How many computers have you went through? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Bryn
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2023, 04:42:18 am
content: For the over twenty years I've been dealing with computers, I've went through four of them. Other than my current one which I've had since 2011 (and currently no plans to upgrade it yet or have a new one), here's the ones I've had in the past:An IBM Aptiva running Windows 98 SE, 2001-03. It was actually bought by my mother's ex-partner at the time for his own use (in 2000) until it was bestowed to me at the start of the new year. It was a heap of crap though, as it had very low specs and that it kept having an issue with its graphics card (meaning that the screen resolution and colour depth became very low for no reason whatsoever), and it required reformatting for that reason alone (via a recovery CD that came with it).A custom-built computer running Windows XP SP1, 2003-08, that was provided by a small computer firm. It had 256MB RAM and a 40GB hard drive and came with an Iiyama CRT monitor and a Logitech keyboard and mouse, with the latter that I kept for many years later (that I mentioned in another thread here). The custom-built computer tower was notedof having lights at the front of it that changed colour every few secondsand also a transparent window at the left side of it to see its insides. It did me good until in September 2007 it suffered a string of thermal shutdowns (and at leastnineteenof them in total, up until July 2008 where they eventually caused the system to "faint" at start-up, i.e. rebooting when trying to boot up). Turned out it was years of dust build-up that caused this to happen.Another WinXP computer provided by my college through a grant, 2009-2011, where it had 4GB memory and 500GB hard drive. This was a lot better than my last one and I loved using it until that shortly began to suffer the same fate as it (even down to the fan of its graphics card making that horrid buzzing sound as a result). It was given a new lease of life when a new fan was put in it but that began to have issues also and therefore I had to let go with it.So, what about you?

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2023, 05:19:16 am
content: Mine is a case of the "Ship of Theseus"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_TheseusThe machine i got right now started its life as a Pentium 4 HT with a GeForce 6600 running Windows 2000. Then over time as the need arose it got upgrades, along the way some parts broke, so they got replaced etc... So at some point it got a upgraded GPU to a GeForce 9600, at one point the PSU got blown up by lightning and was replaced, then some time later the motherboard got replaced with a Core 2 Quad along with more ram to 4GB and then 8GB. Then at some point it got a GTX 770 put in it. It got a 1TB HDD added to it, then the original boot HDD got replaced by a 160GB SSD. Then the motherboard died and got replaced with a similar board that still held the existing Core 2 Quad, along the way the PSU was replaced again as it was suspicious during the intermittent motherboard issues...And it still goes on, the CPU was due for an upgrade so it once again got a new motherboard with a i7 4790K, but this time also got a brand new PC case (The old case did not have anywhere near enough airflow to cool the modern GPUs like the GTX 770) but it had all the other parts transplanted over like the HDDs, SDD, GPU, PSU..etc... At this point it also lost the original DVD drive since the new motherboard no longer had IDE. Then the SSD was replaced by a 512GB M.2 NVME drive, later on the GPU was replaced once again to a GTX 1070.So including the Pentium 3 i had before it that makes it a total of 2 PCs. But it is hard to say if this one counts as 1 PC since at this point 0 of the original parts remain.

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2023, 05:27:08 am
content: Zx81Vic20Vz200C64C128Amiga 1000,,500, 2000, 600, 3000486dx4/100And then things get murky with less memorable boring names in a ship of theseus

