone to open it up and fix the hinges twice cause me to hulk out and smash it... spent too much time on the internet anyways and I didnt want to go back and fix it a 3rd time immediately after spending $80 to fix hinges a second time.

MOVING ON NOW!

How long have your computers (mac, PC, laptop, desktop) lasted and what cause you to get something new?
Click to expand...

Let me see...

iMac G3 Blueberry - 2000
ThinkPad T22 - 2001?
PowerMac G4 QuickSilver - 2001
PowerMac G4 Graphite - 2000?
PowerBook G4 - 2005
PowerBook G4 - 2004
PowerMac G5 - 2004
MacBook Pro - 2012
Dell Dimension 4600 - 2004 ~ 2010 (Caught fire to defective heatsink and fan design)
Dell Latitude D630 - 2007
ThinkPad T60 - 2008

Any machine with one year is when it was made and it is still going today. The only one that died was the Dimension 4600 and it was a piece of junk. In fact, the Dimension 4600 was ranked one of the 10 worst computers of all time by some.
 
Pleased with Apple computers

I've been very happy with Mac. So far none of them have gone bad. They get older and no longer able to do new things. Each Mac still does everything it did out of the box.

I remember the first Windows unit I bought. It was bad out of the box and quite a journey to get it working as it should. Until then I was cradled in Apple's loving arms. That was a rude awakening. It worked out ok but it wasn't fun. The company that made that Windows unit was not good with customer service. I don't think that was representative of Windows computers.

I love my Macs!
 
Unibody White Macbook 4 years and going strong (Might have dropped water on it and had motherboard fixed by 3rd party but otherwise good)

And we have a PC from 2004 with a single core AMD processor, we rarely ever use it but its still kicking
 
2000 Quicksilver still use. OSX 10.2 But I run OS9 with it. Burn CDs with Toast 5. Maxed out the RAM. Still looks new and ultra quite. :cool:

2004 Powerbook G4 runs great. Needs a new keyboard.

2008 MBP 2.53GHz got because my software upgrades won't work on the G4.
 
My 2011 Macbook Air is going strong.
I am going to give it to the wife and by a MPBr at some point soon. Trying hard to wait for the refresh.
 
emac
1ghz/ g4 /512mb ram
August 2003- August 2006

macbook
2ghz/ core duo/512mb ram (upped to 2gig)
August 2006- March 2010

hackintosh
2.4ghz/ core 2 quad / 8gig ram
Feb 2008- August 2012

macbook
2.26ghz/ core2duo/ 2gig ram (upped to 8gig)
March 2010- June 2012

MacBook Pro
2.5ghz/ core i5/ 2gig ram (upped to 16gig ram)
June 2012 to present
 
2010 Custom built PC: $1800

2 fans had to be replaced, ball bearings messed up, $20

Upgraded the GPU from GTS 450 to a GTX 560 for $90

Added a 450gb 10K RPM HDD and changed OS to a 60Gb SSD
$90 for HDD and $30 for SSD

A stick of RAM died today(and wasted 3 hours of my time) as well so I'm down to 2GB of RAM....



Late 2013 rMBP 15" w / dGPU: $2200

2 weeks old exactly, no problems of course
 
From the late '90's to late 2007 I had 3 separate desktop PCs. Two were Dells, one was an eMachine. All there were top of the line, maxed out specs for their model. For all 3, just about 2 years later they began running extremely slow though nothing was technically wrong with them. They ran slow enough that I avoided using them unless I had to.

In late 2007, as our lives became more digitalized, my wife and decided to get our own laptops. I made the switch to the MacBook, she got a Dell Inspiron. In 2009, my wife's Dell laptop was surprisingly still running fairly well but she had Mac-envy and sold it and got a MacBook Pro. In 2011, I gave my in-laws my MacBook and upgraded to a MBP. They had spent a few hundred bucks on a couple used PC laptops that were just junk, even though they were newer than my 2007 MB. Earlier this year, we both upgraded to high-end 13" MBP, mainly for more storage as we both download TV shows. My 2011 MBP was 128gb and was already maxed out before we started downloading shows.

My 2007 MacBook is still going strong. It still runs like a champ for my in-laws.
My wife's 2009 MBP is still being used - she keeps it at our church where she uses it.
I sold my 2011 MBP to some friends who needed a good laptop and it still runs brand new.

It was the Macs turned me and my family to loyal Apple customers. As long as their products are high-quality and long-lasting, we'll continue to buy them.
 
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