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Author Topic: sick pc  (Read 13409 times)

Bryan Young

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #25 on: October 23, 2009, 07:27:14 pm »

Just re-reading the Bishops reply, I sort of agreed that the days of Floppies are over....but the I wondered if there is a multi-functional card reader that would fit into the redundant floppy drive slot. It'd be a lot neater than having it (the reader) just sat on top or the casing. Just asking. BY.
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Colin Bishop

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #26 on: October 23, 2009, 07:40:06 pm »

Bryan,

It's unlikely that you have any immediate problems to worry about. With cheap CDs and depending under what conditions they are stored, the disk material can possibly degrade after several years. Like everything else there is always an element of risk.

To put things simply, which is the way I like them, for your important data play safe and have one copy on your PC, another on an external hard disk and any really important documents or photos etc. on removable media such as CDs or DVDs. And then make sure that at least one of the copies is well off site so if your house burns down you still have one copy to restore from. Big external plug in hard disks of 500GB only cost £55 or so which is a pretty cheap insurance policy in my view.

In the longer term, like many of the rest of us at or approaching retirement age, what do you want to happen to your data when you have passed onto a different plane yourself? Like lots of other people I have my father's and grandfather's photos in albums which are part of the family history. I in turn would like to leave my unique photos to my daughters so that in years to come they will have a record of the places my wife and I visited and what we used to look like. For the past five years all my photos have been digital and only exist in electronic form. This is something I don't want to lose. I hope to get a selection printed out but that is one of those jobs you never seem to get around to, especially when you can download your last year's holiday snaps onto a USB stick and view it on the family TV. So it is important that all your vital documents and photos held in electronic form are as secure as you can possibly make them so that they can be passed on when you pass on. Morbid maybe, but practical all the same.

Just some thoughts anyway!

Colin
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The long Build

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #27 on: October 23, 2009, 07:51:53 pm »

Just re-reading the Bishops reply, I sort of agreed that the days of Floppies are over....but the I wondered if there is a multi-functional card reader that would fit into the redundant floppy drive slot. It'd be a lot neater than having it (the reader) just sat on top or the casing. Just asking. BY.

There are but I think that they tend to be for the 3.5 disk slot , but I'm sure you could get a casing to hold them in the larger slot.
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ActionWeb

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #28 on: October 23, 2009, 08:03:35 pm »

ActionWeb,

Please expand/explain. I did find your comment a tad unhelpful !

If your point is that you are no longer in charge of your data that is an issue I have wondered about with online storage of photo images.

Roger in France.
Sorry, Roger.

The basis of cloud computing is that your data doesn't exist on your PC/laptop, it exists on the Internet, so you can access it from anywhere.

This raises a few issues.

1) What if you can't access the Internet?
2) Who pays for the storage? I'd rather pay a fixed price for a hard disk than pay someone a montly fee to rent their 'cloud'
3) If you are renting space off someone, (more than likely in the States because they'll do it dirt cheap), what happens about backups, data security etc.? Who 'owns' the data? There have already been issues with the likes of facebook/myspace claiming rights on your content that you post
4) If 1) applies then you still ned local storage so you need to have a mechanism to synchronise data between your computer and the cloud
5) Even with this level of 'vapourware' there is already talk of your programs existing in the cloud as well. Revisit 2, 3 and 4.

I'll happily place a bet now that if we're all running everything from the cloud in 2015 I'll buy you a case of whatever poison you want.

Back in the real world, the talk is of moving away from real hard disks on to SSD, like you get in netbooks. (For the techies, check out FusionIO)
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ActionWeb

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #29 on: October 23, 2009, 08:07:06 pm »

Bryan,

It's unlikely that you have any immediate problems to worry about. With cheap CDs and depending under what conditions they are stored, the disk material can possibly degrade after several years.
Agreed.  Sunlight being the biggest killer.  As for BY's question regarding RAW v jpg, the only real difference is the revel of data held.  RAW is the full monty.  Everything.

jpg is a compressed format, so you lose some detail.  Most people can't tell the difference in print or on screen.  But a photographer can.
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Roger in France

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #30 on: October 24, 2009, 08:03:48 am »

Helpful and informative, thank you.

