Tell HN: I used the same computer since 2007 (with minor upgrades)

My desktop is mostly from 2011. The GPU is only about 4 years old, but the case and many of the fans are at least 15. The newest drives are new SSDs. I ripped my whole CD collection with the current optical drive (DVD?) and a now-defunct one in 2001 or so (different case). The build started out as an Athlon XP, and then was a 64 bit AMD for a while.

These days, it's fine for 4K linux gaming. CPU performance really stalled out over the years. The original motherboard, ram, cpu, etc build was about $1000.

Many other computers and laptops have come and gone, but it's still my main home machine.

I would have kept the same hardware forever too, but for some reason my tools seem to take more and more resources every year.

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.

yah this is it; software doesn't stand still unless you use old applications. I've read about folks keeping old systems around to use their old licensed software or some other application they know the ins-and-outs of and can get stuff done on it without having to break their mental model of the application behavior each upgrade with all the UI scramble and revamping. I'm starting to get a dose of that myself with some applications I keep running.

My first iPad, I believe it was the third generation: I would have never used it if it were as slow as it has become today. It also lost some synchronization options, though I don’t recall what it was.

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.

I’m still using my 2013 MPro Retina as a nice backup computer (when I need to do MacOS things), I refuse to sell it. It had the last good keyboard before the butterfly came along.

> It had the last good keyboard before the butterfly came along.

Wasn't the last of those the 2015 Macbook Pro?

Did the Alpine mail reader stop working with Gmail? I switched to self hosting after Google kicked me out of my account with a broken password reset so I haven't had to switch to a different mail reader.

I believe Gmail requires (or soon will require) authenticating with OAuth2 in order to use IMAP and SMTP. Thunderbird supports it, but I'm not sure about other email clients.

I'm a likeminded fellow Brazilian, and I would love to keep my gear forever and never have to deal with choosing and spending on new shit, but software keeps getting worse (slower) and you really feel the difference after a major upgrade.

Last week I got a new iPhone SE 3rd gen to replace my almost-five years old iPhone 8 due to its battery gone wild (76% of original capacity, randomly dropping to 1% from 70~80%). The old one was fine, but it was only when I got the newer that I realized what I was missing — basically, speed. I got used to iPhone 8's sluggishness to the point of not noticing nor caring about it, but when I put my hands onto the newer version, it was like I removed a giant stone from my shoulders — in that context, I mean.

Today Apple announced a newer macOS that I won't be able to install on my 2015 MacBook Pro. A few minutes earlier, they announced a beast of a new computer. So… yeah, I still firmly believe that someone should keep a computer as long as possible, but if it's your tool to get work done, maybe update it once in a while — and, obviously, resell or repurpose the old, still capable one.

My personal machine is the first and only new computer I ever bought: a 2012 Mac book air. I wanted to get a pro but couldn't justify the price. I took it in to get the battery replaced a couple of years ago instead of upgrading, again, I couldn't justify the price. I think I'll probably get the battery replaced again soon as it's started to falter. For the stuff I do in my spare time this machine is totally adequate. I also have the original iPhone SE as my phone which I will probably get refurbished soon instead of getting a new one - all the new phones are too big.

I have a machine given (lent) to me by work though.

> I also have the original iPhone SE as my phone which I will probably get refurbished soon instead of getting a new one - all the new phones are too big.

Have you looked at the iPhone Mini? It is a bit bigger than the original SE but not by much!

Admirable and well worth sharing. I'm originally from eastern Europe and understand and empathize with the perspective. We get quite the mixture here on HN, from SV perspective on salary and minimum acceptable HW, to more world wide stories :).

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 :).

Used a i7 3930k with 32GB Ram since 2012 with only upgrading to a 2080 TI from a 750. Did everything it needed to do and more (heavy vfx, editing, nibbling into machine learning) and still was usable for most of the things you threw at it. The board finally gave in after 10 years so I upgraded and the CPU is now framed and hanging above my new workstation. My computing devices all have the names of quake weapons but nothing will ever top - railgun.

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

That's a very nice lifetime for a build; you should be proud. Though I can't imagine using a 5400 RPM HDD today. 7200 RPM or bust, I'm spoiled…

> When was the last time you gave something extra life instead of throwing it away?

Ugh, unfortunately I'm at "throw it away", basically.

My current build, built in 2011, won't stay powered up. It gets anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours (and sometimes days) and then inexplicably power-cycles.

A tech thought it was bad RAM, but the DIMM he pulled checked out under memtest, and removing it doesn't change the symptom.

