On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 07:40:03 +0000, GB wrote:

"Jez T" wrote in message
...

"GB" wrote
The main question is a purely
practical one, namely does your father in law need any of the data on the
hard disk?

Is it the hard disk that has failed?

If the HDD has failed then he's probably lost the data anyway. My concern
was that PCW techs might just wipe the disk anyway.

It depends what the data is worth to his father. It would be rare for a
disk to be non-recoverable, but it may cost "quite a bit" to get the data
back.

OTOH I've had considerable success recovering data from disks using the
"percussive maintenance" technique. This costs me very little, but would
cost a client a few quid for the process of copying the data before the
disk goes again.

Paul Cummins wrote:


I use old computers for basic tasks, but in general, a 3 year old
machine is going to need replacing because it can;t run modern
software in any case.

Absolute and utter rubbish. Tell me a piece of software commonly used in
businesses or homes, that would not work on a standard computer built in the
last five years?


Unless you have a very specific piece of software that is dependent on NT,
or have need for advanced 3d modelling, pretty much any computer with
windows98 and 256mb of memory, built in the last eight years would be
sufficient.

Gaz

wrote:
My father in law purchased a PC from PC World for £700 in May 2004. It
is now not working (he lives in Scotland). Before I take it back, I
wanted to know what the defnition of a 'reasonable length of time'
would be for a computer. Is this defined anywhere, or does anyone have
experience of how this has been defined in practice?

Thanks

According to PCWorld, a reasonable length of time will be 366 days.

Gaz

Gaz wrote:
Paul Cummins wrote:


I use old computers for basic tasks, but in general, a 3 year old
machine is going to need replacing because it can;t run modern
software in any case.

Absolute and utter rubbish. Tell me a piece of software commonly used in
businesses or homes, that would not work on a standard computer built in the
last five years?

5 years ago. What are we talking here? 500Mhz P3 with 128M RAM?

How about XP-Pro SP2 networked on an AD domain running Office 2003 and
IE 7. A very common office setup.

It might run, if it does it'll take 20 minutes to boot and run like a snail

Gaz wrote:
wrote:
My father in law purchased a PC from PC World for £700 in May 2004. It
is now not working (he lives in Scotland). Before I take it back, I
wanted to know what the defnition of a 'reasonable length of time'
would be for a computer. Is this defined anywhere, or does anyone have
experience of how this has been defined in practice?

Thanks

According to PCWorld, a reasonable length of time will be 366 days.

I'm not so sure they would claim that to someone making a SOGA claim in
writing. In any case, a court might take a different point of view. I
certainly would.
--
Michael Hoffman

In article , (Gaz)
wrote:

Tell me a piece of software commonly used in
businesses or homes, that would not work on a standard computer
built in the last five years?

Office 2003.

World of Warcraft

The Sims 2

Sim City 4

Norton 2006

That's five immediately.


--
Paul Cummins

**FREE** mobile phones, with FREE line rental
http://www.gstgroup.co.uk/

"Michael Hoffman" wrote
I agree with Dr Zoidberg. I think it is reasonable to expect that the solid
state parts of a desktop PC will continue working for at least six years
(and beyond that it is academic) barring the consumer's negligence. Not
sure what the limit on the power supply, or disk drives would be.

I think it's reasonable to expect computers to fail statistically within the
framework of the MTBF figures.
On that basis, I would (unscientifically) expect about 20% of computers to
fail within 3 years of use.

Negligence is a factor. How to you account for it?
Tollerances are not what they were 10 years ago - a 10 year old computer is
more 'solid' than new computer because 10 years ago, the components were not
as fine / detailed, and they had to make more allowances for error. Today,
there is little margin for error, and the cost/specification ratio is much
higher.

eg. 486 processors rarely failed, and rarely overheated. A modern P4
processor will overheat within about 5 minutes if you don't fit a heatsink
to it. Also the difference between operating temperature and failure
temperature is greater on a 486 than it is on a P4, so there's less margin
for failure.

It would be best to find out what the problem is first.

Yep.

On 24 Jan, 13:50, "Gaz" wrote:

Absolute and utter rubbish. Tell me a piece of software commonly used in
businesses or homes, that would not work on a standard computer built in the
last five years?

Unless you have a very specific piece of software that is dependent on NT,
or have need for advanced 3d modelling, pretty much any computer with
windows98 and 256mb of memory, built in the last eight years would be
sufficient.

It was hard to secure Windows 98 even when updates were still being
released for it.

I would hate to try to use a windows 98 machine with 256 megabytes
with, for example, AutoCAD (just 2d stuff) or the latest MS office
software.

You mention "commonly used in homes". I don't think there are many
games released this year that would work on the spec you give.

Martin wrote:
Gaz wrote:
Paul Cummins wrote:


I use old computers for basic tasks, but in general, a 3 year old
machine is going to need replacing because it can;t run modern
software in any case.

Absolute and utter rubbish. Tell me a piece of software commonly used in
businesses or homes, that would not work on a standard computer built in
the
last five years?

5 years ago. What are we talking here? 500Mhz P3 with 128M RAM?

Actually, that was virtually the identical spec of my first PC, which was
1999, eight years ago, even that would run todays software without blinking.


How about XP-Pro SP2 networked on an AD domain running Office 2003 and
IE 7. A very common office setup.

Sorry, I should preface, business, with small business.....

It might run, if it does it'll take 20 minutes to boot and run like a
snail

Nonesense, win98 is in many ways more responsive to XP, especially on slower
equipment.

Gaz

Paul Cummins wrote:
In article , (Gaz)
wrote:

Tell me a piece of software commonly used in
businesses or homes, that would not work on a standard computer
built in the last five years?

Office 2003.

Which has built in redundancy only to force upgrades, office 97, officer
2000 and office xp work perfectly well on any pc built in the last five
years, and even then well over 95% of those would run office 2003 easily.


World of Warcraft

The Sims 2

Sim City 4

These are different issues and more to do with graphics, you give me a five
year old pc and a decent five year old graphics card and will outperform in
these games the majority of new pcs bought at PC World.

Norton 2006

That is no loss.

That's five immediately.

Only one of them is valid, and thats office 2003, which unless you have
specific needs in regards to exchange server and server 2003, is identical
to office xp.

Gaz