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Which harware could last a lifetime?


vipejc

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Which hardware could last a lifetime:

CPU?

RAM?

Motherboard?

Monitor?

CD or DVD drive or burner?

Card reader?

Power or data (IDE) cables?

LEDs?

Speakers?

Expansion cards (PCI modem or graphics card)?

Fans?

Keyboard?

Mouse?

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Not many of those for me. Of all the hardware I've owned, the only ones that haven't kicked the bucket have been HDD, Video Card and Sound Card. Everything else in that list I've had fail on me. Of course, I don't have some of those anymore... some due to no fault of the product themselves. There is plenty of hardware out there that is old (in this industry I could be talking about something from last quarter) but does the question about whether or not that hardware is still useful in some way even today?

Well back to my idea (at least... your post isn't very specific about what you're looking for) I can say this about my own experiences. As stated earlier, I have multiple pieces of hardware from over 10 years ago that are still used to this day.

Hard Disk: Hard to believe that this the case, but I won't jinx it, especially when we even have a sub-forum that was created just for people with broken hard disks. The 20GB IDE HDD in Shiva (my Windows 98 PC) is by far the oldest one I own. It still works and has only had Windows 98 on it. I am fuzzy about the actual age of the drive itself as I know for a fact that it isn't the same HDD that was in Hive City (I name my computers btw) since that computer got recycled by mis-informed family members whose houses I was using for storage when I was in college. I have actual knowledge of it being used in 2002 and I know I had purchased it from CompUSA (now defunct) for $100. Come to think of it, it is one of those sub-grade Maxtor drives that they would have in the "bargain bin" that wasn't even good enough for remanufactured drives.

Video Card: I have owned a bad video card, however I had gotten it for free so I'm not even sure that should count. That particular one was a 1MB Tseng Labs PCI video card that was originally used in Shiva during initial setup. Shiva, being my second computer at the time. Hive City was the first and had a 6MB Voodoo Rush. Hive City had ceased to be my main PC for some time (reason why it was in storage) once I got a Voodoo 3 for Shiva. That ended up getting traded to my friend for a GeForce MX in 2000. That particular GeForce was then sold a couple months ago in a Dell system to a neighbor. Supposedly it is still working fine, since I haven't heard any complaints. Shiva's main video card (which I still have but can't use) is the Voodoo 5500 AGP. :wub: I had been using it up until 2 years ago when Shiva's motherboard kicked the bucket. The new motherboard had a different AGP slot, so I had to get a new card. While my success rate with video cards hasn't been a problem, that trend may finally end very soon. I have the cheapest MSI nVidia card in my Win7 PC at home and the fan is acting up, amongst causing all sorts of other problems, such as locking up the PC.

Sound Card: The sound card story is similar to the video card one, except that I never traded any of them. Of course I lost the one in Hive City, an oldish SB that may have even been an ISA card. Speakers aren't so lucky for me, but all my sound cards are fine. The one in my Win7 PC was purchased in 2000 and has been in 2 PCs. The one in Shiva is from shortly before that period, maybe by a year. It is an SB PCI as well. Prior to Shiva having this, there was another that came from somewhere... Guillemont (sic) or some such, but the quality wasn't as good as SB. I still have that card packed away as well.

I'd probably also say that I have not had a failed CPU at any time... And its presumable that the 486 DX CPU I found in the garbage likely would still work properly. :)

Everything else on the list I've had fail on me, but seeing as we are all different, I'm sure others have had good experiences with different types of things as me. And potentially there is some sad fellow that has had everything fail... :(

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None, in the sense that they will all be obsolete in a matter of a few short years regardless.

But say, if you wanted to buy something, with the intent of having a great "museum piece" in like 20 years, then some parts will stand the test of time a lot better for sure. Anything with mechanical parts will fail first (CD/DVD drives, fans on anything, hard drives, input devices, etc).

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keyboard definitely

offcourse not the cheapest ones that break up when you hit them

but anyone who ever use(d) keytronic keyboards know they live live live

mine is 11 years old and still kicking like day 1

Edited by vinifera
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Yes keyboard, i had an ibm one with the 5 pins din AT connector and used it for 15 years. The only reason i had to replace it, was because there wasn't any AT keyboard connector on new motherboards. I'm now writing with my second keyboard which i used for almost 10 years.

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Items I have had break since computing 1985.

3 ea. HDD all on windows boxes. Not saying windows broke them, just that was the box they broke on.

1 ea. video card cooling fan went first.

1 ea. Motherboard back when the bad caps were going around. Replaced caps and board still works today. (I'm a computer parts HOARDER.)

All my Amiga equipment still works to this day and have never had any breakage with any parts. Including my Apple emulator and 386 Bridgecard and AMD 386 DX-40.

jd

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keyboard definitely

offcourse not the cheapest ones that break up when you hit them

but anyone who ever use(d) keytronic keyboards know they live live live

mine is 11 years old and still kicking like day 1

ONLY 11 years? :w00t: (kids today ;)), just for the record:

:angel

jaclaz

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I had a 16 year old model M too but it died because of a thunder storm :(

I've never used a computer anymore since then when there's a storm outside :}

Edited by tomasz86
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I try to unplug my equipment when expecting heavy storms. PCs in standby or in soft power off can still be damaged.

Has anybody had an IDE or any other power or data cable go bad?

I've had a floppy cable go bad.

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Has anybody had an IDE or any other power or data cable go bad?

The only times I've had IDE cables go bad was after many unplug/plug cycles I managed to loosen the wire part of the cable from the connector part due to pulling on the wire part to unplug the connector, which is not a recommended practice. Sometimes I could get them reseated and sometimes not. So anyway it was always my own fault.

Cheers and Regards

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In the good ol' times there was a saying to the effect of "whenever you have a problem with a SCSI device, the cause can be among several ones, but it is ALWAYS the cable, and when it is not the cable it is the termination".

jaclaz

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