On a slightly different note, I do find that photographs printed off via a dot matrix printer using a good quality cartridge (one black, one colour) on good quality paper, still deteriorates quite rapidly.

Roger in France
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dougal99

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #31 on: October 24, 2009, 08:44:01 am »

Good morning Roger,

What do you consider 'quite rapidly'? I have several photographs printed on an Epson which have been used in club displays for a couple of years, which are still fine. Admittedly they aren't exposed to daylight all the time as they would be if displayed in a frame on a shelf.

Funnily enough I have just printed a picture of my son, at his graduation earlier this year, to join that of his sister on the wall. I'm hoping that it will last some considerable time, years with any luck.

Interested to hear your experinces in this area.

Doug
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Re: sick pc
« Reply #32 on: October 24, 2009, 09:19:53 am »

I have to agree with Roger here, I left some pictures printed on the window ledge from a standard inkjet printer and they started to change colourings quite quickly
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Colin Bishop

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #33 on: October 24, 2009, 11:38:24 am »

If you use a good photo printer with the original manufacturer's inks and matching paper then your photos should last for 20 years or more. Use cheapie inks and paper and you are on your own.

Of course, as long as you have the original file you can keep printing out new copies if the old ones fade.

UV in sunlight will break down almost everything in time, a good example is oxidization on fibregalss boats and of course any type of paintwork.

Colin
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dougal99

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #34 on: October 24, 2009, 12:05:10 pm »

Colin

Happy to hear about the 20 years however, as the technology is not that old, where does the figure come from?

Just curious

Doug
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Roger in France

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #35 on: October 24, 2009, 12:18:43 pm »

I am talking 2/3 years using a Dell printer, Dell ink cartridges and Kodak paper.

Roger in France
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cbr900

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #36 on: October 24, 2009, 12:30:19 pm »

For printing photos I always print onto treated paper, supposed to last several hundred
years, I do have a photo printed on my Canon printer in 1995 of Peter Brocks Austin A30
and it has not changed in any way, it is on display in our lounge room, which is bright and
sunny.
So if you use quality products it will out last us all.............


Roy
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Colin Bishop

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #37 on: October 24, 2009, 01:18:37 pm »

Quote
Happy to hear about the 20 years however, as the technology is not that old, where does the figure come from?

They subject samples to accelerated ageing artificially - a bit like opening and closing a car door thousands of time to see if the hinges break!

Colin
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dodgy geezer

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #38 on: October 24, 2009, 03:24:25 pm »

I am surprised at some of the advice on this thread. It seems to accept that PCs have a lifespan of about 3 years. This is not the case, but it is in the industry's interest (and especially Microsoft's) to get people buying a new machine every few years.

Your machine may have a hardware problem, or a software problem, or (probably) both, since a hardware glitch can often cause software corruption. The advice to clean, reseat all connectors and replace internal components is good - I am running a variety of machines up to 20 years old here (including some running 24/7), and I find that the fans getting clogged is the most common problem. My major failure has been power supplies going due to dead fans and consequent overheating. An external drive to back-up critical data - your photos, for instance, is a very good idea and should be used with all systems.

If you have a reliable on-boot hardware fault you can often isolate it by taking the machine apart and rebooting just the motherboard, then adding components until the system starts to fail. A hardware problem must be identified and corrected before you can proceed further. But you need to run with a simple operating system, preferably booting from a CD, to do all this checking. I use Knoppix, which is a Linux optimised for diagnostics.

If your hardware is OK you can proceed to sorting out the software. Microsoft operating systems have a poor architectural design, and get regularly get themselves screwed internally. I find that, for a Microsoft system in normal use, it is advisable to rebuild the system from scratch about once every year or so. Otherwise the registry and file system get so out of line that regular crashes can be expected. You can get registry cleaners and de-fragmenters, but they do not solve the whole problem. It is interesting to note that Linux does not have de-fragmenters or registry cleaners - it does not need them.

If rebuilt, a Microsoft system should go back to working fast. Eventually, it will get out of date, because commercial companies are always developing new software which is kept intentionally incompatible with the old software, thus forcing you to buy new programs. For instance, drivers for new hardware will not be written for old Windows software, even though the old machines would be powerful enough to run it. When Vista came out, the new DirectX v10 graphics drivers (required to give the top graphics in games) were only written for Vista and not XP. XP systems could run DirectX v10, but they were not allowed to. You will now find a load of unofficial hacks on the net which let you have DirectX v10 effects with XP running DirectX v9, so there are obviously no technical barriers to doing it.

