What's the longest you've regularly used a piece of PC hardware?

[Illusion of Progress]

I saw a similar thread on another community asking what the oldest thing you still use is, and I thought I'd make a similar thread here, but with a distinction. Age doesn't mean much if you weren't regularly using it the whole time, so in order to qualify, something...

1. Must have been used "regularly". I'll leave this up to you to define, but something you're not using anymore, or something you own but don't use often, doesn't count. Something you relegated into in a second PC you barely use (or someone else uses now)? An optical drive in the main PC you almost never use? I wouldn't count those.

2. Is only counting the time you used it. Date of manufacture or introduction to the market is meaningless. Date of original owner is meaningless. It goes by the date you got it, and ends when you stop regularly using it.

The idea is to ask yourself what single piece of hardware you got the longest use of time out of. How long was it, and what was it?

As a bonus question, what's longest out of the hardware you still have? In other words, if your "record holder" is in the past, then the purpose of this question is to ask out of the stuff you still have and use now, what has been in your use the longest?

Mine in both cases would be my monitor, a Dell UltraSharp U2410. It was manufactured in August 2009 but I got it second hand sometime in 2010 (I can't remember when in the year exactly). So I've been using it for somewhere between 13 and 14 years, and its formally 14 and a half years old. I might be looking to finally replace it soon.

[DeadBeat]

You need to write a book you have the talent for it. I will buy the first copy.

I'm not even kidding.

[DeadBeat]

"Mine in both cases would be my monitor, a Dell UltraSharp U2410"

A peripheral not hardware.

[_I_]

how about a pentium 3 build on win95, its running a piece of hardware since around 1998 (was on a pentium or pii before that, p3 was the last with an isa slot for the controller card)
monitor has been replaced with an lcd panel, hdd with ssd, but the rest is still working great

[Tralalero Tralala]

my 1tb hdd from 2014 is still at 100% health and it's the last component remaining from my original build

[A&A]

The oldest which is still in use...
Seagate Baracuda 1TB 7200RPM (2011 model) which I am using from 2012
It has files from my previous and my current desktop computer and is a backup of the last hard drive. It's not connected to the computer due to lack of sata connectors, but it stays there. Otherwise if I hadn't upgraded the PC it would have been the GT240 which I've been using since 2010 but there was a period where I didn't use the desktop much around 2019. A month ago I bought an RX550X 2GB from a friend for cheap, which allows this PC to run games at least at 1080P.

[DevaVictrix]

The oldest thing I still use almost daily is a 250gb WD 2.5” blue hdd from March 2009. The caddy it sits in is from 2005 ish.

Oldest hardware I still have that works is a 4gb WD hdd. I binned the huge collection of simms I had a few years back. They would have been early 90s possibly.

I can’t think of anything I’ve used for a longer period of time. Almost everything I’ve bought over the years has lasted 10 - 15 years before being shelved and the only thing I can remember dying is a WD caviar drive in the early 2000s… it was pretty well doa.

Edit: no, it’s my speakers and amp. Both bought in about 2000. Denon pma 350 and tannoy m1.
Edit edit: The speakers were bought a bit earlier… 2/1/99, to be exact! The amp will be 1998. >£1500 on hi-fi equipment and a £2.45ish ph wage!

[Callahan420]

Ordered on May 5, 2013
Intel Core i5-3570K

Order Date:4/10/2015
GTX 960 4gb

Still kicking it everyday.

[Zef]

Around 7 years, same time when i build a new gaming PC.

[emoticorpse]

I see the fun in a question like this, but also expect dissappointing answers. A lot if us here are enthusiasts and really acquire the newer more recent hardware because it's what we enjoy.

It's people who aren't consumed by pc hardware that can still use older stuff because they don't care.

This same question asked about a lot of other things I don't care about, is where I can tell you as long as it hasn't broken down, I'm still using it.

[Shaggin'Wagon]

I still own my original Apple IIe that my uncle gave me for my birthday in 1988. It still works. I still play games on it at least once a month.

[DevaVictrix]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Shaggin'Wagon:

I still own my original Apple IIe that my uncle gave me for my birthday in 1988. It still works. I still play games on it at least once a month.

Sell it!

Actually, they’re not worth quite what I thought they might be. Keep it!

[Shaggin'Wagon]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από DevaVictrix:

Sell it!

Actually, they’re not worth quite what I thought they might be. Keep it!

Mine might be worth a fair bit some day. I have lots of upgrades in mine and I've hand rebuilt the power supply twice and I still have the original printer that went to it and I've rebuilt that thing 3 times (the old printers are very unreliable). I have all the original books and manuals for it too. They're pretty rare machines to find in reliable working condition and good shape physically. It's one of my prized possessions.

[Illusion of Progress]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από DeadBeat:

"Mine in both cases would be my monitor, a Dell UltraSharp U2410"

A peripheral not hardware.

Yes, and that is a type of PC hardware is it not? I'm not asking only about components, so peripherals are fine to list.

If you want to know what my longest used component is then that would be a pair of Western Digital Blue 640 GB hard drives from late 2007/early 2008 respectively. I used those for... I think around 12 or 13 years (until mid 2020).

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από emoticorpse:

I see the fun in a question like this, but also expect dissappointing answers. A lot if us here are enthusiasts and really acquire the newer more recent hardware because it's what we enjoy.

Ah, but that makes it more fun to see the answers, no!?

And you might be surprised, because enthusiasm isn't defined by how frequently you upgrade or how much you spend. And even for those who do, I think there's bound to be some surprisingly long answers (already had some).

My monitor is between 13 and 14 and a a half years depending on how you count.

My keyboard is... like ten years almost? I think? Yeah in May it's a decade old.

Speakers are even older from mid-late 2011.

My case (and the fans I got for it) is a decade old. My PSU would be if I didn't RMA it (I'm using it's nearest equivalent replacement still).

Okay, not peripherals or case?

I had four hard drives last around a dozen years. Oldest one is seven now.

Okay, storage is an accessory?

Then my older 2500K (and its motherboard and RAM) almost made a decade going from late 2011 to mid 2020. That's a (number of) core component(s).

The GTX 1060 was a month shy of seven years. Also a core component.

I then went through a 3700X in three years to a 5800X3D (but that was only because it was possible without changing the motherboard and RAM or else I wouldn't have done that one) and now I'm already looking to turn around and move to the 9800X3D.

I had, and still have, some "old" stuff by enthusiast standards. Don't be tricked into thinking those discussing their newest stuff are the only ones using PCs in the enthusiast space.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Shaggin'Wagon:

I still own my original Apple IIe that my uncle gave me for my birthday in 1988. It still works. I still play games on it at least once a month.

Okay, everyone pack it in and go home. Once a month is probably on the low end of regular use but I think that's still fair to count so I think this will probably be the winner by far here. A lot of people might have old stuff but most of it probably isn't used regularly or is in storage.

[Carlsberg]

almost exactly 10yr old Mad catz Strike 7 keyboard, still using it every day and works perfectly.

[nullable]

I don't think it really counts, maybe barely counts, but I got some Klipsch ProMedia v.2-400 surround sound speakers in 1999 and used them on my main PCs until 2018, so about 19 years before they gave up the ghost. I was hoping to get them to 20, but alas. Still, I got my money's worth out of them and then some.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/394