Any other long-time computer geeks here who became bored with computer tech?

[UsandThem]

I have always loved computer tech since I first became involved with it in 1994. Since that time, I replaced at least some of the components on a yearly basis (with some years pretty much replacing everything). I always wanted the latest/greatest parts, so this is what I did for roughly 25 years. CPUs, GPUs, RAM, motherboards, sound cards, storage.......there was always something that needed to be replaced in order to keep up with what was newly launched.

In the last year or two, I just have had zero desire to upgrade anything computer related. Even when the Ryzen 3000 and 5000 series CPUs launched and received great reviews, I didn't get tempted to buy any of them. In fact, the only thing I replaced was a SSD in my son's computer that suddenly died. I know the last 5 years or so my PC gaming time has had a huge decrease, with the last two years being pretty much nil outside of playing a little Civ5 from time to time. I still like reading about new technology, but I am beginning to wonder if I won't keep the same PC at least 5+ more years (assuming it still works fine)?

Even going into help threads in the tech sub-forums has become pretty boring as well. Just too many of the same questions asked over and over, with the answers so easy to find (if people put any effort into looking for the answer). "What's the best CPU for me", "What kind and how much RAM", "What's a good SSD", "What GPU will play the games I play", "What PC case is a good choice"?.......... B-O-R-I-N-G

Now get off my lawn!

 

[PowerEngineer]

Ah, those good old days... 😄

Back near the dawn of the personal computer age, hardware upgrades delivered tangible performance improvements. It seems to me I started to lose interest in upgrades once I assembled a system that would comfortably run Windows 7. Now I only build new desktops when I start to think my present one is getting too old to be reliable. FWIW, my current desktop is five years old.

Not being a realtime gamer, the last couple of systems I have built have really been overkill. Still, it is a bit like owning a 200 mph sports car; never expect to go that fast but fun to know you could. I am sure the next one I build will be unnecessarily top end too. 😋

 

[Pohemi]

Yep.
Excitement is mostly gone, even on new and exciting hardware, like the new Ryzens as you were mentioning.

Just seems, "meh" relative to how much I use to care about what was next and the latest and greatest. Even ditched my overpowered tower and went to a laptop last year.
No desire to, "keep up with the Joneses" as long as I have a working system for my (now more) limited uses.

And yeah...tech support? Pbfft.
I use to offer and be more than willing to work on friend's and family's PCs. No more. It starts to become an expectation from others, and never any compensation offered or given. If it were offered, I might turn it down anyway, but...people's assume it's "fun" for me to do. Nope.

I didn't get into computers heavily until after I was out of high school in the late 90s, so I was a "late starter". It was a fun and interesting hobby for years but the motivation is dying/dead now.

 

[BoomerD]

I got my first "real" PC about 1991. NEC 8088 with dual 5-1/4"floppy drives. Upgraded the RAM, added a 20MB HDD...what a PITA that was...I've upgraded periodically since then...386, Pentium 200 With MMX!, Pentium 3, Pentium 4, never chased the "latest and greatest" trends...but enough to keep playing newer games. Longest gap was almost 10 years...jumped from an i5-760 to an i7-9700K. Got tired of building my own though...this time, I took a chance and bought an "I buy power" pre-built from Costco. Not sure I'd ever do that again. The basic hardware is fine. ASRock motherboard, Intel processor, ASUS 2070 GPU, WD SSD and Seagate HDD...but kind of no-name RAM and their own branded case and CPU liquid cooler. (that failed just after the 1 year warranty expired)

I MAY upgrade this one a bit more...Costco's warranty people replaced the dying CPU cooler with a low-end CoolerMaster model. It's not doing the job very well. MIGHT go with a NOCTUA air cooler...IF I can get one to fit this case. Otherwise, maybe a Corsair liquid cooler.

 

[shortylickens]

Absolutely.
The only reason I'm still on the forums is the babe thread and the cat thread.

 

[sdifox]

Op should get a Heathkit...

