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Typical service life of residential and business PC?

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  Typical service life of residential and business PC? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-03-09 16:00 -0800
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2016-03-09 19:07 -0600
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? "Sam Crean" <sg55443@gmail.com> - 2016-03-10 12:31 +1100
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2016-03-09 21:38 -0600
      Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-03-10 04:13 +0000
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? timcaffrey420@gmail.com - 2016-03-09 19:58 -0800
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2016-03-09 22:29 -0600
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2016-03-09 22:30 -0600
      Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2016-03-10 02:07 -0400
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2016-03-10 08:20 +0000
      Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-03-10 14:31 +0100
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-03-10 08:22 +0000
      Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2016-03-10 17:02 +0000
        Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2016-03-10 14:10 -0500
        Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Lawrence Statton NK1G <lawrence@senguio.mx> - 2016-03-10 14:43 -0600
          Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2016-03-11 08:14 +0000
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Stephen Wolstenholme <steve@easynn.com> - 2016-03-10 09:21 +0000
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2016-03-10 10:22 +0000
      Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-03-10 15:19 +0100
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-03-10 11:02 +0100
      Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-03-10 06:30 -0700
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Joe Makowiec <makowiec@invalid.invalid> - 2016-03-10 14:47 +0000
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Mark Storkamp <mstorkamp@yahoo.com> - 2016-03-10 09:01 -0600
      Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2016-03-11 21:49 -0600
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2016-03-10 14:12 -0500
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Jan van den Broek <fortytwo@xs4all.nl> - 2016-05-02 09:51 +0100
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? andrew@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) - 2016-05-03 20:40 +0000
      Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-05-03 17:40 -0400
        Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-05-03 23:03 -0400
        Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2016-05-04 12:54 +0000
          Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-05-04 10:08 -0400
      Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? pechter@pechter.net (William Pechter) - 2016-05-04 20:36 +0000
    Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? jhhaynes@earthlink.net - 2016-05-03 19:53 -0700
      Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu> - 2016-05-04 14:42 -0500
      Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-05-04 22:43 -0400
        Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-05-05 08:37 +0000
          Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Lawrence Statton NK1G <lawrence@senguio.mx> - 2016-05-05 13:26 -0500
            Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-05-05 20:13 +0000
            Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-05-06 14:09 +0200
              Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? mausg@mail.com - 2016-05-06 19:42 +0000
                Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-05-07 02:42 +0200
          Re: Typical service life of residential and business PC? pechter@pechter.net (William Pechter) - 2016-05-09 22:53 +0000

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#160760 — Typical service life of residential and business PC?

How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?  Do people 
replace it  because of obsolescence/lack of power, or because 
it is broken*?

Likewise for PCs used in business?  How long are they kept in service?


*Obviously, some computers break from accidents--they fall off a
table or something hits them.  Laptops can get lost or stolen.
But I'm not considering those.  I suspect most PCs are replaced
before they physically develop problems.

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#160762

<hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

> How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?  Do people
> replace it  because of obsolescence/lack of power, or because
> it is broken*?

I'm on my fifth personal computer since 1985.  The first one was by far the 
best, the Atari ST, it didn't support the Internet and didn't have a 
compiler for object oriented programming - IMO an overrated property.   One 
was dropped because Comcast insisted I needed more RAM and speed to support 
Internet.  One was dropped because it crashed too often - Win 95 was my 
guess as to the cause.  The others I don't really remember. None of them 
were "broken" in the usual sense. Oh, I had a laptop that was broken but I 
don't count that.  I also had a shirt pocket computer - One could key in 
Basic but that was the limit. 

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#160766

<hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote in message 
news:b7e57958-7814-4742-affb-cdfd233ddda6@googlegroups.com...

> How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?

That varies quite a bit with me. And depends on what you
mean by keep too. I still have almost all I have ever had,
don't bother to throw them out even when I stop using
them and that includes the DEC LSI-11 that was my first
personal PC in a very similar format to the IBM PC.

