Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)
I'm a 27 years old software developer from Brazil. The computer in question was assembled in 2007 from parts that were mostly bought abroad (and then gifted to me) by a wealthier relative that was visiting. That's a key point: the currency exchange rates and the import taxes make electronics out of reach for the common folks.
That was an AMD2+ motherboard, 4GB of DDR2, a 5400 RPM rust spinner, and a Phenom X4 coupled with an ATI 4870.
Although the household was never in a dire situation financially, I had always been taught by example to fix things and keep using them for as long as possible. Even back in elementary school times I would troubleshoot computer issues myself and brush off dust from the components.
Yes, there have been hardware failures since 2007: two HDDs died (about 6 years lifespan for each), the 4870 died (but I extended its life for one more year with the bake-it-in-the-oven trick), one DIMM failure, a PSU blowout and a CPU cooler bracket mechanical failure.
All replacements that had to be purchased would cost me a significant amount of money. HDDs and PSUs were not that expensive, but GPUs were out of reach. When that DIMM died in 2018, I purchased an used and dusty DDR2 replacement kit off AliExpress.
After the pandemic hit and I got my first proper (remote) job in 2020, I splurged and replaced some components: a hand-me-down GPU from a wealthier friend (I had been using the onboard graphics since the 4870 died), an AMD3 motherboard, a Phenom II X4 and some DDR3, all used and from AliExpress.
The monitor, a 22" TFT panel from Samsung, is still kicking since 2007 with a couple of dead pixels. Same goes for the mouse, manufactured by an unknown Chinese brand, and a membrane keyboard that I completely disassembled and scrubbed clean under a running faucet.
Even with my career finally taking off (I'm due to complete undergraduate Computer Science this year) I don't see myself doing major upgrades/purchases any soon.
When was the last time you gave something extra life instead of throwing it away?
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 307 ms ] threadTech-wise, my "home server" is a business dell whatever bought second hand, main personal computer came from a startup liquidation, the computer that replaced went to a relative, and I've been able to re-home several routers/modems I saved from other folks apartment cleanouts (though the ones I have left are bumping against isp and speed limitations unfortunately).
I'm also looking forward to buying out my work MacBook for cheap when I get to 3 years, since it's rather beefy.
Also a swe, but in the US
Only industrial clothing seems to be made to last nowadays.
I appreciate your story and wish more people would take it to heart. I almost always just resurrect hand-me-downs from family and friends (I know enough people with more money than sense so it's pretty easy for me to pull off).
It's amazing how much you can do with them.
Indeed. Cloud VMs can fill in the needs unmet by the Pi—the amateur ML hacker generally only needs high performance computing resources infrequently enough that renting them on-demand from cloud providers is an extremely economical solution.
(Also, it's often in stock, check https://rpilocator.com )
One thing to keep in mind is that USB 3.0 is a completely different independent controller from 2.0. So, just because USB 2.0 sucks doesn't necessarily mean 3.0 does.
It's just unfortunate because you would expect 2.0 to be well optimized by now. I assume the kernel driver must be using the CPU to shovel data from the USB 2.0 controller rather than DMA.
Silly example is gmail, which loaded in 1s on my 2011 MacBook Pro when new, if it load it again today (I just tried) it takes 35 seconds before I can click anything.
Another might be everyone’s favourite software to hate on: Teams.
On my 2011 MacBook Pro: fans squealing, UI of the OS becomes unresponsive, beachballs. But chat/video software of the era was not so heavy.
What annoys me is that this machine is supposedly faster than yours, (i7, 8GB, SATA SSD) but the capability of the machine has been whittled away over time.
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7126229?hl=en
That being said: I kept my 2013 MacBook Pro retina until a few months ago, one year after a battery replacement which ended up breaking other parts and becoming to expensive to fix. Otherwise it ran perfectly fine and the high quality screen was almost on par to current screens.
Wasn't the last of those the 2015 Macbook Pro?
