30 August 2001

The CD-ROM has given up on my Pentium 200-MMX computer, should I repair it, upgrade it or just buy a new one?

A Pentium 200 has reached the end of its useful life. You are going to find it will cost you more than a new computer to keep it in working order. Bite the bullet and get a new computer.

While a new CD will cost less than a hundred dollars, you can expect a lot more to go wrong in the near future. A new power supply will cost sixty dollars, a new modem another hundred dollars. These bills add up.

Upgrading a computer of this vintage is barely worth it either. The technology inside the computer is two generations behind the current machines. Just adding more memory, usually the cheapest and most cost-effective upgrade, will probably involve replacing the CPU, motherboard and memory.

Even if you do replace the insides you still have an slower and smaller hard drive along with an older video card, modem and monitor. For most owners of older computers it is much more cost effective to buy a whole new computer.

Value for money is the bottom line of whether you should upgrade a computer. As the chart above shows, anything earlier than a Pentium 166 computer is not worth upgrading. Unless you are short of cash, don’t spend too much time or money maintaining a computer older than three years.