Stumbled on a old Compaq server at a estate sale last month

Guy had it running since 2003 in his basement. Was still serving some ancient inventory program for his brother's hardware store. Made me think about how we used to build stuff to last forever instead of replacing everything every 3 years. Anyone else run into old gear that's still chugging along?

2 comments

2 Comments

holly_craig11d ago

Why would you want something running that long without updates?

wyatta3011d ago

Yeah but not quite forever though. Those old Compaq servers had a common issue with the power supply capacitors failing after 5-7 years. If that one's still running since 2003 someone must have swapped parts at some point. They were built better than most stuff today for sure but they still had their weak spots. I've got a Dell PowerEdge 2850 from 2004 in my garage that I use for testing old software. Had to replace the RAID controller battery twice and the fans once but the motherboard itself is solid.