The obvious answer here is to use Open Source. Here all the code is made available for anyone who wants it, and development is additive, and not forced. This is also the answer for people who want to archive old data - if it is kept in an Open format, this will be published, well understood, and there will always be readers for it. There will be no commercial pressure to drop one word processor in favour of a new one which offers no extra features. Plus, you won't have all these complicated licensing problems, because all Open Source software is free. But it does mean using Linux, which Microsoft hates, and which has been accused (in the US) of being anti-capitalist because it is all free....
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Colin Bishop

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #39 on: October 24, 2009, 04:02:55 pm »

That may be true, but you are predominantly seeing things from the teccie viewpoint. The average Joe or Jill would not be able/willing to carry out the procedures you have listed. They treat their PC as a tool for doing whatever they need to do whether running a business, home office, managing photos or whatever. They don't want to get into how it works and run diagnostics etc. It's the same thing with cars. You can have cars that are 20 years old but these are usually owned by enthusiasts. Joe public, if they can afford it, will change their car every few years to be sure of always having something which is relaible and reasonably up to date.

The reason people change their PCs every few years is to avoid the hassle of what you have described. Life is too short and the kit is cheap. One less thing to worry about.

Colin
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malcolmfrary

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #40 on: October 24, 2009, 05:59:53 pm »

As long as average Joe is not prepared to learn fairly simple tasks like pressing a button to run a cleaning program, the PC industry will continue to "progress".  A bit like swapping a car because the washer bottle is empty.  The only real  reason for for changing is, in most cases, the requirement to run a new piece of hardware not otherwise supported by the version of Windows that the existing machine can run.  Some folks feel the need for state of the art, most just want it.
Apart from the range of system and registry cleaners, there is a handy tool in Windows.  From "Start - Run" type "cleanmgr" and you will be asked which drive to remove the rubbish from.  When it has had a look you get the chance to use the "more options" tab.  This gives the chance to remove all except the last registry backup.  Quite often, this will free enough space to bring a slow machine back to life.
Doesn't solve tobyker's original problem, of course.  Theres a hardware problem lurking in there that needs finding. 
Memtest86 checks out memory and whatever is needed to access the memory (most of the system, as it turns out).  Most hard drive manufacturers have programs to test their products.  After a short time determining what the problem actually is, a sensible decision can be made about the best way to cure it.  Replacement of one part, a new system, or something in between.
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dodgy geezer

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #41 on: October 24, 2009, 06:39:56 pm »


... Joe public, if they can afford it, will change their car every few years to be sure of always having something which is relaible and reasonably up to date.



[Rant Mode]

A car wears out, and Joe Public can see and appreciate what he is getting for his money - new seats, shiny paint, etc. A PC and its software does not 'wear out' in the same way (leaving aside any actual hardware failures, and recognising that of course moving parts like a fan will wear). But Jo Public is unable to comprehend techological flannel...

What is happening is that the industry is conspiring to keep Jo Public in the dark, and pretend that a regular 'new pc' is as much of a requirement as a 'new car'. For a while, during the technology boom of the 90s, it was true that a 5 year old machine was so slow compared to the latest one that a replacement was sensible - typically the latest software could only be run on machines one or two years old - anything earlier was not powerful enough. In 1995 100 mhz was standard, by 2002 3Ghz was achieved...

Nowadays, a machine clocking at 1 or 2 ghz is fast enough for pretty well all purposes. And they have been around for ten years. So you would think that the need to buy newer machines has diminished. And so it has - but the industry structures built up during the boom years of the 90s are still with us, and they are still trying to keep the regular profitable turnover of systems. They can no longer justify this with hardware speed improvements, so they have been deliberately planning obsolescence although there is no reason to do so. In my book that is conspiracy and fraud.

I think it is appalling that MS operating systems have been unable to run for more than a few years before needing attention. I can see why that came to be the case - they were never needed to work for longer than that, and it was very convenient for the marketing boys to have software problems occurring at about the same time that a new system was available. But now this bad design should be uncovered for what it always was...

