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Our PC’s are almost 10 years old and are overdue for retirement. How often does your company replace old PC’s with new ones or how many years do you hang on to a PC before replacing it.

25 Spice ups
2

We write them down over 3 years from a financial net book value point of view

Once they are 3 years old we roll them down the line to lesser duties, get another couple of years from them maybe and then package them off to a local charity

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3

It depends more on the technology than a fixed age for me. We only support windows 7, and nothing older than Intel Core 2 Duo, and those must have an SSD in them. I suppose in a few years it will be nothing older than an i3.

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Our customers have to have machines that are under warranty in order to be supported so that means 3 - 5 years, which is a good rule of thumb. 3 years for power users and 5 for minimalists. We support some users that get a new machine every year, too, but that’s rare.

Aside from the reliability issues of older machines, user experience and support options diminish over time. Additionally, older machines can’t always run new software and that can mean anything from supporting 3 or 4 versions of Office to not being able to upgrade server based or client / server applications.

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Macs a bit different, they last longer and the creatives refuse to throw them out…

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I try to keep it so everything is either under manufacturer warranty, or within a year past, so 4 years max. Upgrading to an SSD and putting RAM into a machine can help speed it up, but with a basic office user PC under $550, the RAM and SSD have to be pretty cheap to warrant upgrades.

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Most companies are about 2-4 years. My last company replaced after expired warranty. Then machines out of warranty could be used as a loaner in case something dies suddenly or you can donate. We donated to school districts.

Problem with the processor approach is an i3 from a year ago to today are totally different.

I would pick a time frame and then stick to it. If you don’t you will again end up with outdated hardware and get slapped with a full upgrade. If you can space them out over a few years you will only be doing 25-30% refresh each year.

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For a decent business machine IMHO 3-5 years on average is what you should expect out of the life of a machine. Of course there are always exceptions to this rule and the more you spend on a machine up front as far as hardware goes the longer it will last. With everything going virtual with proper resourcing machines could last a lot longer than this.

With as fast as they seem to be cranking them out now you could see 2-3 OS’s in that 3-5 year time frame. While being and OS or 2 behind is not the end of the world you certainly would not want to get much further past that.

To answer your other question, luckily for me my company is rather young. Our oldest system is only 3-4 years old. Our general rule of thumb is that if it is working and you do not get a lot of tickets on it, don’t fix what ain’t broken. But of course as we approach that 5 and 6 year mark we will most likely start ordering replacements.

Spiceworks can track warranties and when a machine was purchased so that you know what machines in your organization are the oldest. From there you can develop a plan.

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I’m just fascinated that you could get almost 10 working years out of a computer. Do tell your secret, I’ve only been able to get 5-6 years out of PCs and they were more than ready for retirement by year 5. Fans die here and there, Power Supply calls a quits, NICs all of sudden stop responding and it goes down from there.

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Depends entirely a many, many factors that tend to be organization-specific. A few factors:

  • Budget. A good rule of thumb used to be every 3-5 years, with 1/whatever of that replaced annually. However, none of that means squat if your organization is strapped for cash. These days you can get away with keeping out of warranty hardware a lot longer. Windows 7 runs on pretty much everything (with Windows Vista drivers being compatible for just about everything device except video) and 4GB of RAM is ample for most Office-related functions.
  • Time. If you’re busy putting out other fires, the last thing you need to be concerned about are workstation upgrades.
  • Serviceability. No matter how you stretch it, 10 years is a long time for a computer. USB 1.1, IDE drive controllers, a real possibility of no PCIe slot. Eventually everything passes to obsolescence … but when money is tight, use it for as long as you can.These days, though, it’s actually pretty easy to get by on 7 year-old hardware. CPUs are amply powerful for most business uses (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc). You can breathe new life into things with a memory upgrade and replacing your HDD with an SSD.
  • Compatibility. Not just hardware compatibility, mind you. Those tend to be the least of your worries … or at least are the most obvious hiccups. Driver problems and flat-out software/OS compatibility issues are your biggest pain in the neck. For example, if the accounting department is still running on some DOS-based nightmare that should have been retired 15 years ago, a modern replacement can cost more than your entire desktop deployment.

