Average age for a computer to "go dead"

Ceroc Addict

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I'm aware that there's a general 2-3 year product cycle after which you're computer feels a little dead, because it won't run the latest software, but I'm curious - how long does it generally take for a computer to actually go dead (i.e. The point at which the computer doesn't work and you're better off getting a new computer than repairing it)?

Kap
 
A computer going dead.. hmmm. Ok, by my statistics, all my 386 systems survived. The statistics contain almost 170 computers. The sensitive parts are fans, harddiscs and CD-Roms and sometimes even keyboards and mice, which are easily fixed or replaced. I never saw any of my processors die. A 386 system is from 1990 or so. That would make 14years
 
Even the "feeling" of being dead depends. I have a 400Mhz G4 (AGP, Gigabit Eth) that runs fine. It has Panther, iTunes, etc. I don't have iPhoto/iMovie 4 but usually Apple software gets faster with each release, on the same hardware.
 
Ceroc Addict said:
I'm aware that there's a general 2-3 year product cycle after which you're computer feels a little dead, ...
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That's a little short of reality in the Mac world. I know of many systems in the 5-10 year range, I don't often repair those, mostly because they continue to be used. If a part fails, such as a power supply, sometimes that's an economical repair. Or a customer may just upgrade to a new system. We have a couple of Mac SE/30s. One is rarely used, the other is an active network mail server, and is 15 years old, and had the power supply replaced when six months old, and that's it. If you have an older system that meets your needs, why not just use it?
 
My Quadra 650 is far from dead. Not bad for an 11 year old computer. I've got it pumped with a 9 gig hard drive and 112 MB of RAM. It is currently hosting our family homepage.

I still even use it to stream music with MpegDec and browse the web with iCab.

And my cost for this machine??...Zilch!!
It's value to me??...Priceless! ;)
 
Pengu said:
Even the "feeling" of being dead depends. I have a 400Mhz G4 (AGP, Gigabit Eth) that runs fine. It has Panther, iTunes, etc. I don't have iPhoto/iMovie 4 but usually Apple software gets faster with each release, on the same hardware.
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It's interesting that you say that, because it reinforces a feeling that I've been having for some time - computers have become fast enough (the breakpoint was about the time of the G3/Pentium II).

The point at which the average person can use a laptop to watch/burn DVDs, render video, do videoconferencing, create music, etc. in a reasonable timeframe, is the point at which there simply isn't anywhere else to go (without some huge next step in science/engineering that would make holodecks, etc. possible) - there are no consumer applications which require additional computing power. Even the ports we have on our computers are way ahead of the current infrastructure (e.g. gigabit ethernet vs broadband).

I look at the G5 and although I lust after one, I'm fully aware that my Powerbook G4 easily meets my needs. In fact, the G5 doesn't even seem to me to be that much faster at all, because I have no practical applications for the extra power (at least not on a regular basis).

There are only two groups that are currently being served by computer speed increases:
  • Serious gamers (and not really, because serious gamers get dedicated hardware)
  • Professional users of Photoshop, FCP, etc (and it's more that they need faster machines, because the other guys they have to compete with have got faster machines)

If the iChat AV in Tiger runs acceptably on my Powerbook, I might just sit back and wait for the G6 (maybe even the G7).

Kap
 
My brother just abandoned his performa 630 which is a like 10 years old and the only reason he stopped using it is because the nic went and he was using it as a dns machine in his house so he had no other use for it. but that thing was on for the entire time he owned it and was never turned off.
 
Also, we all have different ideas of what "going dead" means. Do you mean a hard drive failure? Motherboard failure? Monitor failure? NIC failure? USB/FireWire port failure?

All of the above can bring the computer to a screeching halt, but a few of those are really easy to fix yourself, so the computer really isn't dead. Every single part inside the computer, including all the chips on the motherboard, each have different lifespans. Kind of like asking what the average lifespan of a human is -- you can give a ballpark estimate, but in the end, it just all depends... some @ 35, some @ 105, some in between.
 
my B&W G3 just had its 5th birthday and with the upgrades I added last year I look to get at least another 2-3 years out of it. I bet it will be 10-12 years total before its dead.

this system is totally rock solid and has never skipped a beat in 5 years.
 
my two Apple II (early 80's) are now dead: one of the chips on the video path died.

my two MacPlus (1985 and 1986 I think) are still ok, but have some screen problems (potentiometer or high voltage ? I don't know)

All others are still ok.
 
I still have a running and working Commadore 64 at the house...not very usefull other than for menial tasks and nostigila, but fun to play with every now and then. Especially considering my cell phone is something like 1000 times more powerful <G> than the C64. There's also an old IBM 8086 that still runs in the basement. Point being is if they're built with quality components (like Macs are), then they'll last for quite a while.

Generally, on the PC side anything older than 2 to 3 years is 'outdated' and not worth fixing. Personally, I wouldn't put anything other than a HD in most PCs since by the time the 2nd year passes by most of them, it's cheaper to buy a new system than the replacement parts.

The Macs seem to last a bit longer, 5 to 6 years or so, before it's time to go shopping again. I'm still using the Beige G3 desktop bought before the millenium (sometime in 1998 or 1999, can't remember...been so long). It runs OS X just fine and even runs Photoshop/InDesign on rare occasions. Currently it's become a dedicated server and it's more than capable at it's current calling. We'll probably get 2 more years out of it at least.
 
To a certain extent, I think computers die on an exponential distribution. That is, the chance of a computer dying in the next time period T is the same, no matter how many time periods T it has already been through.

In other words, the average age of a computer dying can be expressed as a number of years - say 6 years, I don't really know - but subtracting the age of your computer from that average will make the estimate worse, not better. A more useful way of expressing it would be that a computer dies, on average, 6 years from now. So a new computer and a 12 year old one would both fail, on average, in 6 years.

That's not actually totally true - Bernoulli random variables (which change state on an exponential distribution) are a very good model for electronics failures, but not a good model for mechanical failures - wear and tear means that the average future life of a fan, or a hard drive, really does decrease as time passes without the part failing. So, depending on whether you consider the need to replace a power supply fan or a hard drive to be "death", the "average" life of a computer can have very different meanings.

For a much better explanation than mine, check this wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_distribution
 
You have 3 main failure models:
Early failure
Stable failure
Age

The first one makes that some components die during the first hours/days of usage (usually due to fabrication problems).
The second one is as expressed in scruffy post.
The third one is due to the fact that some parts get worn with time (electromigration, corrosion, ...)
 
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