> Do people replace it  because of obsolescence/lack of power,

Usually.

> or because it is broken*?

I hardly ever have them break. I have just once in fact and
since that was the motherboard, and I always assemble my
PCs from parts, it made sense to make a new one and move
much of the stuff from the one that died to the new one.

Plenty replace laptops when they bog down and are too
slow and irritating to use.

> Likewise for PCs used in business?

Some places replace them routinely after a specified time.

Plenty more replace them when they
wont do something as well anymore.

> How long are they kept in service?

Varies tremendously. You still see some real dinosaurs being used.

> *Obviously, some computers break from accidents--
> they fall off a table or something hits them.

Yes, but that isnt all that common.

> Laptops can get lost or stolen.

Again, not all that common.

> But I'm not considering those.  I suspect most PCs are
> replaced before they physically develop problems.

Yes, that is certainly true. 

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#160770

On 09-Mar-16 18:00, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> Likewise for PCs used in business?  How long are they kept in service?

Technology products are typically depreciated over three or five years,
then replaced whether they need it or not.  Vendors typically won't
offer support contracts on hardware past 5 years anyway.

S

-- 
Stephen Sprunk         "God does not play dice."  --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723         "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS        dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

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#160772

On 2016-03-10, Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> wrote:

> On 09-Mar-16 18:00, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>
>> Likewise for PCs used in business?  How long are they kept in service?
>
> Technology products are typically depreciated over three or five years,
> then replaced whether they need it or not.  Vendors typically won't
> offer support contracts on hardware past 5 years anyway.

For people like me, who don't have to be right on the bleeding edge,
it's a good source of cheap laptops.  I picked up the Lenovo T410
on which I'm writing this at a second-hand laptop store for $350;
it has a 250GB hard drive, 4GB of RAM, and does everything I want.
The graphics sometimes stutters a bit on games, but I have no
interest in gaming - at least not until I got hooked on Portal...

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

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#160771

On Wednesday, March 9, 2016 at 7:01:02 PM UTC-5, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?  Do people 
> replace it  because of obsolescence/lack of power, or because 
> it is broken*?
> 
> Likewise for PCs used in business?  How long are they kept in service?
> 
> 
> *Obviously, some computers break from accidents--they fall off a
> table or something hits them.  Laptops can get lost or stolen.
> But I'm not considering those.  I suspect most PCs are replaced
> before they physically develop problems.

Before about 2003 I noticed that a computer that used technology
that was introduced 6-7 years ago was pretty much unusable.

Since 2003 the rate of change has slowed considerably.  The old processors are "fast enough" for most things, it is the memory and disk size that force somebody to consider upgrading now.  Or perhaps they just want to literally downsize.  The Intel compute stick compares favorably to most desktops of 15 years ago.

       - Tim

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#160774

hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?  Do people
> replace it  because of obsolescence/lack of power, or because
> it is broken*?
> 
> Likewise for PCs used in business?  How long are they kept in service?
> 
> 
> *Obviously, some computers break from accidents--they fall off a
> table or something hits them.  Laptops can get lost or stolen.
> But I'm not considering those.  I suspect most PCs are replaced
> before they physically develop problems.
I have bought several Dell high-end destops used on eBay.  The last one that 
I (semi)retired was probably 1-2 years old when I got it, and it ran 
continuously for 12 years!  I finally got scared it was going to pop without 
warning some day, so I got another Dell desktop on eBay.  The old own is now 
at my mother in law's, still chugging along, but no longer on 24 hrs a day.

These are Dell's Opiplex line, for commercial users, not the home-grade 
stuff.

I used to get these things for under $100, lately a bit more than that.  No 
disk, I always put a new drive in them.  This last one has an SSD in it, 
with a magnetic hard drive for backups.

Jon

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#160775

On 3/9/2016 6:00 PM, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?

It varies a lot, but I'd say an average of 4 years.