[/Rant mode]
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Colin Bishop

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #42 on: October 24, 2009, 06:41:02 pm »

While not wishing to argue the issue, what constitutes a "fairly simple task" does rather depend upon where your baseline is. I have quite an extensive IT background myself although I came to it from the user rather than the specialist side and I personally don't mind getting my hands dirty delving behind the scenes. But I have noticed that there is a propensity on the part of IT specialists to expect a higher skill level on the part of users than is actually the case. Its a bit like "well, surely everyone knows that!" But actually they don't.

There was a classic instance when we were all writing games for the Sinclair Spectrum (remember that?) and submitting them to magazines for publication. One editor crashed the evaluation program sent to him and explained what had happened to the hopeful programmer and which key combinations he had pressed. The response was "Oh! You weren't supposed to do that!".

Nothing like good error handling - you have to protect the user from themselves and that entails matching the procedures to their skill levels. I doubt if one in a hundred users knows that the Registry or the Run command exist, let alone how to clear out restore points that are no longer needed.

Colin

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dodgy geezer

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #43 on: October 24, 2009, 07:00:12 pm »

While not wishing to argue the issue, what constitutes a "fairly simple task" does rather depend upon where your baseline is.

Colin is quite correct here, and I am not suggesting that non-specialists should learn enough IT to perform complex tasks. in all walks of life we rely on specialists to do complex things for us - farmers, doctors, architects, diplomats... and by and large they do a good job. But I believe that in the PC operating system world things are badly askew, and that it should be the duty of experts in that field to point this out. And they don't do so - there is a lot more money to be made sticking with the monopoly supplier.

So my rant is really addressed to the IT specialists here - and consequently of limited value to the poor chap who just wanted his machine mended. But he might like to appreciate some of the back story...
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justboatonic

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #44 on: October 24, 2009, 07:19:05 pm »


[Rant Mode]

A car wears out, and Joe Public can see and appreciate what he is getting for his money - new seats, shiny paint, etc. A PC and its software does not 'wear out' in the same way (leaving aside any actual hardware failures, and recognising that of course moving parts like a fan will wear). But Jo Public is unable to comprehend techological flannel...

What is happening is that the industry is conspiring to keep Jo Public in the dark, and pretend that a regular 'new pc' is as much of a requirement as a 'new car'. For a while, during the technology boom of the 90s, it was true that a 5 year old machine was so slow compared to the latest one that a replacement was sensible - typically the latest software could only be run on machines one or two years old - anything earlier was not powerful enough. In 1995 100 mhz was standard, by 2002 3Ghz was achieved...

Nowadays, a machine clocking at 1 or 2 ghz is fast enough for pretty well all purposes. And they have been around for ten years. So you would think that the need to buy newer machines has diminished. And so it has - but the industry structures built up during the boom years of the 90s are still with us, and they are still trying to keep the regular profitable turnover of systems. They can no longer justify this with hardware speed improvements, so they have been deliberately planning obsolescence although there is no reason to do so. In my book that is conspiracy and fraud.

I think it is appalling that MS operating systems have been unable to run for more than a few years before needing attention. I can see why that came to be the case - they were never needed to work for longer than that, and it was very convenient for the marketing boys to have software problems occurring at about the same time that a new system was available. But now this bad design should be uncovered for what it always was...

[/Rant mode]

Sorry but I dont think it is correct to say that about pc's or software. The demands on pc's and software changes massively in the course of a few years. Graphics become more complex, realistic and 3 d like year on year. The code to accomplish this needs to grow year on year. Thus, the processor required to run the longer more complex code needs to be faster and faster. Operating systems such as those released by MS need to be modernised and re written for the newer code that gets released.

As an example, for the last few years, I've been using a pc that is probably 6 or 7 years old. Yes, I could surf the net with it but, even news sites such as the torygraph on line were slow and caused it to crash due to all the flash and godknows what they have in their pages. It got so bad I just had to update a year ago to a new laptop. Its been great. Lots of net sites are now more accessible and easier to read. CNN was always crashing my old pc, not so the new laptop.

