Yesterday I was reminded the hard way I have an old PC.
I had to look it up to see when was the delivery email date. That's roughly 8.5 years ago, in December 2009 (yep, apparently I made myself a Christmas gift then).
Given the rapid pace of technological advancements, 8+ years is an eternity.
But it's still very good for my current needs and I've grown accustomed with it, since I'm less mobile than I used to be, when my primarily device was a laptop.
I haven't been a gamer for many years, I'm not involved in video or other type of GPU/CPU-intensive processing and haven't used the CPU or GPU to mine for cryptos, so there isn't a great stress on the components.
In the 8.5 years time, I only broke a few mouses, that's it. Would you care to take a guess what finally failed? I give you one shot! It's that easy.
If you said the power source, then you are correct!
Wow, 8.5 years, that's impressive! I'm not sure if this computer or the previous one ran non-stop for months in a row. Either way, this PC has its share of adventures too.
I moved to the neighborhood where I live now a few years ago. Despite being considered a fancy area, electricity failed weekly for at least a year, if not longer. Power fluctuations were ordinary.
In time, things improved, but we still have power fluctuations every once in a while.
This prevented me from realizing the first signs of "tiredness" given by the power source, because I mistakenly thought the sudden resets were due to power fluctuations.
Any way, best power sources are guaranteed to function within parameters for a number of hours (many of them). After that, it's a lottery, and it also depends how intensely you use your computer.
After 8.5 years, and with a cheap power source, I'd say it's impressive it lasted so long.
I've made a pretty big mistake not realizing my power source is about to die. A faulty power source can have an impact on all the other components, and if they fail in cascade the bill is much higher.
That's why, going forward, I'll make a point in replacing old and used power sources, as long as I use the PCs.
The only issue is that for this one I have to wait about a week to arrive (that's longer than I'm used to for various packages). Until then, I have a chance to get used to my new laptop, which I bought as a backup and for mobility a while back.