Do people
> replace it  because of obsolescence/lack of power, or because
> it is broken*?

"Broken". But often could be fixed by doing a reformat & reinstall of 
OS. OTOH, paying somebody to do that for them would cost a significant 
fraction of the price of a new computer with "new improved" Windows 
("it has apps!).

For the last 20 years, my desk computers have mostly been hardware 
that some client was going to throw away.

> Likewise for PCs used in business?  How long are they kept in service?

4-5 years. Maybe longer in very small business (I've got one who's 
still running an early Pentium under Novell-DOS, because the 
(POS/accounting) software in use originally ran on a 286 with an ISA 
multiport board, all from long-defunct manufacturers.

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#160776

Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> writes:

> On 3/9/2016 6:00 PM, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> > How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?

I upgraded from CP/M (6 years) to an XT (1 yr) to a 486 (5 years) to a
Pentium (mumble yrs) to a Pentium II to get all the obvious
improvements in speed, networking, video, storage etc.  I'm now using
an IBM Pentium 4 that I bought 2nd hand, old enough to have a floppy
drive and serial port, with 500M RAM, 40G HD. It has adequate USB
support and does everything I want as fast as I need it to.  I think
I've had it five years.  I added the HD new when I bought it so it
might work for awhile yet.

I have 2 spare P4 Dells of the same vintage as backups and the P II is
still in a corner supporting some scanners.

But I'm probably not typical.  The average age of a tool in my
blacksmith shop is probably around 75 years, all the relatively new
power and hand tools notwithstanding. I have a Black & Decker 1/2"
electric drill that was advertised in a 1925 catalog and a B&D grinder
of the same vintage, both working great.  So the whole rapid
obsolescence thing with tools that happen to have chips and twiddle
bits instead of metal seems to me a gratuitous, if not a totally
avoidable, embuggerance.

-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

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#160777

On Wed, 9 Mar 2016 16:00:59 -0800 (PST), hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com 
<hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?  Do people 
> replace it  because of obsolescence/lack of power, or because 
> it is broken*?

Usually 7-8 years, replaced 'cos of the need for more of everything!
This one is 2008 and about to be replaced.

>
> Likewise for PCs used in business?  How long are they kept in service?

Most of my home PCs* have been ex-corporate ones being replaced.  These
are usually 3-5 years old so that seems to be about the normal
life-time, here in the UK at least.

* I've sourced quite a few for friends and relatives too.

-- 
Stan Barr     plan.b@bluesomatic.org

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#160797

In article <slrnne2bio.983.plan.b@ID-309335.user.uni-berlin.de>,
Stan Barr  <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> wrote:
>On Wed, 9 Mar 2016 16:00:59 -0800 (PST), hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com 
><hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>> How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?  Do people 
>> replace it  because of obsolescence/lack of power, or because 
>> it is broken*?
>
>Usually 7-8 years, replaced 'cos of the need for more of everything!
>This one is 2008 and about to be replaced.
>
>>
>> Likewise for PCs used in business?  How long are they kept in service?
>
>Most of my home PCs* have been ex-corporate ones being replaced.  These
>are usually 3-5 years old so that seems to be about the normal
>life-time, here in the UK at least.
>
>* I've sourced quite a few for friends and relatives too.

Ditto.

I get refurb slightly more than 3 year old computers (hard disk
changed and memory maxed out, bad keys changed and a general wash/vacuum)
for around $200, new price was ~600-~900.

This is without OS, which is OK since I run Linux or FreeBSD on them anyway.