Ultimately it boils down to the most important thing I learned while studying for my BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) in Theatre: Good, Fast, Cheap - Pick two.

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PCs: 3 YearsLaptops: 3 YearsMacs: 4-5 yearsServers: 5 Years

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We warranty computers and laptops for 3-4 years and after that time the employee has the option to request a new one. If the current one is working fine then they hang on to it.

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Upgrading from something that old, however, is going to be painful.

You’ll need a full review of what you’re running now: hardware and software, on both the server side and client side. Identify compatibility issues. Make note of which ones can be handled by simply upgrading to the latest software version and which ones have hardware considerations. From there, prioritize what goes first. It rarely makes sense to do clients first, but it might in your case.

Even if you have one server and two desktops, this is going to take time. Hurry it along, but don’t rush. You’ll miss things - important things - when you rush.

Your end goal should not be, “Upgrade everything to last for another 10 years.” Instead aim for, “I now have my IT lifecycle under control and can plan for capacity, upgrades, and additional staff.” It’s OK if your employer hasn’t previously understood that they need to spend money on IT every year. That’s where you come in. However, if they refuse to listen when you tell them this, start looking for another job.

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My secret is cleaning the insides of the computer out every year or so. You’d be surprised how many problems dust bunnies can cause.

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Every organization approaches this differently. Some organizations replace computers as soon as they’re depreciated (usually 3 years in the US) or as soon as the warranty ends (3-5 years). If you want a short upgrade cycle, you might also want to explore the costs of leasing. In some cases, an organization may have a purpose for the old computers, including schools or manufacturing plants, where extra computers are nice, but the users who need the latest and greatest get upgraded.

Computers will run for a really, really long time (and even perform well) as long as they’re cared for properly. Though, usually it’s not a good idea to wait for something to die, before replacing it, as you will then be in a mad rush to replace it ASAP.

In general, I would say anywhere from 3 to 5 years is “typical” or “normal,” but depending on your specific needs, you could certainly find a reason to adjust this range in either direction.

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This topic comes up a lot and everyone has their own reasons for why and some don’t know why they replace them, it’s just what they were taught.

I replace our PC’s every 5 years and this is why: Capacitors

Capacitors (on the motherboard) have a life span or rating. The ones used in a PC are rated for a little more than 5.5 years. Server capacitors have a higher rating and last longer.

I ran into this problem a few years back as I was hanging on to 30 Dell PC’s that were 6-7 years old and still chugging along; why replace them? Then they started dropping like flies and I was now scrambling to replace PC’s. In every case, there were 1 or more capacitors leaking (a visual sign that they have failed).

For some, this is not that big a deal, but when you have to budget for equipment and suddenly you need PC’s - Or in my case, I lost 2 or 3 PC’s every month for several months - it put me on the defensive instead of the offensive…

I would prefer to have control over the time and place my PC’s get replaced and 5 years is a good bet.

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4 to 5 years depending on functionality.

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3 Years. Accounting depreciates them over 3 years. We replace them within 6 months of the warranty expiring. Once they are worth nothing to the company from a tax standpoint we buy new ones then sell back our old ones to our vendor at 50% resell value.

We do have some production systems used for our check printing and our document scanning stations that are much older but we are locked by the $2k-$6k+ software that those two systems use that are locked to the hardware.

10 years is just ouch…

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95% of them are 3-5 years, with a small percentage of them getting re-purposed for remote sessions. We have a fair amount of computer savvy users who like to run data-crunching stuff on (spare) remote computers so that it does not tax their own computers. These remote computers are ones that are over 5 years old with the hard drives changed and reloaded. Works great.

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I think that’s more than enough time to make the case for new computers. It’s amazing that they’ve pushed through these past 10 years. If you’re looking at getting new PCs, whether they’re laptops or desktops, you should check out Lenovo’s line of computers and support specifically targeted for small business . If you have any questions, let me know, but I think the 3-5 year spectrum covers a good amount of time for system replacement. Hope that helps!

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