How often do you replace your computer?

[Tech Explorer]

By computer I mean minimally a mobo. At the rate things keep changing I can see some people changing every five years while others hold off for over ten years due to finances. I think a poll would be interesting and as usual, feel free to comment.

 

[BuzzStPoint]

I'm going to say something else.

My laptop is 4 years old, but I've had about 6 different computers in and out of the house. Still have 3 of them.

 

[MMM]

I will only replace the PC when it cannot do the requirements I expect from it or when it dies.....
I use to replace/ update to the latest in the past but never really appreciated the added benefits as there was no real need for them, a waste of money for having latest technology with no real use for it.

 

[strollin]

Frankly, I upgrade when I get the urge. I recently went from an i7-860 to an i7-3770K simply because I wanted to build a new machine. I gave the old machine to my daughter.

I've never had a computer "breakdown" to the point where it wasn't fixable and I've had a lot of computers over the last 28 years that I've owned them.

The number of years I've had a particular computer doesn't play a part in when I upgrade, mostly I get the urge because of some newer technology or feature that comes along.

 

[BK_123]

I got a new laptop about 3 months ago. My netbook that I have had for 5 years wasn't doing what I wanted and it was playing up. I will only replace a computer if it has breaks down or need a new one desperately.

 

[~Darkseeker~]

When it stops being able to play the games I wanna play, or breaks down. Whichever happens first. This is usually about 3-4 years.

 

[BuzzStPoint]

I actually till have an old ibm thinkpad I aquired.
I dont know the specs, It has dos and windows 3.1

 

[berry120]

Very much depends what I'm doing at the time - it's a case of "replace when breaks / becomes annoyingly slow / can't do what I want it to do." It also depends how cheap / expensive I go at the time, I had my last box 3 years before I replaced it with this one, but it only cost me <£200 to build in the first place.

My requirements are often quite different from most too - I don't really play games so don't need the fastest graphics card around, but do a lot of work with multiple VMs, so lots of RAM is where it's at for me. Having loaded this thing up to 32GB, I doubt I'll need much more in the near future

 

[muz]

With laptops I usually find im replacing because they are broken . before the mbp ive got now I had a dell laptop for about 3 years which I eventually had to replace because the screen had come apart from the laptop body due to a fault with the hinges . Im hoping to get a bit more than 3 years out of the mbp tho ive had it 18 months already and apart from minor cosmetic stuff and having a screen replacement due to my friend standing on it I am yet to experience any problems due to build quality etc

with the desktop Ive used this a hell of a lot less since I got the macbook and when I do use it it is still more than capable for my needs so I will probably just replace as and when things break rather than build a completely new rig. the only thing ive done to the rig in the past 8 months is upgrade the ram which is a relatively inexpensive upgrade

 

[Der-PC-Mann]

Not sure... I've only ever really replaced the rig when I was getting a pretty big upgrade, or back when I was younger and didn't know how to fix summat, but now that I'm older, I tend to stick with rigs for a while. I've had my current one since I started building it about 2 years ago or so, and the one before this, I had for several years. As long as the main components are at least reasonably modern, you can always just upgrade parts without replacing the whole thing, but to each their own.