For some time now, I have been making clients aware of the age of their computer and arguing the value of repairs. Usually, my personal rule of thumb is that you may want to debate repairing your computer if it is over ~5 years of age. In my experience, computers over that age tend to be at a higher risk of hardware failure. Further, the average price of today’s computers makes extensive repairs somewhat risky for the average consumer.
If in the event a client comes to me with a 6yr old PC which requires a new hard drive, I may suggest replacing the computer instead. Aside from the cost of the part, replacing the hard drive would necessitate reinstalling the Operating System and could include transferring the data from the old drive to the new one. That could add up pretty quickly, and I would hate to see the client come back a week later with something like a fried motherboard. When a computer is that old (as upsetting as that sounds), these days, it can make more sense to simply replace the PC.
Though today’s low prices is an almost inarguable factor, I recently decided to check with a few local pawn shops to see what I could get for an old PC. Surprisingly, these pawn shops ran on my same rule, except even more strict. They refused to buy any PC older than ~3 years. Their reason? “It’s more likely that we could run into hardware issues.” Replacing the PC helps to ensure the continued reliability of parts and would also grant the added bonus of a one year (or more) warranty through the manufacturer.