Given the behavior, it's probably one of the PSU or mobo, the problem is just which. I lack a competent tech or the parts to hot-swap with. The problem with replacing the mobo is that it then causes the replacement of the CPU and RAM, as the sockets for both have since changed. (Unless I find an older mobo, but it's 11 y/o, so probably not.) What with the chip shortage, it's going to be fun to find parts. I'll probably jump to AMD, too.)

The mobo (an ASRock) is not a high quality board for what it should have been, and in addition to the power cycling problem had other flaws since day 1. The PSU impacts the case fans. Newegg regened on the GPU so it never got that. And now it doesn't turn on. I will probably salvage the HDD in it (its on its second), and … I don't really know what else I can take. The DVD drive, I suppose.

It's possibly just some electrolytic capacitors on the main board or PSU that have gone out of spec or completely failed. Look around for capacitors with a popped out top.

Finding a motherboard with an 11 year old socket shouldn't be hard, unless it was a really obscure socket. Looking up the Intel socket I had in 2011, for example, yields plenty of options on Newegg.

I had random freezes and power cycles until... redoing the electric wiring in the house!

My guess is the washing machine, which was down the same line as my office (in addition to our main supply line being extremely undersized), was causing some spikes on the supply voltage.

That's a good find!

I know someone who worked on mainframes with wire wrapped backplanes back in the day. He was the customer support technician sent out when all others failed. One time, he discovered that a customer's reliability problems correlated to folk riding the elevator before and after lunch.

Never lose that spirit. Buy, run, and maintain what works for you.

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.

I can't recall the last time I threw away a computer. Either I've repurposed or fixed my devices over the years, as you have. A few examples:

- 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.

While this is an admirable perspective, keep things in context. Make sure you aren’t keeping a computer that takes a couple extra seconds on things you do 100s of times a day (eg opening browser tabs, compiling, etc).

If you waste an extra 15 min a day on loading times because you have a 10y old PC, the wasted productive time can add up surprisingly quickly. At the very least, ensure you get those high-value upgrades in (in particular SSD, but also other stuff like semi-modern 4-8 core processor, enough RAM for your tasks)

I'm a professional iOS developer and I'm still using MBP Pro 2015 model (bought second hand for cheap because of its defective speakers) that is maxed out. Since its speakers are not working, I have to buy a portable JBL3 bluetooth speaker as a replacement. Big Sur is still working fine for my 2015 model but I believe it won't work anymore on Ventura.

I'm going to sunset this laptop next year but for now it is still capable of compiling Xcode projects (both UIKit and SwiftUI). But obviously there are visible slowness when compiling. For example Android Studio is such becoming a memory hog with every release that it is slowly becoming impossible to run Xcode and Android Studio side by side, which I could do with last year's macOS Monterey.

My brother also gave me a Dell 2017 laptop which I can't wait to play with it with my hobby projects and install Linux.

That is why I also make it a choice to only use native apps and not apps compiled using electron. Electron apps on my 2015 model is just accelerating its near death with its abusive memory and battery practices.

Hi, interesting Tell HN! I like repairing stuff, started in 2018 and gained more skills since.

The Phenom II X4 isn't bad (according to https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php), there is a variety of model numbers but they all seem to have the same kind of performance as the i5-3337U in the (very portable) somewhat old laptop I'm using right now, which is usable.

- I recently upgraded a low-end Lenovo Ideapad (from 2019? 2020? or so) from HDD to SDD and from 4 GB to 12 GB of memory. This laptop contains a Celeron CPU that has worse(!) overall performance than the Phenom II X4 despite being 10 years newer.

- My personal laptop is from 2012 (bought used in 2015 or 2016 for pretty cheap), upgraded memory to 16 GB

- Also repaired ~3-5 retro computers over the last year!

- Just repaired my toaster last evening (broke yesterday morning)

So I absolutely agree and applaud your effort and think that we should all generally endeavor to use our hardware until it breaks or is completely impossible to work with anymore. However. If you replaced the motherboard, the CPU, the graphics card, and the hard drive, how exactly are you calling this the same computer? Forget "minor upgrades", that's a proper Ship of Theseus - I guess you've got the same case and... some of the RAM? but what else is even left from the original?

The CPU, GPU and motherboard updates were very recent, about two years ago, and marked the proper end of that cycle.

Although, they still work and have been assembled into an empty case I scavenged, for use by another family member.