I've recent bought the RealFlight training software. It runs quite well on the laptop but its not perfect. The new RealFlight trainer was released after I bought the new laptop which is dual core so that just shows how quickly things progress in the computing world.
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Re: sick pc
« Reply #45 on: October 24, 2009, 10:24:10 pm »

.... Operating systems such as those released by MS need to be modernised and re written for the newer code that gets released.

As an example, for the last few years, I've been using a pc that is probably 6 or 7 years old. Yes, I could surf the net with it but, even news sites such as the torygraph on line were slow and caused it to crash due to all the flash and godknows what they have in their pages.

/quote]

O/S need to be updated, true, but you shouldn't be forced to change and pay for a new one for no good reason, as in the example I gave.


When your old O/S started to fail, did you rebuild it? Microsoft designs require that, otherwise they go slow and fail. Or did you think that was just because your O/S was 'old' and you had to buy a new one? Without a lot more detail I cannot tell just what was happening, but I strongly suspect the speed issues were not because the O/S was 'old technology'.

 If Flash caused your system to fail, had you loaded the latest Flash code? If not, was this because it wasn't available for your (I'm guessing) Windows 2k? And was this because the W2k technology couldn't handle it (unlikely) or because Microsoft had 'persuaded' Adobe not to make it available....

I am not complaining about new development - I am complaining about the technical dirty tricks which are used to force upgrades when they are not strictly necessary....
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AlisterL

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #46 on: October 24, 2009, 11:13:14 pm »

I feel compelled to chime in on this thread as an IT professional.

It seems to me that the problem that the original poster described, particularly with the CPU clock speed not being reported correctly, is most likely due to the battery that keeps the BIOS memory going when not powered on had finally run flat/stopped charging. This is common in older PC's. This can be replaced, but finding someone to do it might be difficult and probably isn't worth it. So is the problem of capacitors exploding - where a computer requires that a number of power cycles are needed to get it to start, can be symptom of this. It is possible to replace these capacitors, but again would almost certainly not be economical.

With regard to the problem of the user profile itself, well, that happens in an MS world. Every time you use your Windows PC (in fact this is true for Mac OS X and Linux as well) stuff changes in the profile, the registry and other places on the hard disk. Changes get piled on changes and eventually you get a big pile of poo - to be blunt. Solution - copy off all the important bits to something else, copy them again to another device just to be safe and then wipe the HDD and reinstall - if you are lucky enough to have something to reinstall from. Be very wary of downloadable registry cleaners! In fact, avoidance is best. Some probably do work as advertised, but I wouldn't bother. Most will make the problem worse or even introduce virii...

Media deterioration on CD's, DVD,s magnetic tape and disks is a problem. Quality media helps but does not and cannot fix this. The best idea is multiple copies of everything and remember to shift that important data to new and/or different storage types frequently. A W.A.G. on the time frame would be in the 5 year range for optical storage. If you have any recordable media heading towards more than 5 years old, consider checking the content on a regular (yearly) basis. Humm, maybe 5 years is a little too short - I guess it  depends how careful you want to be. The reason is that the heat applied by the laser to optical devices causes degradation that worsens over time. Storing in a cool location with minimal temperature fluctuation will also prolong the life. Rewritable media is the worst here. The example of VHS tapes needing to be replaced after a while because the recording quality drops is perfectly analagous to what I am trying to describe for both optical and magnetic media. Magnetic media has the same problem for a different reason - the fact that it is magnetic for starters. Basically the polarity of the magnetic bits on tapes and drives can flip all by themselves, and the larger the capacity of the device the more likely this is to happen. Oops. Pretty much all modern hard drives deal with this in various ways, but ultimately you can loose everything. One of the other problems with spinning disks is that when they do get old, sometimes when they power on they don't start spinning... Oops... By the way, USB sticks typically have a high failure rate. These should be used for transferring items, not permanent storage.

Anyone scared yet? Don't be - just take some precautions.

A rule of thumb is that a PC should last at least three years. More than that and you are realistically on borrowed time. Anything over 5 years is probably a bonus. Monitors, in particular LCD's and such should last at least 5 years and potentially up to 10 for good quality Philips or Viewsonics etc. Of course these brands do fail as well, after all these are electronics...

