this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2026
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10 years old laptop - is it time to retire? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 month ago by someacnt@sh.itjust.works to c/hardware@lemmy.world
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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?

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[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

I was provided a laptop to "make work for running code" and the thing was barely functional with 8gb of RAM on Windows 11, full bloat with HP crap on it, using up 6gb of RAM at rest. I wiped it and put a low-usage desktop environment with Mint and it's like a new life, using like 500mb of RAM. I dare say, his stock app be damned, it might be the only way given just how much more or the system was returned to other applications.

Perhaps there's an alternative software he can use? Or at another person suggested, just retire it and get a cheap Windows system and keep the old laptop for yourself? All I know is Windows, even debloated, will use up at least a fourth of that systems hardware, if not twice that much.