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So the other day I had a misbehaving computer that wouldn’t boot. After I reset the cmos battery it booted up and is working like a champ. But it go
[See the full post at: Patch Lady – how old is that computer?]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
I have a mothballed Win7 Dell desktop, that I was wanting to update to win8.1, but found that no drivers existed to support an upgrade. I would love to get it going again, as a backup device, but haven’t found the time to give it a try, yet.
Maybe it’s worth a try, after all?
No drivers exist truly, or just none are available from Dell?
I updated my Asus F8 laptop that came with Vista x86 to Windows 7 x64, then Windows 8.1 x64, and I found drivers for everything. Not from the Asus support page for my model, though– it had XP and Vista x86, and that was it.
If you find a component that does not have a driver, you can usually grab the device ID from the ! error symbol’s listing in the Device Manager and search that along with “driver” and the version of Windows you are aiming for. Sometimes they come from other OEMs, but that’s not usually a problem. It’s best to get each of the drivers from one or the other OEM rather than a third party source.
There’s also Linux, of course, if the other option is to keep the PC mothballed. When I put Linux on the same F8 laptop, everything worked right at the first boot, save the fingerprint reader. I had to do something to get that to work, though it’s been years and I do not recall the details.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
As you suspect, I checked Dell’s driver versions, and it had nothing available for Win8.1. When I get a chance, I’ll see about other possible driver options. Thanks for the encouragement 🙂
Kristy, follow my process to do this: https://www.askwoody.com/2019/canadian-tech-how-to-rebuild-a-win7-system-with-minimal-snooping/
I’ve done this a lot. If you do it right, you will be delighted.
CT
Thanks CT. I have followed your earlier process to rebuild a Win7 machine, but in this case, I was hoping to get Win8.1 as the end result, when resurrecting the dormant machine 🙂
Although I moved to a newer machine about 16 months ago, my previous daily machine was a ThinkPad W530 that I’ve upgraded to Windows 10. It’s still quite solid, enough where there wasn’t necessarily a compelling reason to replace.
I have a desktop machine that I swapped out a couple of months ago for a refurb of similar specs — I kept my RAM and peripherals, and changed out only the motherboard and processor and case, because for the shop I was working with, they didn’t have a compatible motherboard that fit my case. That motherboard was 11 years old, and died when capacitors failed.
With windows, it’s noteworthy that hardware demand hasn’t significantly increased since Windows 7. If a machine ran with Win 7, and all the standard apps (browser, mail client and office suite), it’s fine running on Windows 10, unless there’s issues with drivers that don’t support Win 10. An SSD can help with performance, but if the machine has 8GB of RAM, that’s sufficient for typical use.
To me the thing that is the driver for whether to replace a machine or not would be laptops and how much they travel. The more time a computer spends in the bag, the more abuse it gets, and that will affect the working lifespan. However, business-grade computers with better parts and build quality will handle travel much better than consumer-grade computers. On the other hand, if you have a consumer-grade computer (say, an HP Pavilion or Dell Inspiron) even those can last 5 years or longer if they spend most of their time on a desktop and don’t get rough handling from being moved around, whether being put in a bag, or walked around with the lid open.
As for reconditioned computers, it’s important to know just what “reconditioned” means, and how much work is being done. To me, the essential thing is with moving parts. In particular, that’s hard drives, and I strongly urge making sure that a reconditioned machine has a new drive. A couple of years back, I got burned on a reconditioned machine off-lease, where the only work had been done was physical cleaning of the case, and reimaging the drive. I ended up having to replace the machine less than a year later, when a Patch Tuesday update to Office 365 was disruptive. I’m convinced that the machine would have been much sturdier had we verified that the drive was new.
If buying a reconditioned desktop machine, I consider it essential to replace the CPU fan and the power supply (or at least the fan in the power supply).
My Dell Dimension 2400 Win XP desktop and HP printer will be SEVENTEEN years old next month. Used weekly with original software and runs like a champ!!! Of course, it’s internet days are long over. Only hardware upgrades were RAM; it’s now rockin an entire 1 Gig! And, yes, I have much younger Win 10 computers for daily work. They don’t make them like they used to.
Dells from their small business division . One is an XPS desktop from three years ago and runs Windows 10 1809. The older desktop is also an XPS 8500 and it will be eight years old in a few days. It is running Windows 8.0 Pro because back in the day I did not want 8.1 for a variety of reasons. I did not think it would last this long on the ocean with no air conditioning as this environment is hard on them. I learned long ago to never turn desktops off here as that is deadly for them as corrosion occurs much faster if you do. Come to think of it though, my first computer (also Dell Dimension with 98SE and then XP Pro lasted eight years and the newer Dells are more corrosion resistant).
I loved XP and Windows 8 Pro is ok. I did Microsoft beta of Windows 7, hated it and will never use it. Windows 10 Pro would be so much better if Microsoft would stop with the insane pace of updates to newer versions. 1809 has been fine. I dread moving on soon.