author: David Aurora
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2023, 05:34:05 am
content: Given that I just broke/replaced one this is as good a time as any for me to replyMatching the 20 years thing:- Apple G4 466. Bought used in 2001 I think, maybe early 2002? Used it to run a recording studio for about 8 years, then passed it on to my brother for him to use for a few years. Pretty sure it would still run, it did last time I checked. At one point near the end of my time with it I thought it had died, but a blast out with an air compressor got it running again.- 2007 MacBook Pro. Thing went through the fucking wars. Travel, getting dropped/stepped on/things spilled on it, used 24/7 for everything. Still works fine, but software has moved on. At one point after a few years the logic board failed, Apple fixed it for free even though it was out of warranty. I bought another when it failed, but when they fixed my old one I returned it.- 2018 Mac Mini. Bought as a new studio/workshop computer when the MacBook couldn't support the latest updates anymore. Still the daily driver in the workshop, and runs my CNC machine through Bootcamp/Parallels. Like all the others has been rock solid.- 2021 M1 MacBook Pro. Smashed the screen a few months after getting it, $1500 or something ridiculous like that for the repair (thank fuck for insurance). Copped a liquid spill a few weeks ago and died. Quoted $2700 to fix it (again, thank fuck for insurance). That said, I've got it back and had a look inside/run some diagnostics now and I think it will actually be repairable for a sane amount as it's mostly working, fault seems to be one particular section (keyboard/trackpad/etc, but it works with external controllers).- 2023 M2 MacBook Pro. Bought to replace the above. So far so good.Alongside these at a couple points I tried some Windows machines in the workshop to run some Windows only software, but I just couldn't get through 10 minutes of working without wanting to punch a hole in the screen so I found alternatives on the Macs.

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2023, 09:28:44 am
content: Generally, my boxes get replaced as a whole. Only rarely i upgrade memory or GPU.I also do not remember all the details, i do not really care all that much.I can mostly list the CPUs of the machines i owned.Intel Pentium 166 MMXIntel Pentium III 800Some Athlon XP on Socket ASome AMD on Socket 939. I think it was dual coreIntel Core2Duo E6600Intel Core i7 920Intel Core i7 5820AMD Ryzen R9 5900xSo i am on box number eight since 1997 or so, and that is already 2 1/2 years old. Currently i have no plans at all to switch, except that i am considering a memory upgrade since DDR4 RAM is cheap at the moment.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2023, 10:09:59 am
content: Personally owned (omitting work PCs)Atari 800Amiga 500Mac IIciPentium 90Dual Celeron BP6Pentium 4AMD PhenomIntel Haswell i7 (4th gen)<long span of all work computers>Intel i9 (13th gen)That ignores some used PCs that I bought to serve as routers or file-servers along the way.The Haswell I just retired last month, which is remarkably long and I may not have even replaced it yet if it supported TPM as needed by some of my kids’ games anti-cheat software.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2023, 01:21:43 pm
content: If I ignore a period of time when I was building and selling gaming computers, and two NAS I bought, the answer is eight.I still have all of them.IBM PS/1 Model 2168-37C 486 DX2-50 (in use from 1993-2003)Micron Pentium Pro 200 (bought to play Quake, in use from 1996-2003)Athlon XP (a 1900+ I think, not sure, first self built machine, in use 2001-2003)Athlon 64 (3000? 3400? not sure, built it to play Doom 3, in use 2004-2007)Core2Duo (pretty sure it's an E6850, in use 2007-2021)Core i5-3570K (2012-still in use)Lenovo Corei5 with Debian Linux (bought because Windows 7 on the C2D was too risky for some uses, 2021-2023)HP Elite Desk i7-6700T with MX Linux (2023-? fantastic little computer. I use this for everything except gaming.)

author: Bryn
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2023, 01:48:53 pm
content: Quote from: Berni on July 06, 2023, 05:19:16 amSo what OS does your system use now with the latest upgrades, just for my own curiosity?

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2023, 03:58:44 pm
content: Quote from: Bryn on July 06, 2023, 01:48:53 pmIt is still running Windows 7. The thing just keeps on working.I don't really have the incentive to upgrade the OS. I been using Windows 10 at work and it is hard to really find anything it does better than 7, if anything i been having problems with Win 10 that i never had with 7. Pretty soon my hardware won't even be able to run the latest OS anyway because of having no TPM support. I don't like the direction where the new OSes are going anyway so it might finally make me bite the bullet on my next PC in trying Linux

author: Bryn
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2023, 04:53:52 pm
content: Quote from: Berni on July 06, 2023, 03:58:44 pmYou're just like me then... although I had used 10 at college and even used a loaned laptop running it also and had no problems with it, but still would not chance it with a system of my own. Also, my laptop (which is a Dell Inspiron N7010, that I forgot to mention in my first post) doesn't seem to be compatible with it anyway (only because Dell had not tested that OS on that specific model, at least what was said on their site a while back).And yes, I don't like the direction that OSes are taking either... especially when the entire world knew about Windows 8 and the world freaked out as soon it had shown its ugly face. As for me though, I would switch to macOS as I've had experience with it for many years, though on-and-off (I did consider Linux until I lost interest in it).

