Lifespan of a Computer?

[TylerAW]

A couple years ago I found out that computers in fact have a set lifespan. This includes the Pandora and video game consoles. What if I fall in love with my Pandora as I did my Gameboy and my Gamegear? What happens when the CPU or other chips die? Is there a way to repair them or video game consoles for that matter?

 

[sebt3]

A couple years ago I found out that computers in fact have a set lifespan. This includes the Pandora and video game consoles. What if I fall in love with my Pandora as I did my Gameboy and my Gamegear? What happens when the CPU or other chips die? Is there a way to repair them or video game consoles for that matter?

somes have bought 2 pandoras because of this...

 

[slaeshjag]

If the hardware is properly put together, I think the capacitors and the boot loader ROM is your biggest concern.

 

[emcp]

A couple years ago I found out that computers in fact have a set lifespan. This includes the Pandora and video game consoles. What if I fall in love with my Pandora as I did my Gameboy and my Gamegear? What happens when the CPU or other chips die? Is there a way to repair them or video game consoles for that matter?

PC you generally just replace the part


but in compact cases like the pandoras (other console) and laptops, you generally just buy another one

 

[badfrog]

My 25 year old Tandy CoCo still works fine, as do all my old 8-bit consoles! (And I have many)

 

[Coldbird]

I'm not surprised they do... ever opened a NES? It has wires as thick as my little finger for gods sake...


It would need a nuclear blast to fry those. :rolleyes:


Sadly such uh... bulky... lines aren't a possibility with newer gen stuff... wouldn't fit the case. <_<

 

[lulzfish]

I'm not surprised they do... ever opened a NES? It has wires as thick as my little finger for gods sake...


It would need a nuclear blast to fry those. :rolleyes:


Sadly such uh... bulky... lines aren't a possibility with newer gen stuff... wouldn't fit the case. <_<

Build your own computer out of microcontrollers and breadboards, then keep a bin full of extra chips, wires, and a multimeter. Implement RAID in the EEPROMs or whatever permenant storage it has.


It would be slow, but you could keep repairing it for quite a while. If the secondary storage is read-only, you could use a write-once EPROM that would probably never fail, and you can always keep switching in new CPUs and RAM.

 

[may88]

A couple years ago I found out that computers in fact have a set lifespan. This includes the Pandora and video game consoles. What if I fall in love with my Pandora as I did my Gameboy and my Gamegear? What happens when the CPU or other chips die? Is there a way to repair them or video game consoles for that matter?

You've got to think that owing a Pandora is like owning a dog, with 7 Pandora years = 1 year.


But unlike a dog if you put an extra one in a cupboard for a few years it'll not be a skeleton when you come to take it out.


Oh the battery would deteriorate unless stored in the vacuum of space at 3ok.

 

[TrashyMG]

My Tandy Color Computer Model I, Commodore 64, Atari 2600, NES, Genesis, SNES, Mac Classic, Toshiba 5200/100(1989 386 laptop) and the several dozen other old computers and consoles I keep have issues with this set time limit theory.

 

[DaMummy]

my original Game Boy is still is working order, the screen cover might have fallen off and the battery cover is as loose as a goose, but the damn thing still runs whoever wants to run it

 

[WizardStan]

the Nintendo store in New York has an original Gameboy that came back from war disfigured (yet still loved by its family, so it was a happy ending, not like that bitch that left the war veteran after he lost his legs because she was "too pretty for him now". But I digress...). That gameboy is still on display, actually working and everything.


I reassembled a 386 computer a couple months ago for a 3 year old to play some reader rabbit on a machine that no one really minded if it got damaged or not. And it had no problem, despite the years of use it had and the decade in storage.


They really don't make them like they used to. I don't know if that's intentional or a side effect of things just getting smaller and smaller (and faster and faster)

 

[TylerAW]

So Computers do not have lifespans? I thought over time eventually transistors in them do die out?

 

[trapef]

But unlike a dog if you put an extra one in a cupboard for a few years it'll not be a skeleton when you come to take it out.

I guess it depends, if the dog is dead and has been mumified. Either way not much use.


P.s. No offense intended to dog lovers.

 

[Letalis Sonus]

So Computers do not have lifespans? I thought over time eventually transistors in them do die out?

Don't care about the transistors... The capacitors are much more of a problem. Most of the time electrolyte capacitors are used because they are cheap and doing their job quite well, but they like to dry out, leak or inflate when getting old. Usually they are easy to replace.


Actually, they are also often the reason that cheap hardware dies too young, they simply use too cheap capacitors. If something fails, open it up and check the capacitors for deformation or leaked electrolyte, this way I have already rescued my brother's TFT.

 

[TrashyMG]

So Computers do not have lifespans? I thought over time eventually transistors in them do die out?

yes, but are they set in stone, like what the original message states? no.


It all depends on quality, environmental conditions, heat, power deviations and such. The same transistor could last 300 years if ran with ideal conditions or 30 without..

 

[Zor Prime]

My mother ran a business where they used an IBM XT into the late 90's for printing invoices.


It was still working when it got tossed in the dumpster.

 

[lulzfish]

It was still working when it got tossed in the dumpster.

My school tossed cartfuls of working Pentium IIIs. I think I was in A+ class at the time, so it was probably winter 2005-2006.


They had been stripped for RAM and hard drives, so I asked a friend to let one of them disappear between the cart and the dumpster, then added my own RAM and hard drive and had a computer for something like $100 or less. (And I still have that hard drive in a USB enclosure, which is useful). Sadly, it only lasted a year or so before dying mysteriously. It was a nice bridge between my first laptop dying mysteriously and getting my second laptop for graduation.


The second laptop has been working fine for over 3 years now. It tried to die mysteriously 6 months after I got it, but it was under warranty, so Dell replaced the motherboard after wasting like 2 weeks of my winter break.


Other than this laptop, all of my personal computers have died. My parents and brother seem to be a little more lucky, but my friend's laptop died suddenly. Then it came back to life, but without working USB, and I think the monitor either broke or he broke it by accident while taking it apart.

 

[DaMummy]

dude, have you tried not getting a dell?

 

[lulzfish]

dude, have you tried not getting a dell?

No. Do you know of a better brand? Perhaps one that ships with Linux instead of Windows or OS X? I'll give them a chance whenever this one dies, or when my server needs to be replaced. It's a tiny Acer, got it December 2009, so my money's on ... summer or fall 2012, why not. I don't spill liquids on it like on my laptop, so it might last a while.

 

[WizardStan]

No. Do you know of a better brand?

Get a white book, choose the components of the cost and quality you want, build the thing yourself, install whatever OS you want on it.