? says:
hi Susan,
trick question? i flipped over the acer laptop i got from the Goodwill in Seattle and the tag reads, MFG DATE: KS 071227 which i translate to be December 27th 2007. It was languishing on the shelf and i picked it up for $5.00 (did not boot.) i looked up a utube video and followed the instructions down to the bottom of the main board and popped out the factory button battery popped in a new one and volia bios screen appeared. i have run win98, ME, XP, Vista, and 7 on the old girl along with an assortment of Linux distros as well. and yes she runs all the operating systems i have booted on her much faster than i can type. well, maybe i don’t type that fast either. i do disable spellchecker because i enjoy a challenge…
My mom has Windows 10 on a E8400 & 8GB RAM with SSD and it gets the job done. Nowadays if it has a SSD and 8GB of RAM, it will do whatever office job you will throw at it.
The computer I am using at present is a bit like grandpa’s old axe that has had 2 new handles and 3 new blades and is as good as new! The case is from an HP Pavilion Media Centre desktop I bought about 11 years ago which kept going until this year. The processor is a Core i5 4590 that I bought second hand for A$29, the motherboard is a Gigabyte that was cheap because it was only compatible with 4th gen Intel processors, the RAM is 8Gb DDR4 left over from a previous build whose ASRock motherboard developed a fault, the graphics card is a Gigabyte Nvidia GT 240 bought about 9 years ago which drives 2 BenQ 1920×1080 monitors perfectly well, and it is all powered by a fairly old Corsair 450W power supply. Win 10 1909 Pro resides in a Samsung 250Gb SSD, and data lives in a 2Tb Seagate HDD. Wifi is via an Edimax USB 802.11ac device.
When this fails I have a newer HP desktop with a Core i5 8400 Hexacore processor to fall back on. This processor was let down a bit by the 2Tb HDD which was a bit slow so the HDD has been replaced with a 1Tb Samsung SSD which I cloned with the HDD using the Samsung software and am now updating to Win 10 2004 Pro. I am hoping that this will be a fairly responsive machine.
My test machine has another Core i5 4590 on an old ASRock motherboard with 8Gb of RAM and an old 500 Gb Seagate HDD all mounted in a very dated looking but perfect beige/blue case that I picked up free from our local e-waste facility. This has Win10 2004 Pro and I have yet to find any problems with the operating system. The monitor was bought in a garage sale for A$10 and works perfectly.
Personal computer:
Company
As you can see the older computer work better and longer than the new computers that are design to break down after X amount of years.
Woody, I am kind of the king of older computers. I still look after nearly 120 machines. My clients have not bought a new computer in years. The average age of these computers is about 7 or 8 years. some of them north of 12 years. With very few exceptions they have had their hard drives replaced and now have what I call a “Final State” installation of Windows 7. They are all backed up with a set of DVD’s with a system image.
Laptops do not fare well as they get older. They are subject to damage from being moved around and are much less repairable due to their parts sizes and limited competition for parts replacements.
My clients are just plain home users. Most all of them have other digital devices like pads and smart phones which comprise a greater portion of their time. But, for a computer, win7 “Final State” serves their purposes well. I expect the majority of these computers will be working just fine up until the day that Bit Defender and/or Chrome are no longer supported for Win7. My guess is that is probably another 5 years. Most of them now have a 3 year subscription to Bit Defender installed recently.
The beauty of “Final State” is that Microsoft updating does not happen ever, or at all. they have not been “updaed” since May 2017. IE is out and Chrome is in. The result is a solid state, rarely changing system that just wakes up every morning and behaves exactly the way it did the day before. Exactly what a home user really wants.
CT
? say:
CT you are the king of Windows in my humble opinion. your posts on Microsoft Answers were the only ones that helped me fix the problems. do you think it is possible to install win7 on a removable usb using your link from above #2307919? thank you.
Linked that for you. 🙂
It’s surprising that you can still purchase compatible and refilled cartridges for the 6P (and other old HP laserjets)!
I don’t care to think how many years ago I traded in my old HP5l for a far quicker MFP – I recently found the invoice, and it was around 5x the price of a new model, and about half the page output. I don’t really miss the first laser printer I owned 😉
RTE. A re-install of Windows will bring like-new performance. When you do the re-installation, leave out all the OEM stuff and anything else no longer used.
If you would follow a routine that does this on laptops after 3 to 4 years and desktops after 4 to 5 years, with a strong consideration of a simultaneous hard drive replacement, you will discover your computers will perform well for you for a lot longer.
I have some clients with P4’s and dual’s that are 10 or 12 years old and for them, perform more than meeting their needs.
CT
I still have 2 systems running on P67 motherboards which make them close to 10 years old. The graphics cards on them (GTX 660 / GTX 650 Ti) are about 8 years old. One is running on Windows 7 / Windows 8.1 and the other is running on Windows 8.1 / Windows 10 LTSB 2015 (Testing purpose only) / Windows 7.
As of now, I am firmly convinced that the “security threat” from the so-called Windows vulnerabilities are largely exaggerated (except one or two such as “EternalBlue”). I keep Windows 7 on every one of my PCs (old and recent), still connected to LAN and internet, and they have been and are working fine.
Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.
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