PC Health Check : Age of your computer

Time and tide wait for no man, they say, and sadly the same is true of your PC. After years of use even the most robust of PCs will start to feel its age and succumb to errors, freezes and the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. This article is divided in several parts, so make sure you check out all of those to understand the health of your Computer.

The first and foremost its important to know the age of your Computer. The components in your computer are like its vital organs, and as they age they become more prone to breaking down. Exactly when a component will cease to work is impossible to say, but age will increase the likelihood of a fault.

How do you find out? 

You probably know when you bought your PC, but does that represent its actual age? For example, you may have installed a new hard drive, some new memory (RAM) or a new processor. Does this mean your PC is suddenly a lot younger? In fact, to get philosophical, is it the same PC at all (see box below)?

Replacing or upgrading at least two of the following vital components – processor, hard drive, video card, RAM or motherboard – means you can justifiably revise the age of your PC down. As a rule, consider your PC’s birthday to be half-way between when you bought your PC and the date of the earliest upgrade. So if you bought your PC four years ago, then replaced its hard drive after two years and added more RAM a year later, you should count your PC as being three years old.

How can you Prolong its life? 

This is simple but not cheap: replace or upgrade a few of your PC’s most easy-to-access components, such as its hard drive or RAM.