New PC's aren't always better!

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PaulaJedi

Rift Surfer
So, I bit the bullet and lazily bought my daughter an el cheapo laptop. My intention isn't to get into a brand war, so I'm going to leave that part out. For supposedly being the latest and greatest, the thing is super slow. It reminds me of an old 386, and this thing is brand new. It frustrates her sometimes. It only has 4 gigs of RAM, which isn't TOO BAD per se, but the CPU is as slow as molasses. The poor girl has Windows 8 as well. What a pain in the A$$ Windows 8 is!!!

It was my son's turn to get a laptop, so I picked him out a refurbished one with an older CPU, but it's a dual core and man, what a difference!!!! It was the same price as my daughter's too. It has Windows 7!!! I wish I did more looking around when I bought hers. Furthermore, his has 8 gigs of RAM. No more crashing during games. (Yes, I understand that many laptops have limits in their graphics chips, but too bad, so sad. The kids aren't getting a $600 desktop.).

I forget what model, but 2 years ago I bought a fancy Radeon video card for my desktop and the darn thing kept overheating and finally died. (I even bought an extra fan). I stopped spending so much money on "new" stuff. I bought an older model card and I have zero problems whatsoever!

New isn't ALWAYS better, eh?

 
I've built my own for many years now. That way it does what I want it to, with no surprises.
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I've been building PC's for almost 30 years. I just didn't feel like doing it for the kids. Too busy taking them here, there, and everywhere.Anyway, as I originally said, the latest isn't always the greatest.

 
The components in new PC's are no longer as durable as they used to be. Ages ago things like hard drives and the ancient things called floppy disk drives where built to last. Unfortunately the devices usually became obsolete. For things like laser printers and dot matrix printers, the older ones that are 10+ years old actually maintain their value. That is because there are a lot more reliable and pretty much last forever. Also they where designed to be repaired.

 
Had an old AM2 motherboard fry out recently. Had to go shopping for old tech. Starting to feel like NASA browsing eBay for old parts... Did get it fixed though! Apparently the old Phenom quad core from a decade ago is still superior to the new AM1 quad core, who would have thought? I'm blaming the high latency ram timings on DDR3 vs the lower latency timings on DDR2.

 
Had an old AM2 motherboard fry out recently. Had to go shopping for old tech. Starting to feel like NASA browsing eBay for old parts... Did get it fixed though! Apparently the old Phenom quad core from a decade ago is still superior to the new AM1 quad core, who would have thought? I'm blaming the high latency ram timings on DDR3 vs the lower latency timings on DDR2.
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Do you ever know what you're talking about?
 
You are aware that memory operating at 1600 MHz with a latency of 11 is slower than memory operating at 800 MHz with latency of 5 aren't you?
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If you're comparing apples to apples then, mathematically yes but, just barely. DDR2 and DDR3 are apples and oranges.
 
You can always build a weak weak PC and you can always build a strong PC. Of course the latest parts will cost more than the old ones. But that doesn't mean computers now are worse. Quite the opposite, before year or 2 I built myself a quite powerful PC setup (for gaming and everything which requires more power) and that thing is still flying! It's significantly better than any older system I've had.

 
Things nowadays are built to last for about 1-2 years until they become obsolete and people are somewhat forced to buy new ones, and this loop endlessly repeats until we realize we obliviously spend money which could be put at better use.

Statistics say that the newest computer is usually replaced within 9 months by a new one, and this is the way this industry can last, and nobody bats an eye unfortunately. This is why I have my 2009 computer still, and can live without those fancy video games. :)

 
This doesn't really apply to computers... There are variety of parts you can buy to set up well made PC which will last for many years. Or you can buy pre-built PC which probably has parts barely sufficient to make it working (like very low-end PSU which will eventually break down and perhaps take other components along with it).

 
Things nowadays are built to last for about 1-2 years until they become obsolete and people are somewhat forced to buy new ones
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I agree. My laptop officially died, I've had it for 3 years and I didn't even use it often. It's disappointing 'cause it was a good brand and quite expensive. I expected it to last longer since I took extra good care of it. Now I'm forced to look for and buy a new one and with this experience, I'd probably just go for the cheaper ones so it won't hurt much if it gets broken.
 
ellajanelle;

Did someone tell you it could not be be fixed? If you want an independent opinion I might be able to help. If you want, please tell me the make and model and what it's doing or what it won't do and if you noticed anything just prior to the failure. If I can help, I will... it's free.

 
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