Operating Systems - ahh yes, lots of fun here. The problem is not that the OS gets old and stops working, what happens is that it gets superceeded and support disappears. This happens with XP next year I believe - so no more patches for that. You will need to be on Vista or Window 7, or something else (OS X if you prefer that or even Linux for the more technically inclined and/or adventurous). The Apple stuff is very user friendly, particularly in a home user environment and increasingly popular too.

I have an increasing preference to put stuff in the "cloud" as it is now known. But I choose to be careful what I put there and everyone should be careful with the licensing agreements that you must accept to sign up to these services - you may find that you do not own what you put up there, or that the provider has a "right to use" what you put up there. I do not and won't put photos of my kids on these services. Anyone read the licensing agreement for PostImage as used on this forum? I haven't... And I'm not implying that there is a problem either.

Always run an anti-virus program and keep it updated - AVG Free is good if you don't want to spend money. The Windows firewall and equivalents on OS X and linux should be used too. Windows defender or whatever it is called now should also be turned on.

Computers are not solid state devices. Every time they are used their state changes electrically, electronically, chemically and logically. They do degrade. They are not a lump of iron or steel or concrete that sits in one spot endlessly and should not be considered so.

Happy computing!
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Alister

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #47 on: October 25, 2009, 08:11:08 am »



A rule of thumb is that a PC should last at least three years. More than that and you are realistically on borrowed time. Anything over 5 years is probably a bonus.


Why is a PC any different to a radio, or other electronic item? They last for a lot longer than that.

Of course moving parts can wear and break, so fans and HDs may need replacing. And CDs and floppys may fail with dust inside (especially in a smokers house). Depending on the environment, regular cleaning is a good idea. But saying that a computer should last three years seems a very short time, and sounds rather too conveniently close to the Microsoft standard 'new operating system release' time. My experience is that, barring individual component failures due to wear, computer hardware is happy for 10-15 years or more.



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tigertiger

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #48 on: October 25, 2009, 09:25:50 am »

Some hardware is good for 10-15 years or more. But then you run into what are called 'legacy' problems.

An obvious one is when hardware becomes obsolete For example I still have an old computer in the garage in England and I bet the floppy drive still works, but can I use the floppy discs in a new machine if that one died.
Another problem is related to connecting. Do you USB ports, or serial ports, or something else. All my older computers have a video port, and a multi-pin plug for the keyboard.
Some machines now rely on USB ports.

There are also issues of the software drivers of some devices, not being forward compatible with newer operating systems or even newer versions of windows.
The biggest issue with legacy stuff is, as AlisterL pointed out, getting stuff fixed.


One other thought. I was told by an IT engineer (could be BS) that a computer that is permanently on will last longer than one that is turned off everyday. The surge of power causes aging, at the microscopic level, in components.

Other old components just die, without explanation.
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malcolmfrary

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Re: sick pc
« Reply #49 on: October 25, 2009, 10:14:36 am »

Quote
Why is a PC any different to a radio, or other electronic item? They last for a lot longer than that.
Simply, a radio, and most other electronic devices, do a single job.  End of story.  That job never changes. 
A PC, n the other hand, can do many different jibs depending on the hardware and software installed.  What is got as a glorified typewriter can evolve into a recording studio and photographic lab and super pinball machine. 
Back in the '80s and '90s there was growth into unoccupied space - at the start nobody had one, so all sales were new sales.  Now, the things are fairly universal, so it has become a replacement market, and they are generally so reliable that the only way to sell new ones is to have ongoing development, of hardware to give more capability, then software to push the new limits, then new hardware to run the new software better and so on.
Tobykers symptoms do sound like a CMOS battery - a relatively cheap and hopefully simple trial fix.  If it works, his machine is set for another 5 or six years at a low cost.  It will possibly need the software re-installing, but that will happen with a new machine.  If the new battery doesn't work, then the simple next step is to go shopping around places like cclonline, saverstore, scan, play,com and no doubt a few others to get a new box with an OS that can use his monitor and other external bits, or a complete system. 
Like Tiger says, a PC that is running a 6 month old specification can be got at a relatively low cost.  It is up the the individual to work out for themselves what the best combination of price and effort is for themseles.
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"With the right tool, you can break anything" - Garfield
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