The history of my computers are :

faxe	    pentium-II 900Mhz 2002, died last summer; something in the boot process broke.
kirov	    pentium-II 1.6GHz 2004, reinstalled linux last summer
weee	    celeron, 1.5GHz, 2006, runs freebsd and is my firewall number two
veggen	    celeron, 1.4Ghz, 2009, runs openbsd and is my firewall number one
wair	    i5, 2012, 1.8GHz runs linux and sometimes windows-7.
wacer	    i3, 2013, 1.4Ghz, linux (old windows computer)
eplet	    ??, 2008, macbook, 1.6GHz, still with apple-os 10.4. Also has xp under parallells.
odroid	    hardkernel arm7, 2013, linux
odroid2     hardkernel arm7, 2013, linux
odroid3     hardkernel arm7, 2014, linux
odroid4     hardkernel arm7, 2015, linux
xu3	    hardkernel arm7, 2015, linux
phidgets    phidgets, arm6, 2011, linux
rasp	    raspberrypi B, 2013, linux
rasp2	    raspberrypi B, 2014, linux
rasp3	    raspberrypi B, 2015, linux
rasp4	    raspberrypi B, 2015, freebsd
rasbb       raspberrypi 2, 2016, freebsd
lamaker	    bananapi, 2014, linux
lemaker	    bananapi, 2014, linux
limaker     bananapi, 2015, linux
lomaker     bananapi, 2015, linux
sambook	    samsung chromebook, arch linux    
sambook2    samsung chromebook, arch linux
chromebook  samsung chromebook2, chrome os

There are 2/3rds arm processors here at the moment, and I have started migrating
lots of the old intel code over. The arm processors generally use around 7% as much
power as the intel modern conterparts, and far less than the older ones.

-- mrr

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#160778

On Wed, 09 Mar 2016 16:00:59 -0800, hancock4 wrote:

> How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?  Do people replace
> it  because of obsolescence/lack of power, or because it is broken*?

1984: I got my first PC. It was a clone, prone to overheating.

1985: Replaced it (transplanted drives and cards/memory) with a Taiwanese 
clone.

1989: Replaced with a PS/2 Model 80.

1992: Replaced that with a PS/2 Model 95: the Model 80 went to my work 
offoce and stayed there until 1997. Never failed.

1997: Replaced with IBM PC Server 325. Model 95 went to work and was used 
until 2002.

2006: Replaced with IBM xSeries tower.

2013: Replaced with home built machine.

Most of those stayed around a while longer, but I have numerous other 
machines, including a number of HP microservers, bought cheap and new. I 
also have four PDP-11s and three VAXes. And a Sinclair ZX81.



-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

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#160806

On 10 Mar 2016 08:22:26 GMT, Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> wrote:
> I 
> also have four PDP-11s and three VAXes. And a Sinclair ZX81.
>

I'm jealous!  My Micro 11/73 is still dead...however the ZX81 still
works - ROM changed for Multi-tasking windowing Forth (Skywave), reboxed 
with more ram, 4 i/o ports and external key board though!

-- 
Stan Barr     plan.b@bluesomatic.org

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#160814

On 10/03/2016 12:02 PM, Stan Barr wrote:
> On 10 Mar 2016 08:22:26 GMT, Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> wrote:
>> I
>> also have four PDP-11s and three VAXes. And a Sinclair ZX81.
>>
>
> I'm jealous!  My Micro 11/73 is still dead...however the ZX81 still
> works - ROM changed for Multi-tasking windowing Forth (Skywave), reboxed
> with more ram, 4 i/o ports and external key board though!
>

I finally gave my PDP-11 away about 5 years ago after realizing that it
hadn't been used in several years.

I still have a ZX-81 and a ZX-80 both of which haven't been on in years.

I have Coleco ADAM serial number 2 which was last powered up in 2010.

w..

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#160819

Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> writes:

> On 10 Mar 2016 08:22:26 GMT, Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> wrote:
>> I 
>> also have four PDP-11s and three VAXes. And a Sinclair ZX81.
>>
>
> I'm jealous!  My Micro 11/73 is still dead...however the ZX81 still
> works - ROM changed for Multi-tasking windowing Forth (Skywave), reboxed 
> with more ram, 4 i/o ports and external key board though!

