this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2026
29 points (93.9% liked)

Hardware

7145 readers
55 users here now

All things related to technology hardware, with a focus on computing hardware.

Some other hardware communities across Lemmy:

Rules (Click to Expand):

  1. Follow the Lemmy.world Rules - https://mastodon.world/about

  2. Be kind. No bullying, harassment, racism, sexism etc. against other users.

  3. No Spam, illegal content, or NSFW content.

  4. Please stay on topic, adjacent topics (e.g. software) are fine if they are strongly relevant to technology hardware. Another example would be business news for hardware-focused companies.

  5. Please try and post original sources when possible (as opposed to summaries).

  6. If posting an archived version of the article, please include a URL link to the original article in the body of the post.

Icon by "icon lauk" under CC BY 3.0

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world
Rekall_Incorporated@piefed.social
29
10 years old laptop - is it time to retire? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 4 days ago by someacnt@sh.itjust.works to c/hardware@lemmy.world
21 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

My dad has a laptop I used to use, which has been working well so far. Recently, he got frequent out-of-memory (RAM) issues - the computer freezes, forcing to restart. It is hard to diagnose, but it might be that 8GB RAM might be too small even for light workload these days.

So, I just checked when it is produced - 2015-10. So it is now 10 years old. While I am wary of producing e-wastes, maybe that was long enough life we got out of it. Perhaps it costs more in electricity than buying a replacement laptop? So, I want to ask - is it time to retire this laptop?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] kalpol@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 days ago

I have a lot of old laptops. Like seriously, a lot. I donate them steadily to charities after installing Debian but who knows what happens to them afterwards. I have a lot of laptops. I use a different one in every room and one with a bunch of scratches in the garage. I am running out of reasons to even try and keep these things.I have a lot of laptops. They just arrive, many still with data on them, and I wipe them and occasionally order a new battery for them. All my friends and family know not to mention any computing needs to me because they just get offered a Debian machine.I think as a society we have overproduced technology. I have a shitload of laptops.