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What determines a computer as obsolete?

While moving from one nest to another (we’re lemmings here; RP it a bit) I realized I still have all computers I ever bought or assembled, except for those that literally broke beyond any hope of repair.

Some are no longer used daily but all work and being on a point in life where everything and anything in the nest needs to have a purpose or a function, led me think what actually renders a computer useless or truly obsolete.

I was made even more aware of this, as I’m in the market to assemble a new machine and I’m seeing used ones - 3 or 4 years old - being sold at what can be considered store price, with specs capable of running newly released games.

Meanwhile, I’m looking at two LGA 775 motherboards I have and considering how hard can I push it before it spontaneously combusts to make any use of it, even if only a type writer.

So, per the title, what makes a computer obsolete or simply unusable to you?

Addition

So I felt necessary to update the post and list the main reasons surfacing for rendering a machine obsolete/unusable

  • energy consumption

overall and consumption vs computational power

  • no practical use

Linux rule!

  • space take up
Valmond ,

Power usage I guess.

If the cost of running a 2500k with a 790 eats up the cost of switching to a cheap newer one (it isn’t necessarily a new one) over some two three years, then that’s already a sign the old PC is dead.

agressivelyPassive ,

How long are you running such a machine realistically, though?

I’m in Germany, so very expensive power, and my single person household costs me about 600€/year in power for everything. And I’m working from home, so about 100W baseload for 8-10h a day.

Unless a machine is running really long and doing something significantly more than idling, power usage is almost irrelevant.

Valmond ,

I have this “rule” which might be a bit old, that 1 watt a year costs roughly 1€ (it’s just getting worse).

So over say 5 years (a somewhat reasonable time today I think), your 180watt PC used 8h/d would cost 300€ in power usage.

An older PC with a power hungry GPU could use 400 watts => 666€.

A ThinkPad (ok, it has not a gaming GPU) would be like 50€ and a good used one can be had for 200-300€.

You can also get a 4 to 8 gen Dell tower for 40-140€, add a cheap GPU and you’ll have a Roblox / even Minecraft PC.

If you buy a brand new PC yes that won’t (most probably) be an economical investion concerning power use. But old PCs suck(draw) power and one day it’s probably economically viable to change it for a mor recent one.

agressivelyPassive ,

Which reasonable PC uses 400W?

Valmond ,

BTW 600€ a year? You think that is expensive?

Is it 600€ only for your computers’ ?

agressivelyPassive ,

Read the comment again.

VonReposti ,

IMO a computer is obsolete when it can no longer run any desired programs. My laptop for example has outlived my much beefier desktop since the laptop is basically just used for web stuff while my desktop is used for gaming, development, and the like. Especially gaming has had a significant increase over the years and a gaming PC might be rendered obsolete much faster than something used for the web. My old gaming PC that was rendered obsolete I repurposed to be a server and it works well for its new purpose and will probably live for a couple of years still.

So there isn’t any concrete limit on which you can say a computer has become obsolete. It is more of a subjective assessment of whether the computer can fulfill its tasks to a satisfactory degree.

Saigonauticon ,

When space, time, or power it requires is no longer a good trade in exchange for the task it completes.

I live in Asia, so the space something physically takes up is often the biggest cost. The footprint of my house is like 25 square meters, so if I want to keep a bunch of older computers around, I’m going to need to rent a bigger house.

My time has also grown more expensive over the years.

jet ,

At the physical level: capacitors age and blow up, batteries stop charging.

At the efficiency level: when the work you want to do uses more energy on an older platform than on a newer platform.

At the convenience level: when the newer device is so convenient you never use the old device, telephone versus desktop as an example for most people.

After reliability level: if you’re constantly replacing things on a unit, where it becomes your part-time job.

The longest used devices tend to be embedded industrial devices. They have a job they keep doing that job and until they break they’re going to do that job forever. And that’s application specific computing.

Most home users are general computer users, so they have a mix of different requirements, support and use cases. I for one still use a 10-year-old laptop. And it’s totally fine.

carl_dungeon ,

Obsolete != Useless.

You could think of anything that’s not the newest as obsolete, or anything that’s no longer supported, but in either case, it doesn’t mean the machine can’t still be used for either it’s original intent or something else (Plex server or something).

Illecors ,

In a very blunt answer in my specific case - the moment it can no longer serve as a DNS server. Which is a very low bar.

redballooon ,

Running a computer with the sole purpose of having a DNS server seems like a huge waste of power, regardless how little power that computer uses.

Illecors ,

Your argument is correct on its own, but seriously misses the point of all possible variations. Using locally generated renewables mostly defeats it; not discarding the machine means less ewaste. If you’re trying to be environmentally friendly - remember:

  • Reduce
  • Reuse
  • Recycle

In that order. Since I cannot reduce the amount of computer I have already obtained, the next best thing is to reuse it. When that is no longer sensible - recycling is the third best thing.

redballooon ,

As of today, locally produced renewable power is a scarce resource. Any use of it competes with all other possible uses. The usages who don’t get enough local renewable power get it elsewhere. So the waste argument still holds. Unless maybe you already have a solar panel on your house that generates superfluous power.

taladar ,

I would say that it depends on a lot of different factors.