I still have a 2008 Mac Pro (tower). At the time it was possible to order the bottom of the line system and add your own memory, video and drives, just like a "normal" PC. I think it cost about $3000 new which was still the most I'd ever paid for a computer. Picked it up from an Apple store. I used it as a home workstation for work and music and a gaming rig by dual booting to windows -- which no longer works. Did a few upgrades, video card, SSD, more memory. It's a dual quad core Xeon, 32gb of ram and 2tb of storage. It's almost 15 years old now and it still runs fine.

Except!

I feel like there's been a lot of forced obsolescence for sure. Things really went downhill like 2-3 years ago. Gradual lack of OS and driver support made it harder to use as a music machine. Boot camp was no longer supported without some crazy firmware hacks that I didn't bother with. I just got an xbox/ps instead. After some combination of OS and driver updates, my firewire audio devices no longer worked. The USB Audio devices I tried were always terrible (keeping the machine from sleeping properly).

It can still mostly log in to iCloud and iMessage, but there are weirdnesses. I did pick up a used firewire interface that does work with this OS (El Capitan).

But I really think the hardware could be made to work on the latest OS with very little effort.

Awesome! My main laptop is still a 2011 Thinkpad X201. It's a beast, been all over the world and dropped countless times but it still works perfectly fine.

It's missing a couple function keys (which I never use) and I finally replaced its battery this year after growing annoyed of having only 30 minutes to an hour of battery life.

I love my little Thinkpad. Keeping up with shiny tech can be fun, but there's also pleasure in using and maintaining your timeworn tools.

What replacement battery do you use? I'm looking for a backup for my X220, but all the aftermarket batteries have terrible reviews and I'm afraid the $90 original Lenovo ones are degraded after 10 years and not worth the money.

It's been years since it was my daily driver, but my 2004 Dual G5 is still working. The interesting part is that it is still remarkably snappy for everything but internet-related work — the Finder responds well, and applications load and run with pretty much the same user-interaction speed as on a reasonably-modern Mac or Linux box. If browsers were not so heavy — running one of the PowerPC Firefox variants bogs down the system something fierce — it would not be an intolerable experience. I'm grateful for the machines I have to work with today, to be sure, but a basic office app doesn't seem too much different on a user level even across decades.

My primary laptop is a 2011 MacBook Pro, running Ubuntu most of the time.

I added RAM (to 8 GB) in 2013 or so and swapped the hard drive out for an SSD in 2015.

I have been contemplating an upgrade for about 7 years but haven’t been able to decide on something :)

I am too a software developer and I am still using a desktop I bought in 2011 for less than 400USD (not including hard drives, which I continuously buy...). Since then I replaced a broken mainboard for about 60USD and replaced the initial 8GB RAM with 16GB RAM.

I am still using Windows 7 and I am dreading the day I have to upgrade to something newer. Because I am sure user experience will decrease massively because of the increased Windows 10 requirements. Recently a lot of software seems to be dropping Windows 7 support.

I have been contemplating buying a new system for at least 7 years now, but with horrible GPU prices and overall pretty bad value-for-money ratios compared to my current build I never really get around to it.

PS4 and Nintendo Switch take care of my gaming needs.

Clothing most recently, I took about 5 articles of outdoor wear in for repair through a 3rd party and Patagonias service (Patagonia expensive, but I'd have had to pay almost $1000 to replace what they've fixed for me for free over the years)

Tech-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

> When was the last time you gave something extra life instead of throwing it away?

In general, I do my best to do that, but when it comes to computers, unfortunately, not so much. My current laptop is barely 3 years old, and I'm replacing it this summer. Fortunately, I'll be replacing it with a Framework laptop, and I hope that my experience with it will involve incremental upgrades for many years to come.

When I was a kid in the 80s and 90s, my dad used to bring home computers for work, those destined for the dumpster, even though they were mostly in good working order (but were presumably a few generations out of date for the business). I remember replacing RAM, hard drives, graphics cards, sound cards (remember when those weren't built-in, and were a big deal to even have at all?), ethernet cards, anything that was replaceable. I remember getting my first CD-ROM drive, after begging my parents to help me pay for it.

When I went to college, my dad and I put together a computer from new parts, the first time I'd ever done that. It was a big splurge for us, even with my dad getting the parts at a discount from a friend's company. I upgraded that computer for many years as components wore out.

The 2010s probably brought the beginning of shorter-lived computers for me. Many of them were Apple laptops, which are designed to be user-upgrade-hostile, though I can't single out Apple too much; laptops are just harder to upgrade than desktops.

So I'm hoping that Framework will change this, at least to some extent.