So -- I have to ask:  After changing the roms, adding more RAM, IO and a
keyboard, what's LEFT of the original ZX81?  At that point, isn't it
just a chunk of superfluous plastic with a Z80 in the middle?  

--NK1G

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#160844

On Thu, 10 Mar 2016 14:43:39 -0600, Lawrence Statton NK1G 
<lawrence@senguio.mx> wrote:
> Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> writes:
>
>> On 10 Mar 2016 08:22:26 GMT, Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> wrote:
>>> I 
>>> also have four PDP-11s and three VAXes. And a Sinclair ZX81.
>>>
>>
>> I'm jealous!  My Micro 11/73 is still dead...however the ZX81 still
>> works - ROM changed for Multi-tasking windowing Forth (Skywave), reboxed 
>> with more ram, 4 i/o ports and external key board though!
>
> So -- I have to ask:  After changing the roms, adding more RAM, IO and a
> keyboard, what's LEFT of the original ZX81?  At that point, isn't it
> just a chunk of superfluous plastic with a Z80 in the middle?  

I just took the main board out of the original case, installed it a
large metal box, large enough to take a bus extender for ram cards,
i/o ports added a psu, and threw away anything left over!

-- 
Stan Barr     plan.b@bluesomatic.org

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#160781

On Wed, 9 Mar 2016 16:00:59 -0800 (PST), hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?  Do people 
>replace it  because of obsolescence/lack of power, or because 
>it is broken*?
>
>Likewise for PCs used in business?  How long are they kept in service?
>
>
>*Obviously, some computers break from accidents--they fall off a
>table or something hits them.  Laptops can get lost or stolen.
>But I'm not considering those.  I suspect most PCs are replaced
>before they physically develop problems.

I've never had a home PC break. The only reason I have ever replaced a
PC is to get something else. I bought my latest PC to get a big screen
without losing space on my desk so I bought a flat one!

Steve

-- 
Neural Network Software for Windows                 http://www.npsnn.com

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#160782

On Wed, 9 Mar 2016 16:00:59 -0800 (PST)
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?  Do people 

	I doubt anyone in this group is typical.

> replace it  because of obsolescence/lack of power, or because 
> it is broken*?

	Mine are around five or six years old, tricky to be exact because I
rarely buy whole machines. Parts are replaced either because they're broken
(rare) or because of obsolescence. I keep working parts and recycle them -
so the motherboard in my router was once in my workstation.

	The last flurry of replacements here was more in the interests of
reduced power consumption than increased computing power. The next may well
do both (I have my eye on an Odroid C2).

	Tablets OTOH rarely last more than a year or so before they get
broken (usually a broken touchscreen on an otherwise perfectly functional
computer). They'd make quite nice little servers (low power, built in UPS,
built in display - Wifi only which is a pity) if it weren't for the pain of
running services under Android.

> Likewise for PCs used in business?  How long are they kept in service?

	Again it varies - at one PPOE I retired some servers that hadn't
been rebooted in (IIRC) seven years, if we hadn't been shutting down the
service they were providing they would have stayed in use until they broke
down. Desktops and laptops usually have a replacement policy varying
between three and five years IME.

> *Obviously, some computers break from accidents--they fall off a
> table or something hits them.  Laptops can get lost or stolen.
> But I'm not considering those.  I suspect most PCs are replaced
> before they physically develop problems.

	Most likely PC hardware is very reliable.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN                                      | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

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#160796

In article <20160310102218.b0031bb65dfec0524f233559@eircom.net>,
Ahem A Rivet's Shot  <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 9 Mar 2016 16:00:59 -0800 (PST)
>hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>
>> How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?  Do people 
>
>	I doubt anyone in this group is typical.
>
>> replace it  because of obsolescence/lack of power, or because 
>> it is broken*?
>
>	Mine are around five or six years old, tricky to be exact because I
>rarely buy whole machines. Parts are replaced either because they're broken
>(rare) or because of obsolescence. I keep working parts and recycle them -
>so the motherboard in my router was once in my workstation.
>
>	The last flurry of replacements here was more in the interests of
>reduced power consumption than increased computing power. The next may well
>do both (I have my eye on an Odroid C2).