A computer can be obsolete because you require available spare parts to quickly repair it when something breaks and those are no longer available.

A computer can be obsolete because it is physically much larger, much heavier, much louder or less power-efficient than a more modern computer performing the same task for you.

A computer can be obsolete because of some external change, e.g. when Apple moved from x86_64 to ARM or when some new encryption algorithm or codec is not supported in hardware on that system and the software implementations are lacking in performance or power efficiency.

A computer can be obsolete when its hardware is no longer supported by drivers in modern operating systems with security updates.

banana_meccanica ,

When it’s slow and when I open up recent programs it locks and shuts. I’ve changed two computers in 25 years for that reason. I think the first one was for GTA III. Fortunately, there are no more games that are worth changing a PC.

Plopp ,

I’d say that, for me, a computer gets moved down the chain. From a daily driver, to something I use more sporadic, and then on to become a server of some kind hosting light weight stuff on my LAN. And then eventually it becomes a question of if it’s worth the electricity bill having such inefficient old hardware running 24/7.

sxan ,
@sxan@midwest.social avatar

There are a lot of good suggestions in the replies here, aren’t there?

I was going to say that I’ve been doing a lot of self-hosting and home automation recently, and it’s had me doing things like spending a lot of time finding out if I can run Linux on an old Apple TV, to make it yet another home server running containers. I went through a phase where I was considering disassembling old laptops to re-use their LCD panels as mounted control access points around the house.

However, the LCD thing never went anywhere, because I’m not handy with a soldering iron, but also because I’ve found that those laptops are usually newer than the ones people in my family tend to have (me being in software and having cycled through laptops frequently), and I’ve been re-installing friendlier Linuxes on them and giving them away to friends and family.

I wonder about the other devices, though. Many are certainly not low-power-use, and what’s the impact of me continuing to use them? Headless, most are certainly capable of running at least one containerized service, but a newer ARM or RISCV board will almost certainly sip less. What’s the environmental trade-off?

I have, though, only one tower. I built it in 1993, and have simply upgraded it with new MBs and components over time. It’s main feature turned out to be it’s usefulness as a RAID5 container, again upgraded with increasingly larger HD over the decades, until the point where I stated prodominantly using docked laptops. One move, I simply never set it up again. That one is a power-hungry monster, and I feel bad about having it powered on 24/7. But I still keep it because, sentiment.

Annecdotes aside, my answer to your question is: most computers can run Linux, and therefore, most computers could find a use in self-hosting. For me it’s become more a question if whether I have, or can find, a use for it. Often, a conversation with family results in finding a use; setting up a self-hosted media-server for mom, maybe. If not, it becomes e-waste, and I feel bad for a bit. But my devices have tended to be small form-factor, like Vera or AppleTV; it sounds like yours are larger, and maybe the form factor makes them less desirable to reuse.

ChojinDSL ,
@ChojinDSL@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

When you no longer can find a use for it.

redballooon ,

I have a 12yo MacBook pro at home with some Linux installed that runs perfectly.

Still I have absolutely no use for it. There’s nothing much else it can be used for than browsing the web. And for that I have lighter devices with a much better screen, so I prefer those anytime.

Staple_Diet ,

Media server? NAS? Use it to run your sprinkler system?

Lemjukes ,

I have one of these a d wapped the old HDD for an SSD and it’s like a brand new machine. It’s still stuck on 10.13 but as a netbook and N64 emulator it’s great.

AnyOldName3 ,
@AnyOldName3@lemmy.world avatar

You should only get rid of computers when your home, your parents’ home, and your parents’ garage have all run out of space. My parents’ garage used to be an industrial building and is about as big as the house, so can fit many ancient computers.

Qkall ,
@Qkall@lemmy.ml avatar

oh boy… i ask myself this a lot. i frequent the puppylinux community and dudes are out there slanging 32bit computers with sub 1gb ram all the time… much like others have echo’d, the answer seems to be when the computer dies.

selokichtli ,

For me, it’s the hardware failure. If it’s damaged enough to be uncomfortable to use, it’s done. Similarly, if it can’t run a modern browser decently.

I just ditched a >10yo laptop that I used as a server. The display was off most of the time, and the battery offered some energy backup. Its last months I couldn’t even use the power button, had to take the mobo battery out and connect it without the battery in order to turn it on. Touchpad wasn’t working either. OS hard drive was failing but that was replaced. I’m sure the thing works fine but I can’t find the right flex cables to connect the power button and touchpad to the mobo. Guess it’s going to trash soon.

GreatAlbatross ,
@GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk avatar

Power usage is a massive one for me. I go by £1/W/Year for consumption of always-on devices. (I think it’s more like £3/W/Year now!)

If the 20w new server can do the same work as the 100w server, and will cost me less over 2 years including the purchase price, then the old server is obsolete.

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