Cool story, but this is going to be the main tool for your craft. You should buy a modern set as soon as you can afford it. You've earned it :)

That feels old!

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.

The recent Raspberry Pi models (4/400) have the potential to really expand computing globally. They're the first ones that have enough CPU power and RAM to do virtually everything you'd ever want to do with a desktop computer, with the exception of playing the latest games (and perhaps ML? I don't know much about it), but they cost $45 and run from a USB power supply.

It's amazing how much you can do with them.

>with the exception of … perhaps ML? I don't know much about it. 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.

The only fly in the ointment is the lack of SATA or NVMe on the base model. I think there are riser boards out there for that, but it's all very boutique.

While it's true that SATA or NVMe would be ideal, I just recently started booting a Pi 4 straight from a Samsung T7 SSD and it's night and day compared to the SD card even over just USB. I'm sure we'll get to better interfaces one day, but so far I'm very happy regardless.

That would be the "potential" part, but I don't think the supply chain problems are limited to the Raspberry Pi.

(Also, it's often in stock, check https://rpilocator.com )

Way less dramatic, but I recently got a $200 battery replacement on my 2013 retina MacBook pro that will make it last for years to come.

I haven't been interested in a newer model at all until the M1 restored HDMI and MagSafe along with the new CPU. Getting a strict upgrade in specs along with lighter weight and less heat/fan is tempting. But I'm currently not carrying my laptop around much (use a desktop at work), so can't really justify.

I have been working with the same laptop (Lifebook) for years. I bought it second hand (40 euros). No upgrade done so far. I'm lazy to even replace the battery which completely run out. Still it satisfies all my activities (web development, image processing with OpenCV & pentesting)

Of course, there are situations where you may need a better hardware. But in most cases, people buy under psychological pathologies such as narcissism and insecurity impulsions

Personally most of my computers are Ivy Bridge (3rd gen Intel). I do not use anything past that, I do not see any improvements in technology that make it worth upgrading, and there are many annoyances to the new stuff, I don't like USB-C at all. I can still run DOS and Windows XP on a 3rd gen Intel.

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.

Still using my 2011 MacBook Air. It’s still doing mostly fine; it heats up from time to time, but I plan on using it for a few more years :)

> When was the last time you gave something extra life instead of throwing it away?

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).

All the computers I've owned and used are still in working condition, except for one. The oldest ones all have had their hard drives replaced, the oldest desktops all had GPU upgrades. Upgrade one, and shift the rest down the line. Only a few machines got RAM upgrades. One dead GPU got replaced on my previous PC. A dead PSU was replaced on my current machine with one from the PC that I'm not fixing. The dead PC was also a donor for upgrading two laptops to SSD, it only has the broken main board with CPU left in there. I also repair my headphones whenever needed using spare parts from broken ones of the same model.

It's enjoyable to keep things working.

Cool story and congratulations on your work.

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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.

Yeah, I would get that battery replaced... if it ruptures, that's a metal-air fire that you do not want your parents to deal with....

I'm still using an Acer Pentium Pro II Duo laptop running FreeBSD for light web-browsing and accessing remote servers with SSH, and stuff like that.

That thing is bullet proof.

The flipside of this story is: if you're buying a new machine, get rid of the old one! The sooner the better, both for you (if you can get some money for it) and for the environment (the newer your machine is when you get rid of it, the more likely it is to prevent someone else from buying a new one).

The amount of time it takes to dissemble, photograph, describe, list on a site or two, answer email or sms questions, package, and finally ship spare PC components.

Yeah, no thanks, it can keep collecting dust.

I'm still using an Acer Pentium II laptop running FreeBSD for light web-browsing and accessing remote servers with SSH.

That thing is bullet proof.

¡Cual cosa mais velha! (What a beautiful thing)

Yeah here in this opposite corner in South America, I'm thinking, older is better a ton of the time. Here (I guess there too) laptops get stolen. They're the number-one target of burglary, of which there is a lot, they take that and that's it. They split. That's all they want. Plus there's this, this vocé and I have in common, which is in these parts, South America, there's this belief the machine is magical, has a little spirit from America that is extra "comerciable" meaning fenceable. Like it's cooler and gives a better thieves's high they get (very common here a lot of people get highs from larcency) because it's an abduction. That ties into the fact these things are exotic and magical because they're not produced or fixed here, because that very same theft makes a fab unthinkable.