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2023, 05:41:51 pm
content: After the spectrum-c16-memotch days386 -25 with a whooping 1 Mb of ram and 40M hard driveHP 486DX 75And then triggers broom kicked incyrix instead 86 p166AMD something or other,used the case, psu and drives from above.core2 6600 just the floppy drive and card reader made it over from the aboveAt this point i realised the constant upgrade cycle of graphics card/psu/ram just to play the latest games was a waste of money and switched to an xbox for gaming.my current main machine, I5 6500 still using the same card readerpentium gold 6405 for the workbench using the hard drive from the 6600Also along the way theres also been a compaq 486 laptop ,an elonex netbook, a dell netbook and a 286 salvaged from a skip.The longest lasting piece of kit is my trusty microsoft track ball

author: Infraviolet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2023, 08:39:07 pm
content: When one comes round to trying Linux one finds that the rate at which one needs to upgrade hardware massively decreases, you get your system working and if things slow down its easy to reinstall or update the OS to the next LTS version. So nice to get away from the way that, in the Windows ecosystem, each new OS from M$ is used as an excuse to make you spend again for new hardware when your old is still perfectly adequate. Running Linux daily on a laptop I've been using since 2014, have reinstalled OS several times (I use Timeshift to make a copy with all key programs already installed so I can revert to that easily) and have had to swap HDD once, but otherwise system going strong and performing as well as when new (actually performing better because it had Windows on when brand new).

author: Veteran68
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2023, 08:50:08 pm
content: LOL I don't think I could possibly count them. I've been both programming and building computers for about 40 years, going back to the early 80's when the first mass-market home PC's hit the market. I haven't bought a pre-built desktop computer since the early 90's (a Gateway 2000 486 tower). Instead I build all of my own desktops and servers for personal use, and tend to upgrade/rebuild them every 2-4 years. At any given time I usually have about a half dozen computers in-use around me.Right now as I look around my home office/lab I see 2 desktops (one Windows, one Linux), 4 servers (Linux), one Windows laptop, one Mac Mini, and two Macbook Pros. These aren't counting the surplus/retired laptops stacked on a shelf, the broken down laptop on my repair bench, nor my work computers. These will evolve and rotate out over the months and years, and I've never bothered trying to track them. It would be an interesting mental exercise, now that I think of it!

