What do you call an 'old' computer?

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lyonrouge

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#427558 16-Jan-2011 08:17

5 years is the "old" cut off, but like the above comment, old (like people) does not mean "of no use", my 483 DX4-100 with Win 3.11 is great when the Indian "microsoft helpdesk" call me ;-)

Morgenmuffel

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#428543 18-Jan-2011 18:32

Cheers all,

I still can't figure why computers are still so dear, i wiuld expect a 3 yr old comp to be a damn site cheaper than they seem to be being sold for on trademe, but they're not.

'We love to buy books because we believe we’re buying the time to read them.' WARREN ZEVON

gzt

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#428654 18-Jan-2011 23:52

Well, an ok P4 from 3 years ago (usually running XP) still gives great performance for many applications and average internet stuff. It is still a useful appliance for today. Also, Intel's initial shift to power efficient multiple cores with lower clock speeds (esp laptops) did not deliver a lot to average users.

In practical terms the cheap single proc's during that time gave better performance for many home users. Still good for many. Bottom line, a lot of this stuff works very well.

Anyway, when people are comparing on clock speed and a machine has the software and peripheral setup they are looking for...

Compare this situation to 3 years before the P200.

Another factor may be windows operating system license cost.

richms

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#428666 19-Jan-2011 01:32

Morgenmuffel: Cheers all,

?

I still can't figure why computers are still so dear, i wiuld expect a 3 yr old comp to be a damn site cheaper than they seem to be being sold for on trademe, but they're not.

IME, a new computer is just as frustratingly slow as an old computer of about 3 years. Twice the cores, twice the ram, twice the harddrive and you are not waiting any less time for things to happen on it unless you really start to thrash the machine.

Webbrowsing with flash video is just as painful on my old crapputer as on the good one, dropped frames, laggy user interface.

Facebooks javascript still plods along making you wait, as does gmails.

A new computer doesnt really change the experiance a hell of a lot. I would rather have 2-3 PCs of 3 years old than one current one since it means I can seperate what I do between them, and the end result is normally more productive than one decent one. Till it comes time to encode a video etc.

Richard rich.ms

Mprezd

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#428831 19-Jan-2011 14:21

I'd relatively agree with everyone here for general use, but my main machine would never get to 3 years old.

In terms of holding value - I don't believe pcs are. There is always something new coming out, people selling on trademe are just selling to idiots who pay too much for things.

idiots may be too harsh. The ill/un-informed

lyonrouge

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#428834 19-Jan-2011 14:31

In my experience high bids tend to come from outside the main centres where competetive technology pricing does not exist

Mprezd

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#428838 19-Jan-2011 14:39

lyonrouge: In my experience high bids tend to come from outside the main centres where competetive technology pricing does not exist

but there are lots of people who could get someone else to build them a computer for $50 or a box of beers. Buy parts from computerlounge/playtech/ascent and you would get something much cheaper. It is these people who advertise a 16ghz gaming beast that has some joe average video card in it.

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Kiwi1971

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#428840 19-Jan-2011 14:40

If you are after a perfectly servicable older machine for a parent or as in my case, a media server for the PS3, it is well worth checking with your IT dept [I know a lot of you are the IT dept] as they will be the first to know when your company is about to recycle machines.
Ours recently sold a bulk load of 17" flat screen monitors and old Micro ATX boxes to some recycling company for next to nothing and let us have first option before they came and quoted.
I grabbed a tidy little IBM box with a P4 3.0Ghz/800FSB CPU and 1GB of RAM for $40. There was a nominal 40GB HDD in there which I swapped out for a 500GB IDE drive I had previously kept in an external enclosure. Great for PS3 or XBox serving.

DLS

lyonrouge

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#428846 19-Jan-2011 14:53

This can often be blocked by the company accountant who wants to be sure the company is not exposed with the book value of the device being scrapped

richms

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#428879 19-Jan-2011 16:44

So long as they sell to you at the same price the external place was offering, and there was no "donation" aspect to the outside offer then what do they have to worry about?

PCs are zero dollars at 3 years to companies anyway.

Richard rich.ms

Kiwi1971

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#428884 19-Jan-2011 16:52

richms: So long as they sell to you at the same price the external place was offering, and there was no "donation" aspect to the outside offer then what do they have to worry about?

PCs are zero dollars at 3 years to companies anyway.

The outside company was buying them, I believe they recycle them. Not sure how, probably just exported to a 3rd world country tech landfill where ten year olds work for a dollar a week to extract the precious metals off the boards. [Allegedly!]

I would have paid about the same if not slightly more than the recycler, given they were buying 20-30 of them and a similar number of screens. The 17" Flat screens were only going for $50.

DLS

richms

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#428898 19-Jan-2011 17:12

Problem with old flatscreens that have been in daily use for that long is 1, they are usually a crap LCD selected on price, not quality, and 2, the backlight will be on the verge of failing or at best losing its colour purity.

Cheap LCDs are disgusting, particually from the 3-4 year ago era where its not uncommon to have ones where a 10 degree change in angle can turn turquoise into cyan and other anomalies.

Recycling PCs seems to involve installing windows on it and selling them on trademe at dollar reserve. I have bought a few HP SFF machines off there for just messing around on with stuff, since they still have a parallel port for the ghetto styles IC programmers etc.

Richard rich.ms

b0untypure1

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#428956 19-Jan-2011 20:53

xpd: For some people its when their machine will no longer run the latest game at the highest resolution possible...so looking at a 6 month turn around for some :) (And Ive seen it happen)

LOL, made my day

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