I’m still using a Phenom X2 with now 12Gb of RAM. I do have 4 spinny 7200rpm drives. Got gifted some of those hard drives from a former company as they were slated to be thrown away (proper methods were followed to ensure they were wiped). Been running FreeBSD with jails for a home server for a long time (now nextcloud, Smb/nfs, now plex, munin, a few other random services. I know it will die one day, but enjoying it while it lasts!

I have this idea that I can create node with old hardware to run erlang/elixir. the applications in my head are infinity... this gives me hope. I mean, imagine to release guides and everyone can make nodes and we interconnect them around the world! To what purpose? The beginning of a dyson computational network! Let us dream!

i've been using the same core i5 2500k that i bought in 2011 as my main work computer since then. i don't have any great financial hardship or anything, my work could easily have bought me a new computer. but it's been great, and there's been no reason to fix what ain't broken.

i've been through a number of laptops in that timeframe though.

My home server is one that I built in about 2010 with only had upgrades since then. It’s still in daily use. I also run a laptop from 2012 although my daily work machine is newer.

One of the keys to being able to do this is to invest in quality components up front so they last longer —- and then repair them if things break down.

You are doing it wrong. Why would you even do that when Apple sells a new shiny laptops every year. Besides what if your grandma uses that laptop? Wouldn’t it burst into flames and bring the house down? Apple does it responsibly and also helps the environment by changing the connector and not shipping the charging adapter sometimes. Can your ancient laptop do such tricks? Yes, Apple hardware fails as well but that’s always the user’s fault unlike your laptop’s.

Using an external ssd drive to my 2011 imac would have kept me on it forever if Apple didn’t end long term support for it. I had to buy an m1 mac mini early this year.

I have a 2013 machine (dell latitude, 8GB, Intel i5 I think) that I still use and for most things I don't see a material difference vs my newer machines. The major difference is the form factor, the 2013 machine is a big brick, a newer xps or my macbook is way lighter and more portable, if that matters to you.

My 2006 Mac Pro is still perfectly usable, regardless of what Apple claims. It's just loud. :(

Ha yes, 2008 Mac Pro here. Would be perfectly usable if it wasn't deprecated.

That violates the right of first sale, if they don't want to keep upgrading the OS they gotta let the users fork it.

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.

What in the world is bake-it-in-the-oven?

Literally baking your graphics card to reflow the solder

Oh, not sure what he meant exactly, but when I used to work soldering boards we used an oven to recover older boards. Basically with a little bit of heat all broken up parts can heal with it. Found this result on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFCFiSB2Fuk

I had a nice imac in work in 2009. A few years later I brought it home to work from home. I added an ssd and some RAM. My wife is still using it for Google Docs and my kids for Minecraft and Netflix.

I plan to upgrade to the am5 platform, same motherboard and cpu since 2012. i7 3770k, R9 390x

Also jumping on that Samsung qd oled train.

I’ve been using my windows 7 desktop from 2012 until the beginning of this year. I had no particular need to upgrade but thought what the hell why not. I could have happily continued using it for the next few years. In fact I didn’t dismantle it and am now compiling on it.

I'm the third owner of my bike, it was a high end road bike in the mid 80s and has been used quite heavily since then by all three owners. The wear parts have of course been replaced in some cases many times, but most of the other non-drive components are original. It was converted to a fixed gear in the late 90s which saved a lot of rim wear, but I just recently had to finally replace the rims. I reused the front hub though, it's probably been rebuilt a dozen times by now.

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.

Thank you for your service fellow e-waste reduction brother.

I've been getting my equipment 2nd-hand off of ebay. Recently "upgraded" to an HP fanless mini-pc (Core i5, 16GB) to make more room on my desk. Since Moore's law is practically dead, I didn't see the point in paying ~$800 for a new one when the 5-yr-old scratch-and-dent model was only $135, and any performance difference has been imperceptible under my use cases. I work mostly in the terminal anyway. The previous computer was also more than fast enough, and so was the one before it.

Only "game changer" for me has been the SSD. I will never go back to platters for an interactive machine.

I also have a really outstanding clicky-keys keyboard I picked up on alibaba a long time ago, and it disassembles easily enough for an occasional run through the dishwasher.

Brazil’s policy of massive import taxes and regulation to force electronics manufacturers to build local plants has distorted their marketplace so much that it’s really hard to compare it to other countries.

Reminds me of Justin Rohrer doing all his indie game development on old/donated second-hand computers.

https://usesthis.com/interviews/jason.rohrer/

I tried to do this with every laptop I've bought: something that will last and be repairable. Three Dell XPS 13s later I'm buying a Starbook. I hope it'll be the last for a long, long time.

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.