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10 years old laptop - is it time to retire? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 5 months 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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[-] kalpol@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 months ago

I have a lot of old laptops. Like seriously, a lot. I donate them steadily to charities after installing Debian but who knows what happens to them afterwards. I have a lot of laptops. I use a different one in every room and one with a bunch of scratches in the garage. I am running out of reasons to even try and keep these things.I have a lot of laptops. They just arrive, many still with data on them, and I wipe them and occasionally order a new battery for them. All my friends and family know not to mention any computing needs to me because they just get offered a Debian machine.I think as a society we have overproduced technology. I have a shitload of laptops.

this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2026
31 points (94.3% liked)

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