The odroid c2 and the xu4 are both wonders in terms of computing power
per watt. The xu4 is my favourite; it  uses around 7% of an i5 at the
same frequency; and use around 38% as much memory for code intensive
tasks (the thumb2 is that effective). This is measured with real loads
of around 16000 sip devices and kamailio/asterisk with around 600
calls active, and around half of them being transcoded from/to g.729.

>	Tablets OTOH rarely last more than a year or so before they get
>broken (usually a broken touchscreen on an otherwise perfectly functional
>computer). They'd make quite nice little servers (low power, built in UPS,
>built in display - Wifi only which is a pity) if it weren't for the pain of
>running services under Android.
>
>> Likewise for PCs used in business?  How long are they kept in service?
>
>	Again it varies - at one PPOE I retired some servers that hadn't
>been rebooted in (IIRC) seven years, if we hadn't been shutting down the
>service they were providing they would have stayed in use until they broke
>down. Desktops and laptops usually have a replacement policy varying
>between three and five years IME.


The same setup I described above use "the network is the computer" as
a guiding principle. We built three-way redundancy with floating failovers
for all devices (talking bgp to the network for a multicast DNS and
SIP register service). This means that one node can be taken out of
service at any one time, and the hardware can be upgraded very smoothly.

Which they do every 4 years. They also let servers have a burn-in 
of 3 months before switching them in. So far, 100.000 % uptime since
2008. (But some other providers lost their lines to us and the two
failover patchs during both a fire that took out a whole location and
a hurricane that took out power for 4 days, bringing some fiber repeaters
to shut down. But all connectivity to the fixed network and the
two main mobile operators stayed up. Even when losing a whole site.

We lost about 60 calls in progress, and the adapters had retries for
up to 12 seconds before re-registering at another node and proceeding
as normal.

Which is good enough for emergency lines, even.

>> *Obviously, some computers break from accidents--they fall off a
>> table or something hits them.  Laptops can get lost or stolen.
>> But I'm not considering those.  I suspect most PCs are replaced
>> before they physically develop problems.
>
>	Most likely PC hardware is very reliable.

A former collegue lost a laptop from the window of the 5th storey, 
straight down into the asphalt. It had a shattered sceen (but with 
a prompt blinking in the ~20% of it that was still readable) and
the wifi was still up. But the disk had crashed.  Linux still
replied to pings, though. The whole machine was not rectangular
any longer, more like an elongated parallellogram. And it made
a 4-5 cm dent in the asphalt.

We did manage to rescue all that was written to that disk
since the last backup too. Journalling file systems can be your 
friend.

IBM sure made good laptops.

-- mrr

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#160786

In article <b7e57958-7814-4742-affb-cdfd233ddda6@googlegroups.com>,
 <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>How long do people typically keep their personal PCs?  Do people 
>replace it  because of obsolescence/lack of power, or because 
>it is broken*?
>
>Likewise for PCs used in business?  How long are they kept in service?

A little more than 3 years. It used to be shorter, but the 
corporate leases had, and have, 3 years as the horizon. Now
it is inching towards 4 years, very slowly. The return PCs are
rarely used in business, they usually go to refurbishment and
are sold cheaply or donated away.

>*Obviously, some computers break from accidents--they fall off a
>table or something hits them.  Laptops can get lost or stolen.
>But I'm not considering those.  I suspect most PCs are replaced
>before they physically develop problems.

Private use is longer, but I doubt it is much beyond 5 on the
average,

I have an average age of my computers of below 3 years, byt this
is quite biased from new ARM boards for business/research.

-- mrr

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