Repair or Replace

 

It is the classic computer hardware debate: repair / upgrade an existing computer, or just get a brand new one.  In the early days of the PC revolution, there was no such debate.  Computers were very expensive, and it was almost always more cost effective to repair and upgrade an existing machine.  Then, in the late 1990s through about 2008, there was a trend where PCs had rapidly evolving capabilities and rapidly falling prices.  Along with this trend, came a fundamental shift in thinking.  A brand-new machine with all the bells and whistles, usually sporting a 1 – 3 year service policy, could be had for a little less than twice the cost of a typical upgrade.

 

But now, with no end in sight to the current economy, is that still the wisest course of action?  The answer, like with so many things is: it depends.

Any evaluation must begin with a simple question: what are you trying to accomplish?  More specifically, what is it you need and/or want your computer to be able to do?  If you only need your computer to be able to surf the Internet and check your email, then pretty much any computer less than 10 years old will suffice. Of course, as your needs expand, so do the capability requirements of your computer. Pricing a new computer is realtively easy; pricing upgrades... not quite as easy. So let's examine the typical avenue of computer upgrades:

 

 

The basic computer upgrades are as follows:

CPU – The CPU or Central Processing Unit is the brain of the computer.  Without getting into the technical details of how newer CPUs differ from older ones, it is enough to understand that new CPUs are often faster, and FAR more powerful than older units.  Even when the speed of the processor is the same, a newer processor is usually capable of doing 2 and 3 times as much as an older one.  Most computers are capable of accepting a newer CPU, and the tech-time involved in such an installation is typically an hour to an hour and a half.  Combined with a memory upgrade, it is often possible to dramatically increase the performance of your computer for under $200 total cost!

 

Hard drive – This is the part of your computer that stores all of your programs and data.  For the vast majority of computer users, this is also the most important part of your machine, precisely because it stores your data.  Every part of your computer is easily replaced; but your data is not.  It is beyond precious and beyond value.  In fact, in the decision of whether to buy a new computer or upgrade the one you have, the difficulty of migrating your data should greatly influence your decision. 

 

Data migration is almost never included in the cost of a new machine, and it can take hours for even a professional to move an average quantity of data.  This doesn’t even include the time to reinstall all of your programs and to get everything setup the way you like.  If you use your computer for a lot of different things, then migrating to a new computer is a process that can effectively take weeks or even months before your new computer is setup and running exactly how you would like. 

 

On the other hand, if you simply need more hard drive space, then the simple addition of a new hard drive can solve the problem quickly and economically.  Rather than having to migrate to a whole new system, you simply add a new, hard drive to your existing system and offload much of the data to the new drive.  Don’t want to deal with the whole, C: drive D: drive thing?  Not a problem.  A new drive can be setup so that it functions like a folder (or several folders) on your existing drive.  If you have a folder called “MyData” that holds most of your data, then a new hard drive can be installed and setup so that it becomes the “MyData” folder.  From your perspective, and from the perspective of all of your programs which probably default to that folder, absolutely nothing has changed.  Except that, now you have a lot more space than you did before.  A new hard drive can run from $40 – $200, depending on how much data it can store, and the time required to install and configure the drive as described would be between an hour to an hour and a half.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE!!! If, for any reason, you need to replace your hard drive, it is imperitive to make certain that your personal data is effectively and permanently removed from your old hard drive. Deleting files and reformatting the drive do not permanently destroy the data and even a moderately skilled individual could recover them. Please contact us at 407-2122 and inquire about data destruction services.

 

Memory – There is often confusion as to the difference in functionality between what system memory, or RAM, does versus what the hard drive does.  I like to explain it like this: think of yourself sitting at a desk; you are the CPU.  The desk in front of you is like the system memory.  The filing cabinet under the desk is the hard drive.  You can’t work on a file that is in the filing cabinet.  You must take it out and place it on the desk.  If the surface of the desk is small, you may only be able to have one or two files open at a time.  If you wish to open more, you have to put something away first.  This takes time since you have to get to a stopping point in the file, then close it and put it in the correct spot in the filing cabinet.  Now if you have a really large desk surface, then you can have all kinds of files open at once and have plenty of room to work on them.  System memory is like that.  It is the working space of the computer where the CPU can actively manipulate data.  And just like the desk analogy, increasing your system memory can often yield tremendous performance benefits, even on an old system.  Best of all, memory is one of the least expensive components available, and it takes very little time to install.

 

Video card – This is the component of your computer that sends the picture to the screen.  It sounds simple, but in actuality, the video card can be more sophisticated and powerful than even the CPU.  Avid computer gamers are quite used to the exercise of upgrading their video cards as newer and more powerful ones hit the retail market, quite literally, every few months.  Typically, one of the only reasons to upgrade your video card is to support the latest and greatest video games.  But if you’re someone who play games on occasion, then this may be a benefit to you as well.

 

The typical, off-the-shelf computer, even ones from Dell or Hewlett Packard, have video card functionality built right on to the motherboard (the part of the computer that everything plugs into).  This is sufficient for Internet, email, word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, even watching movies.  But if you play games even occasionally, then the on-board video of most computers is likely woefully inadequate.  The good news is that, because newer and better video cards are constantly being debuted, the prices for the older models drops fairly quickly.  But even a 1 or 2 year old video card is vastly more powerful than the usual on-board video, and can be had for under $100 (with some decent ones as low as $40).  And, like memory, installation takes very little time (though there can be an added complication of the power supply not putting out enough power to run a new video card).

 

There are numerous other components that can be upgraded (or which may need repair), but this covers the main ones. Certainly, if you would need to replace more than two or three components in your computer to bring it up to date, it probably makes better sense to just buy a new computer altogether. However, In this economy, it is important to make the computer you have last even longer. The fact is that simple upgrades to memory, hard drive, video and CPU can increase the performance of your existing computer making it comparable to a newer model. And best of all, you won't have to spend dozens of hours moving your data files and reinstalling your applications.

 

 

E-mail: john@sentinelcomputers.com