Fix or buy new? That’s a tough question sometimes, but one that is popping up more frequently in today’s shaky economic climate. People seem to be moving towards fixing things to make them last longer. My brother is an auto mechanic, and he is busier than ever. Why spend money on a new car (car payments, higher insurance, higher taxes, etc.) when you can repair what you currently have?
The same question holds for Computers. Gone are the days of replacing a computer every 3-4 years to keep up with increasing technology. Faster and better computers are always being developed, to be sure. However the amount of increase seems to be smaller and smaller with each new “generation” of computer.
For example, fifteen years ago a 100 MHz Pentium could easily be outdated just a few years later by a 200 MHz machine. That’s a DOUBLING of CPU clock rate. Today the rate of CPU speed increase has slowed considerably. Now each new generation of CPU has more streamlined features and efficiency than increase in speed. These new features are quickly embraced by newer operating systems (e.g. Vista, Windows 7, etc.).
A good many of the “improvements” with the latest and greatest PC’s really involves multimedia features. For the average MS Office/Internet/Email computer user, many of these features don’t add much to the computing experience. If you aren’t careful, you can end up chasing your tail. There will always be a faster computer out there waiting to be bought. Microsoft certainly hopes you will do so.
That reason is why it is often a good idea to fix what you have instead of buy new. A vast majority of computer problems are software-related. Clean up your hard drive, or even back up your data and reinstall the operating system…and your system is nearly new.
Not only that, but today’s PC’s come with so much installed CrapWare (software that hardly, if ever, gets used). If you do a fresh install of your O/S, many of the parasitic little programs that load into memory at bootup are GONE. More resources are available for the programs you DO USE. Isn’t that really what it’s all about, being lean and mean?
So the next time you consider tossing your existing PC because it is giving you trouble, remember that a good cleanup/reinstall will cure many PC evils!