I was motivated to move to a mac - be aware that it is a real mess to do that

Every computer upgrade I need at my office, I buy used off Ebay. I save 1/3 off new and usually have a computer that is way beyond my needs for a few more years. That being said, that tar laden computer would hit the Goodwill Store in my house. I can almost smell the smoke blowing out of it.:(

I give away old PC's thatI've managed to get running well, but a few are beyond fixing and this one pictured above was far beyond repairable... As soon as I touched the cables, they disintegrated... it was crazy!

Almost looks like a blown capacitor right above the PCI-EX16. Small one in the corner. Top looks like it's rounded.

Okay Art and others, what are the key reasons for degradation of performance on computers, laptop and other kinds? Please attribute by % .
Memory overloaded?Dust?Computer getting old eg. worn keyboard?Other reasons?

How does one clean a laptop? Mine is about 3 years old.

With the laptop off, use a can of air and blow through the exhaust port. This will force the dust that has collected on the heat sink to come back out the fan intake hole. Sometimes you have to get a bit creative and pull some of the dust bunnies out of the intake hole.

What about taking it apart, or opening up some of the covers? Opened up many a pc, but never a laptop.

One thing about taking laptops apart is it's nice to use plastic tools to work on them. It's so easy to damage the case taking the apart with conventional tools.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_SS500_.jpg

There is really no need.

If you are looking, now is a great time to buy a new one. Everyone is having "Black Friday" sales...

I set mine out on the driveway, and blast it clean with the pressure washer.

Then put it in the clothes dryer, with the heat set on "Low". Too much heat is hard on computers.

When it runs too slow, I just use 220v instead of a 110v outlet. Twice the voltage makes it twice as fast.

"Yea, 220, 221. Whatever it takes."

3 phase 220 really makes 'em scream!

Dave, Yep the board had bad caps....
You can remove a few small screws and get to the heatsink/CPU on most laptops, but that isn't usually required to clean the dust out... do what Dave suggested with a can of compressed air.

PC's are mechanical devices and there's wear and tear , especially on the hard drive (rotating at 5400rpm). Heat, wear and tear, software issues, dust and dirt, pet hair, cigarette smoke... all do their part to degrade the PC's performance over time and we usually don't notice anything until it fails to boot up.

I can easily rebuild a well-made PC by replacing the hard drive, adding RAM (memory), putting in a better video card (if there are available slots) and then installing Windows 7, installing drivers and tuning the OS. Just like a car, there's some maintenance to be done but these things aren't really meant to last as long as some of use keep them around.

New PC's are so cheap that it's rarely cost effective to upgrade them unless you have the parts available and you know what you're doing and you like the challenge...

BTW, laptops age much faster than a desktop because a laptop is made to be light and easy to carry around and durability suffers accordingly. Three years from a laptop and you've got your money's worth... and then some!

Cheap depends on what you want it to do. My new machine arrives on 12/4 and it was 4k, it will likely only last me three years at best.

Hehe. I'm on a 6 year old laptop and it still serves all my needs. A little slow, but acceptable.

I was using a 5 year old Dell up until a month ago, but the motherboard went and I replaced the motherboard for $50 (Intel DG43GT), same CPU and RAM, new video card and SSD. So far, so good!! I tend to keep my PC's for years but I upgrade or replace every component eventually...

can't get static if the plug is in the socket and as such the puter is grounded..
Always keep it plugged in while doing any kind of work is the key for any and all internal puter works.

the main argument against vacuuming, is that it does a piss poor job of getting the dust of the parts.. Air can does it better...