PCs – The Upgrade or Bin It Debate

We’re not an IT company, but we’re often asked for IT advice by SMEs. It turns out that many IT supplier’s solution to most problems is to throw more expensive hardware at it. So how do you know when your machine has had it? There’s no definitive answer, but here are some guidelines.

An office computer usually deals with simple tasks – e-mail, spreadsheets, internet, word processing, etc. You don’t need a cutting edge machine, unless you’re engaged in specialised work like video editing or game development. A cutting edge machine will, admittedly, take longer to reach obsolescence, but you’ll pay a huge premium for an extra year or two of useful service.

My usual rule of thumb is to buy a mid-range machine for €500 to €700 and plan on replacing it every four years or so. I find this the optimal duration – it translates to a cost of €125-€175 per year, per machine. The 4 year span usually coincides pretty closely with a new Windows operating system release, and upgrading a year or so after a new version of Windows is released will bring you new features and abilities. Of course transitioning a user to a new machine and operating system is disruptive, but you have to upgrade sooner or later, and keeping up to date with technology will pay dividends, and help you avoid incompatibilities when exchanging files with clients. Ultimately, if you are spending time waiting for your computer to respond, then you computer is costing your business money.

If you have a machine which seems to be heading for senility prematurely, there’s one upgrade that is cost effective and can rejuvenate the PC – a memory upgrade. Upgrading other components, such as motherboard, processor, graphics card, etc. will usually be expensive and may yield only a marginal improvement.

Today I added a couple of sticks of RAM to a work machine that was performing below par. It exhibited the usual symptoms – slow responses and almost constant hard disk activity. After adding the new memory, which cost less than €10 including P&P, the machine was far more responsive, and it took only five minutes to install.

Installing memory is a piece of cake, but only take it on if you know how to be safe around electricity and are comfortable rooting around in the innards of your desktop. You need to ground yourself to avoid damaging the memory and internal PC components with static discharges from your body. When handling the RAM, avoid making contact with the  gold contacts and pins on the memory chips – try to hold it by the sides. The RAM will only fit in when inserted the right way round. Fold out the clips and loosely push the stick in, so it is correctly aligned with the slot. Take care not to put pressure on surrounding cables and disconnect them.  With the memory aligned, push it home, simultaneously pushing the clips at the sides. It may take a bit of pressure, and you’ll know when the RAM is fully in.

If you are buying a new machine, you’ll often get the hard sell on an extended warranty. It may not be worth it. I usually take my chances with the minimum warranty, and you may be surprised at the limitations in the small print of the extended warranty of something does go wrong. So long as you have a comprehensive backup strategy in place (and if you don’t start one right now – seriously!), a hardware failure might mean a few hours of data loss and a dead computer. You may find it more cost effective to skip the warranty and pay for the repair if or when it happens. Modern PCs are pretty reliable – the hard drive, DVD Drive and fans are the bits with moving parts, and thus are most likely to fail, but they are very likely to last 5-6 years (i.e. beyond the normal working life of a midrange machine).