Unfortunately, upgrading to iOS9 makes it utterly unusable so I have it still running iOS8. The only issue is Apple doesn’t let you download older versions of apps unless you’d bought them way back.
I really wish Apple let alternate firmwares on these devices, I would love to run KOReader on my iPad over Linux.
I feel the early-00s PC I had at the time gmail came out would explode and kill everyone in the room with shrapnel if I tried opening gmail with it now, while remarkably, the 2005 (?) version had all the features I ever cared about
[1] I'm still using this laptop productively throughout our regular brownouts. It takes a bit of time to boot, but from login window to a completed WindowMaker startup (with a few xterms on startup + wicd app) it takes about a second.
Gmail currently does easily over 50 HTTP requests when loading, and browsers limit the number of connections:
https://docs.pushtechnology.com/cloud/latest/manual/html/des...
The net effect is that you wait at least 8x (but probably much more) your ping to the server for the page to load.
It's sort of a plague in enterprise web apps and stems from the fact that nowadays you have small teams working on independent modules, which do their own requests. Banking apps are the worst offender here.
Also some people are simply unaware of/ignore the issue. The other day I inspected an e-store my friend paid decent money to set up and the first thing that I noticed was that it was firing 200+ requests, because the devs neither bundled nor minified their code.
I thought this was because it was still in development - nope - another store by the same company had the same issues, causing the site to load 12s+ on a good connection, and 30s+ on a 4G simulator.
My laptop since 2017 has been a Dell Precision 5510, (Xeon 1505v6, 32G) running Arch and honestly it's not smooth in the slightest.
Granted, last time I used Teams was 2 years ago, maybe it improved a lot, but the UI lags so hard that it almost bugs out, along with pegging and entire CPU core, sometimes when the program has been on a call but is no longer... Teams should be sitting idle.
aren't most webcams on laptops firmly in the 720p-1080p territory? I know most people receive 480p streams.
I'll grant you that 10 way calls were much less common then, but even now Teams only shows 4(?) of them depending on UI layout.
My teams shows up to 8 I think.
On Linux it's often the opposite and a new update may even makes your old machine faster than it ever was.
I cleaned both and now the fans rarely spin up to full speed, because the hot air can actually leave the case again.
See this guide (the guide does not show cleaning the grille, but that is the important part).
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+clean+your+MacBooks+fan+...
I don't really track miles so it's hard to estimate but I'm on my sixth set of tires with it and I know the previous owner did at least as much.
I still have my core2duo system, since approximately 2008 - it still runs great and works perfectly. I am mainly running Linux on it as a "build" server for a project.
I also have a J1900 for the past 10 years or so, running a couple VMs on it - not too performant to run major stuff, but works great. I've used this system as my main machine until 2020 (early covid) and upgraded to something way stronger.
I prefer using old 5:4 1280x1024 monitors. I can't stand 16:9 or 16:10. I use three monitors with integrated graphics on an Optiplex. I do not like LED monitors, I prefer CCFL.
My keyboards are PS/2.
The point is all my computer equipment is dirt cheap, and I actually prefer it to the new stuff.
The ATI 4870 is actually kind of a nice GPU.
I have no interest in the M2, however if and when they release the M5 Multitronic Unit, I will definitely have a close look at that one.
I did build a new desktop when zen3 came out at the end of 2020, but that was a spare-no-expense splurge on my part a few months after I spent 5 days in the hospital ICU with a surprise heart problem. Because of the supply issues, I didn't get the 5950x until 2021. I finally just got a "new" GPU about a month ago for a reasonable price on eBay, a 6800xt. I used a Corsair PSU from probably 2007. I figure I should be good for another decade!
My daughter is 3 right now. Maybe the 2600k based system will be her first computer in a few years. A step up from the Apple II my dad set up for me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFCFiSB2Fuk
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Temporarily+Repair+a+Lost+Cause...
I also have a machine from 2007 in regular service, though in a secondary role (file server, etc.), but my daily driver isn't that much newer (2013, still a rust drive). Both machines have generated and continue to generate plenty of productivity and revenue.