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 12:34:09 pm
content: My current Lenovo laptop is actually my favorite, and that's after having a Lenovo laptop two computers back, that was absolute crap! It only lasted a year and worked horribly then! I swore I'd never have another Lenovo. LOLMy requirements include a 17" screeen (poor eyesight) and a full size keyboard. What I mean by that, is the keys have to be full size,including the arrow keys!So many keyboards now shrink the arrow keys to half height making them hard to use (for me anyway). They also often shrink the numeric keypad keys to around 2/3 width, which is a bit strange as they have an inch of laptop on either side of the keys. It doesn't interfere with my usage, so I don't sweat that. But the arrow keys are a hard "no" if they are half size keys.Lenovo has taken themselves out of the running for my next laptop. They are down to a single 17" model, which uses a cell phone like touch pad in the numeric keypad position. How the hell can you touch type on a touch screen??? IDIOTS!!!I will say, I'm sorry I didn't buy two of these. Then I'd have a spare for when this one craps out.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 12:59:27 pm
content: I think I went through around 4-5 desktops and 2 laptops since 2000.I upgrade desktops every 4-5 years or so.First was a P3 450MHz, then a Athlon XP 2100+, Q6600, 3570K and now on a 3900X.RAM usually quadruples each time. 256MB on my first machine, 16GB on the 3570K, and "only" 32GB on the 3900X as fast DDR4 was expensive back in 2019 (bought it at launch).The Q6600 machine was also the first machine with a SSD in 2010. The infamous OCZ Vertex 2 120GB, that costed me 270 euros or so back then. It was crazy quick. I still use this SSD in my 3570K system as a HTPC.Since the 3900X I don't see much point in "cheaping" out on PCs. I spend (a lot) of my quality time behind them, and waiting on a slow machine is a pure waste of my time. Especially once I realized that I am okay with spending 2k+/yr on travel as a box made of metal filled with dinosaur liquids, that I only use out of necessity, and preferably spend less than 3-4hrs/week in.With that in mind I rather be in front of the pack rather than sitting out on an ancient machine for as long as possible. If I were to build a PC now, I would probably go for something like a Zen 4 Ryzen 9, 64GB of RAM, and a fast choice of 2-4TB SSD. But right now for me there is no point; the 3900X doesn't bottleneck anything yet.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 01:19:36 pm
content: I always had my own assembled desktop computers. So i only on my 4th one over the last 25 years. And I have one Thinkpad notebook on a side as a serial port terminal. That one is perhaps 15 years old.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 07:15:17 pm
content: Just counting computers that I purchased for myself:Micronics EISA 66MHz 486DX2 - Was limited to 8MBytesTyan Pentium 90Asus P55T2P4 K6-3 with 32 or 64 MB of ECC - I had several of these and they all failed when the embedded lithium cell for the BIOS memory died.Abit BX6R2 with Celeron 300A with 1GB ECC - Upgraded to a 1.2 GHx Pentium 3 and still have it.Asus P4C800-E Deluxe Pentium 4 2.4C with 2GB ECC - Still have it. This was my last Intel system because of lack of Intel support for ECC.Asus M3A78-T Phenom II 940 with 8GB ECC - Still have it and use it as a file server now.Asus Prime X570 PRO Ryzen 3700X with 64G ECC - My current workstation.Update, other systems I had included:Sinclair ZX80 - *Not* a ZX81!Atari 800Apple ][e with Microsoft Softcard CP/MNNC - Literally means No Name Computer - This was an S-100 bus system with 63K of RAM and ran CP/MAtari STVarious PC and AT clones

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 09:25:54 pm
content: Well, I can't really remember all the old ones, but I have been using Dell desktops for some time, from the optiplex line (commercial, rather than the consumer ones). They have been amazingly reliable. A previous one ran 24/7 for 12 years, and I bought it used! That's still running at my mother in law's house. I have been using the current one since at least 2017. I had to replace the power supply, it was crashing during power glitches. I have also used an old Dell Latitude when traveling, but it is pretty out of date and 32-bit only, so needs to be upgraded. 32-bits is FINE for me, but most of the new OS's don't support it.Before all the PC stuff, I had a MicroVAX-II at home for about 21 years. Eventually, the PC made it like it had the parking brake stuck on. Before that, I had a Z-80 system with S-100 bus, and then a Nat Semi 16032 system that was so slow it would put you to sleep.Jon

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2023, 09:42:05 pm
content: I can't remember years, but they will be apparent by the CPU.LSI-11 from HeathkitSeveral single board computers, including a TMS9900, TMS9995 homebuilt, one of the 6502 SBCs and an 8008 based backplane computer. I think I still have all of these... somewhere.80286 box made by a local shop.80486 box from Costco (not sure of the brand)Pentium II box - homemade, a Celeron clone running Lindows (linux) which was upgraded to an actual Celeron (which required a fan), networked together running Win2KCompaq laptop (not sure of the processor)Lenovo laptop which only lasted a year, total junk!Several Dell boat anchor, desktop equivalent laptops from eBay. I used the 15 inch display units for test fixtures.My current Lenovo laptop which works very well, but is no longer made, as Lenovo has dropped 17 inch display laptops. I think when this machine goes bad and I get a lust for computing, I'll just start taking walks on the beach.

author: vad
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2023, 12:23:12 am
content: I lost count of how many computers I've owned. I guess it's around 30.The first one was a ZX Spectrum clone built from a DIY electronics kit.Today, we have seven computers in our household: two ThinkPads for adults, two MacBooks for the kids, and three rack-mountable servers.

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 09, 2023, 12:52:11 pm
content: Lesee... Mac 512KE, Mac Plus, Mac LCII, original bondi blue iMac, unknown laptop from a pawn shop, self built next computer and my current MSI gaming laptop.