How long have you made a rig last? and a couple other things. . .

How long to you keep a machine without changing mobo or processor?

  • less than 3 years

    Votes: 20 40.0%

  • 3 years

    Votes: 9 18.0%

  • 4 years

    Votes: 11 22.0%

  • 5 years

    Votes: 3 6.0%

  • 6 or more years

    Votes: 7 14.0%
  • Total voters
    50
C

cinohpa

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 11, 2007
Messages
288
So, I've been exclusively a laptop person for the past 8 years, but after doing a lot of mods on my most recent laptop, it crashed with a major hardware failure. Not only that, but the external hard drives I've been using have turned out to be low quality and constantly corrupt my data.

For these reasons, I'm planning on building a new desktop and moving away from "external hard drives" and instead using desktop HD external enclosures for extra space. Can anyone vouch for their stability over prebuilt external hds?

With that said, I miraculously got offered a gift of funding for a new computer from my boss at work as a going away to college present. I don't imagine I'll have an opportunity like this again for a long time, and I really want to stop fooling around with flakey laptops as my main workstation. How long can you guys go without replacing mobo or processor? The other parts aren't as big of a deal/as expensive, but replacing those other two can often become a new build.

On another note, do you guys ever ship your rigs cross country? I'm going to build this thing at home, but send it up to myself at school. I don't really want to deal with taking it on the plane. Have you guys ever tried shipping a machine? Any suggestions?
 
I have 2 old athlon XP machines I've had running for about 5-6 years now.
Had to replace the MB in one of them 3 years ago because at the time I couldn't afford a
decent PSU and I now see where that got me.

My IBM Workstation which I bought used 3 years ago had the MB replaced by IBM due to a bad I2C chip, and its also still working.
 
I usually upgrade CPU, mobo at least once a year. Longest so far is my current rig. Been runing this mobo since July of 07 and CPU since November of 07.

Damn it ! just realized I have the upgrade bug :mad: lol
 
I still have a 1.0 GHz Thunderbird Athlon running on an ASUS P5A I believe with 768MB RAM. Overclocked to 1365. I use it to test new OSes that are Beta/RC or use it to familarize myself with a new Linux distro. That machine is probably close to 8 years old at this point. Even ran Vista RC2 on it with a 9700 Pro and it ran pretty good actually.

I've shipped systems cross country before and I'm about to do it again for a friend who bought an older computer off me. It's not bad. Just make sure everything is secure and that the system is packaged well enough so that it can take a bump or two. Definitely insure the system. I send mine UPS ground usually for cost because I can have it take 6-7 days to get there. You may not have that option.
 
I consider prebuilt external harddrive sto be the worst quality over self put together. They usually get the cheapest crappiest drives from the lowest bidder.

The ones I put together have all been top new top of the line drives from WD or Seagate with full warranty from the manufacturer.

I typically only replace motherboard when I do CPU. But then I don't usually upgrade but every few generations. P3-800 -> P4 2.4Ghz Northwood -> Core2 E6600. I expect this Core2 to last me at least 4 years. Doing stuff around windows doesn't require much CPU, I have no need for more CPU, only GPU power occasionally for gaming. About the most I plan to upgrade over the time span is storage space and GPU.

But what you use your system for may be different.

Fedex and UPS stores will often have boxes and padding and/or services to help you back it. Though you could also try shipping it in the box your case comes in.
 
I'm basically still using the PC I built in 2003. I've changed the video card, cpu and added ram but the mobo, HDD, PSU and optical drives.

Oops just read the poll question I've had this same mobo and cpu in here since I think 2006. Same mobo since 2003 though. I went from the old TbredB to this Barton a couple years ago
 
My last rig, Dual 2.4Ghz Prestonia Xeons (Equivalent of Northwood P4's) on an IWill DPI533 which was one of the very few xeon boards that allowed overclocking; I ran them both at 3Ghz using a wire mod on the sockets to increase the vcore. Since they both had hyperthreading it was like having a virtual quad core box and that was back in 2003. That thing was a beast and I upgraded the videocard in there 3 times as well as numerous other components before I upgraded to My Q6600 rig last year. All in all I used my Xeon rig for over 4 years and even towards the end it didn't really seem that slow at anything I did. I'm still sort of itching to pick up a 3850 AGP just to spring some life into it again and find some use for it.
 
I have an OLD 486/66 DX/2 I use to play DOS games like Planet's Edge and Might and Magic 3. I have had to change out the CMOS battery on the cpu and put in 2 power supplies, but it runs like a champ. I don't know if you would consider a power supply as an upgrade.
 
Lol you guys make me feel better about spending money on hardware.

I thought I was upgrading a lot. . . .

Reassurance for building I guess.
 
I went from second hand PII-era parts (Remember ISA cards and manually setting IRQs?), to a budget-box from wal-mart (Sempron, 256mb RAM, 80Gb drive), then to an Athlon64, 1Gb RAM, a 7900GS, to my current rig (it's in my sig). I usually end up building an entirely new system every 3 to 4 years, upgrading video cards every 2, and harddrives as needed. I bought my 7900GS in January, 2007, so I'm due for an upgrade. 1Gb HD4870 FTW!!!
 
I built my rig almost 4 years ago and it still runs great. I built another machine to replace it late last year, but the other one still works great for the girlfriend when she wants to play some games
 
Im still using a pc ive built from 2003 2.0ghz processor and a 1gb of ram but had to replace the mobo in 04. Since then all i have done is upgraded the video card and added a 2nd hard drive and put in a dvd burner to upgrade from cd burner. But alas it is now having problems and working on doing the legwork to build a new pc.
 
I do about every 2-3 years.

Started with a 1 ghz T-bird in 2001, then a 2.8 P4 in 03, 3.2 P4 with HT in 05, 3800x2 in 06, Q9550 in 08. The 06 one was because my brother in law was in need of a computer, so I gave him the P4 and updated to dualcore.
 
My current PC was built in the beginning of 2007 and still meets my needs. But if BF has any good deals on C2Q, I'm biting and doing an upgrade. I have just purchased parts for a server and will sell the old parts that came out of that PC, and I bought an AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 during the newegg sale, so that's another rig that will be built soon.
 
I build at least one new system every year, but it doesnt always go to me. I have a nice hand-me-down chain that I like to keep fresh. :p Two systems are on the top, the rest fall in line behind them... so every other year, one of the two top systems get an upgrade, and the old stuff trickles down the line.
 
haven't swapped a mobo in over a year.. :p prior to this about every 6 mos or so.. going to build a new machine around an x58 chipset mobo soon.. :)
 
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