I find that a little overbuilding in the right areas, like choosing a first-gen quad core in 2007 (often considered overkill on forums at the time), will greatly help the chances of you creating something that will last.
It's important not to hoard, but there's tremendous value in finding and maintaining quality. The advantage of old things is that you can point survivorship bias in your favor. Buying new, but very selectively with an eye towards 20-100y duty cycles (and maintaining them, like you're doing!) greatly helps in the same way.
Yeah, no thanks, it can keep collecting dust.
Currently dual booting the Arch and the 10.
- When my partner replaced their desktop, I rebuilt the old one into a NAS. I had to get new hard drives and a SATA port card to make that one work.
- Current main computer is a desktop that I helped my friend build, which I bought back from him in 2013 or 2014 after he upgraded. I've had to replace the power supply and the graphics card; currently it has an RX 580 from 2017.
- Picked up most of my networking gear from my previous job as an IT consultant, including an HP JE008A switch and an old Sonicwall TZ210.
I've also got the IT pack-rat shelf full of equipment that I "might use someday" - a stack of Chromebooks, network switches, graphics cards, various bits and pieces.
The last piece of kit I actually spent real money on was an refurbished Dell R720, which I'm currently using as my VM server. I've added more RAM and drive space to it as I've needed.
So right of first sale means if I buy an eg book, I have the right to sell it used. If I buy a computer, I have the right to sell it used. So it should not become a brick right when I'm selling it.
I'd have it running linux today, possibly as my work machine, if it wasn't so loud and power hungry.
Desktops I've had more luck with - my last one that died did so in November last year. I've replaced it with a Udoo Bolt and I'm hoping to hang on to that for a decade, too.
Bought a couple for the kids used, in 2015, and they're still going strong, albeit both have had screens, keyboards and fans replaced. But that's the beauty - the replacements are cheap enough to be worthwhile, and you can perform the replacement yourself with basic tools.
It's a shame laptops don't have more standardized modular interfaces, like desktops, so that replacements would be commoditized, and you could mix and match parts.
Meanwhile I'm on my third macbook in the same period (needed for work), due to software support, gpu failure, keyboard failure, etc, all too expensive to bother fixing, and my latest takes 3-4 times as long to start up as the T430s running xubuntu...
That being said, there are many reasons to stick with repairable old equipment, including "it still works".
So while I am not currently computing on anything from 2007 :), I have t420s laptops used on daily basis (February 2011),and my primary main desktop is chugging the amd fx8350 (2012). I use it for gaming, light room and Photoshop no problems! I live in Canada and have good income - but there's genuinely no reason for me to replace these. Like yourself, I've changed and fixed parts - particularly hard drives. But their hearts are still beating strong :).
For repurposing I often hunt for old broken radios to put a raspi in it and use it as smart speakers with mycroft, spotify connect and airplay connectify. If you get ones from quality brands the speakers are usually still in really good shape and you need nothing more than a small amp to use them. Add some yellow leds for lighting and you have a nice looking smart speaker for 30-40 bucks. I just love the aesthetic https://imgur.com/fZDEEyL
Thanks!
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I gave my 2010 macbook pro to my parents when I got a new one in 2015. They still use it to surf the internet and sometimes for netflix before bedtime. Its battery is so swollen that the lid cannot close anymore.
I also bought apple care but never had any chance to use it. Very impressive for a computer without any hardware failure for 12 years.
It feels lousy that they charge so much for the battery since this is a safety repair, and arguably caused by the fact that there were insufficient tolerances in the original build. This battery was put in circa 2019, when they replaced the keyboard/etc., so it's not even that old. I felt like I had a gun to my head since it could be a fire hazard.
Also jumping on that Samsung qd oled train.
https://usesthis.com/interviews/jason.rohrer/
[1]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LAh8HryVaeY
Although, they still work and have been assembled into an empty case I scavenged, for use by another family member.