How often do you replace your laptop computer?

[Kern Dog]

The one that I use is a Hewlett Packard and about 4 years old. Restarts don't seem to help, clearing cookies doesn't either. The wife thinks that laptops wear out and need periodic replacement and since she works for a software corporation, I would tend to believe that.
Being a car guy though, I look at symptoms and try to make sense of it.
It sometimes freezes when I'm checking email. One other car forum I'm on is really slow to load. Clicking on threads, loading pictures, back click functions are really slow.
The FABO/FBBO sites are usually fine but lately even here it acts up a bit.
Everything was fine for years but over the past few months, there are two sites that started to act slow when I accessed them, now others seem to be slowly heading the same way.
I don't like replacing things that can be fixed. How do you know when your computer is ready to replace?

 

[nitro_rat]

You can back up your important information to a thumb drive or portable hard drive and then just replace the hard drive in your computer. The darn thing just gets corrupted over time as it writes and rewrites data over and over again. It's kinda like an old cassette tape. You can only re-record over the same thing so many times before you just wear the tape out. But in 4 years the rest of the hardware is probably out of date, there are likely much faster processors, better video cards, etc available now.

 

[HEMIB]

I found if you have pictures stored in the cloud & 1 is corrupted the computer slows down to a crawl as it tries to access the cloud ,I copy them occasionally to a memory stick & delete them from the cloud speed things up.
If the PC has become slow from corrupted programs or bloatware i backup what i need format the hard disk then reload windows from scratch & it becomes a new PC again

 

[PRND21]

We’ve went through 3 laptops in the last 15 years or so, they just get slower and slower. Our last laptop took a crap 4 or 5 years ago, I never replaced it. I’ve got an iPad that does everything I need it to do online, zoom calls, and runs the printer. I’m sure that the more sophisticated computer user would find it lacking. I don’t know. Sounds like your wife is a knowledgeable user, I’d take her advice.

 

[RR Fan Dan]

Do you run any cleaner programs? CC cleaner is a good one. If you aren’t using the cloud service, turn it off. Check what programs are running in the background, disable the ones not needed on startup. Defrag your hard drive. I’ve never replaced a computer because it was running slow. I’ve replaced them when hardware breaks, but that’s the only reason. Since I retired in December, I don’t hardly use my laptop anymore. My iPad does everything I need.

 

[jimbosride]

I went to a chromebook that sells between $80 and $200.

 

[Richard Davis]

Without knowing the details of your system there could be some performance gains by upgrading your main drive to a faster one, like an SSD. Windows has built in defrag so that probably isn't an issue. Systems don't wear out but the process of installing/uninstalling and upgrading applications can slow things down.

 

[j-c-c-62]

I went to a chromebook that sells between $80 and $200.

I have went thru maybe 6? Chromebooks and 5? laptops in past 12 years, I like the chrome books. I am tough on electronics, I get a problem, I toss them, buy new.
I mostly use them for travel and internet only, anything important is on a non-internet connected desktop computer.
I also easily have a stack of 30+ old cell phones from over the years.

 

[OneWheelPeel]

Well I probably buy more often than most because I’m also in software and for example when windows 11 came out I wanted to try it so I bought the cheapest HP laptop for that.
Do you have a good HP or one of the cheap student ones? Those student ones seem to be terrible. I got to play with Win11 on it but it was so slow I converted it to Linux.
I believe if you have a SSD hard drive defrag is not recommended.

If you haven’t already, look at task manager and see what’s hogging up the most ram and cpu, that may help you figure out what’s going on. If you need to replace it sometimes you can get a really nice used laptop that had corp use and was just aged out and replaced at whatever company. I have two windows laptops and a MacBook Pro that both aged out that way and they are really good.
For most things tho, including writing this, I use an iPad Pro.

 

[Dennis H]

Idiot Box only. iPad. Monkey Box. No desk or laptop in these parts.

 

[Unkle Krusty]

I bought an iPad 9 for myself for Christmas. It is smaller and easier to pack than the laptop. Using it now. I am often on one of my bikes, so the lesser room required helps. I have another problem with internet speed, and older larger laptop is struggling. I use the smaller laptop to watch the motor cycle races. It is connected to the large TV screen. Something I can not do with the Apple. But for checking messages and using wifi, the Apple thing works fine.

 

[Hey-O]

I found a brand new laptop a few months ago I completely forgot about. My desktop went to a crawl a few months ago and after talking to my IT guy, he said it done. So every 5 years or so I just get him to pick me up a replacement and he clones my old one to the new one. I don't do laptops.

 

[OneWheelPeel]

Also if you have a later model Samsung phone you may have Dex which basically connects your phone to your computer and you use a windows like environment on your laptop but the phone is doing the heavy lifting. I just connected to my phone and here is what it looks like. You can also connect with a cable for the snappiest experience.

 

[Richard Cranium]

I think mine’s at least 12 years old now.

 

[cr8crshr]

The simple way to keep a computer running in tip-top shape is to routinely clear the Cache, delete cookies, and other areas that hog and rob the computer of its ability to run smoothly. For virus protection, I use PC Matic as it is US-managed and developed and works so much better than all the others out there. I paid a 150.00 initial fee for 5 computers and never have to renew as it is a lifetime future I got back when I first signed up with them. I use CC Cleaner Basic for small routine cleanings weekly and to flush the registry of junk that routinely seems to infiltrate my machines.

I also flush the IP portion of my network here at home using the "command prompt" for the C Drive, and do this weekly after using my machines daily...
ipconfig/release

ipcinfig/renew

ipconfig/flush DNS

This sets me up with clear areas every week when Mondays roll around. s

One should not have to replace a laptop as often as is suggested here if it is routinely purged of all the junk that eventually loads as one surfs the web and its sites. I have a laptop that is 15 years old, runs Windows 10 Pro, and is still as fast as the day I brought it home. I also do not keep the main drive loaded up with pics and other things; instead, I utilize a supplemental hard drive to store everything. I do not subscribe to Cloud storage as my files and such are my proprietary ownership and not out there for the World to possibly see and use for say nefarious purposes. Just these simple routine tasks will keep any machine running and performing as expected...cr8crshr/Bill

 

[cr8crshr]

I found a brand new laptop a few months ago I completely forgot about. My desktop went to a crawl a few months ago and after talking to my IT guy, he said it done. So every 5 years or so I just get him to pick me up a replacement and he clones my old one to the new one. I don't do laptops.

I also much prefer a desktop over a laptop, but when I was traveling, I would bring my laptop as it is easier to haul around than a desktop. Plus I never use my cell for a computer as it is strictly an emergency communication tool for when I need it. Sadly though so much now is forced upon us with these phones as it seems more and more businesses are requiring apps to even navigate and conduct anything on them which is a PITA!!! cr8crshr/Bill

 

[Hey-O]

I also much prefer a desktop over a laptop, but when I was traveling, I would bring my laptop as it is easier to haul around than a desktop. Plus I never use my cell for a computer as it is strictly an emergency communication tool for when I need it. Sadly though so much now is forced upon us with these phones as it seems more and more businesses are requiring apps to even navigate and conduct anything on them which is a PITA!!! cr8crshr/Bill

I truly forgot about the laptop. I use my phone quite a bit. I don't have a job or travel around the world, so I don't need to carry a laptop, but don’t get me wrong, I get it. When I'm home, I sit in my office on the desktop and check on the forum by phone a lot. The phone is no longer a tool to just talk on. I said I'd never do it, but I conduct quite a bit of business on this thing.

 

[OneWheelPeel]

The simple way to keep a computer running in tip-top shape is to routinely clear the Cache, delete cookies, and other areas that hog and rob the computer of its ability to run smoothly. For virus protection, I use PC Matic as it is US-managed and developed and works so much better than all the others out there. I paid a 150.00 initial fee for 5 computers and never have to renew as it is a lifetime future I got back when I first signed up with them. I use CC Cleaner Basic for small routine cleanings weekly and to flush the registry of junk that routinely seems to infiltrate my machines.

I also flush the IP portion of my network here at home using the "command prompt" for the C Drive, and do this weekly after using my machines daily...
ipconfig/release

ipcinfig/renew

ipconfig/flush DNS

This sets me up with clear areas every week when Mondays roll around. s

One should not have to replace a laptop as often as is suggested here if it is routinely purged of all the junk that eventually loads as one surfs the web and its sites. I have a laptop that is 15 years old, runs Windows 10 Pro, and is still as fast as the day I brought it home. I also do not keep the main drive loaded up with pics and other things; instead, I utilize a supplemental hard drive to store everything. I do not subscribe to Cloud storage as my files and such are my proprietary ownership and not out there for the World to possibly see and use for say nefarious purposes. Just these simple routine tasks will keep any machine running and performing as expected...cr8crshr/Bill

I barely use my phone for actual talking

Have you considered putting those command prompts into a BAT script? You could then schedule it to just run. I have a similar script on my work laptop except its just to kill a bunch of useless processes that hog resources, most of them from Adobe. Now when I reboot that machine I wait for it to settle down and then hit the WIN key, type the name of my script and hit enter, two seconds later its all done.

 

[Sam69sat]

I'm using a 13 year old dell laptop. It's does what i need and i work in IT. I run linux on all my computers and they never slow down like windows garbage. It's also free and way more secure than windows. Pretty much every large company that you connect to on the internet runs linux on their servers. You can even run it from a usb drive to test it out without installing it to your computer. I recommend the Linuxmint Mate Edition if you give it a try. It's lighter on computer resources but a 4 year old laptop should be plenty powerful to run the default Cinnamon version. One thing that stops some from using it is if you have microsoft windows programs you need to install and use. There's usually an opensource alternative to those programs and some of them are really good.

Home - Linux Mint

Linux Mint is an elegant, easy to use, up to date and comfortable desktop operating system.

linuxmint.com

 

[davek]

When it dies