 

[Pohemi]

Just too many of the same questions asked over and over, with the answers so easy to find (if people put any effort into looking for the answer). "What's the best CPU for me", "What kind and how much RAM", "What's a good SSD", "What GPU will play the games I play", "What PC case is a good choice"?

Admittedly, it makes me chuckle when someone is insistent on building their own system, but wants someone else to hand them all of the part choices and best methods because they can't be bothered to do any of the research themselves.

I understand wanting advice or opinions from others who are more experienced and knowledgeable in regards to building a system, but if you can't do some reading and figure it out, you should probably just buy a pre-built machine in my opinion.

It's why I tend to ignore those types of vague and annoying questions these days, because usually they just keep asking more and more.

 

[VirtualLarry]

And yeah...tech support? Pbfft.
I use to offer and be more than willing to work on friend's and family's PCs. No more. It starts to become an expectation from others, and never any compensation offered or given. If it were offered, I might turn it down anyway, but...people's assume it's "fun" for me to do. Nope.

Sadly, I know what that's like.

And as far as the OP goes, I don't know. Sounds a bit like what I heard described as "Covid fatigue", being "blah" about things the last two years.

I've been actively involved in mining, which has kept my interest, especially since the revenue hike starting in Dec. 2020. Although the subsequent GPU shortage hasn't been fun.a

Although, I'm not building as many systems anymore. I have parts to build like 4-5 Ryzen CPU rigs (although not GPUs for all of them). Cases and other parts still piled up, haven't had the motivation to build much anymore.

I did recently buy some HP Slim Desktop PCs with Celeron G5900 CPUs, 4GB DDR4, and a 1TB HDD, and have been upgrading them to something decent, Pentium Gold G6400, 2x8GB DDR4, and a 512GB SSD, and optionally a GT 1030, to make an under $500 Fortnite box for people for their kids.

Although, I give away more PCs it seems than I actually sell for break-even.

 

[Pohemi]

Yeah lately (last year or two) I've mostly been trying to slim down devices, spare parts, etc. and simplify the devices that I still use. Such as moving away from the full tower and using a laptop as a DTR.

I just don't care to have it all sitting around anymore.

 

[purbeast0]

I haven't upgraded my desktop since like mid 2000's. The last thing I did to it was get an SSD. I'd say that is when my interest stopped. But it also coincided with when I stopped PC gaming and also started to use laptops more than desktops.

The knowledge from then has helped me the past year though with a couple of arcade games I have that are just PCs under the hood running Linux. I had to put together some very specific hardware for one game and then I have 2 others that just having basic PC building knowledge has also helped me out with trouble shooting and putting the system together.

 

[biostud]

I actually doesn't game that much but is still very much interested in hardware. I've only upgraded when my computer couldn't run the games I play, so besides videocards and a new monitor I haven't invested much in gear. But I spend many hours every week to read about hardware.

But there isn't the incentive to do much tinkering and o/c anymore, as most hardware run at maximum performance out the box.

But 2022 will be the year for a new setup

 

[mikeymikec]

I'm in complete agreement that PC hardware innovation has slowed greatly, but I've been tempted a few times during the pandemic to get a Ryzen 3000/5000 series to replace my Haswell setup. What I'd give to have many more cores than my i5-4690k to blast away at Handbrake ~ £475 for the platform upgrade seems a bit steep though.

I've done a few upgrades lately to my own PC (TN to IPS, DVDRW to BR writer, 1TB HDD to 4TB HDD) which were mostly necessary, and I keep putting off a PSU upgrade (I really would like something much quieter but I don't 'need' it).

 

[DigDog]

yeah.

you know what, i grew up with computers, and even back in the 90s (the greatest decade our planet has seen, bar none) computers were still shit. Stuff didn't work. Plug&Play was something they actually flaunted as "revolutionary", because before this it you needed to add drivers, who then would create conflicts, who would eventually make your install explode.
Games stuttering, browsers crashing, getting random error "XX)00888157627D does not fluxomiate the parallax ports; please exorbitate the pereotide connection in AA5456F under bitreduction" that basically meant you were gonna bring back whatever you bought to the store and just say "it doesn't work".

... WinAMP was so awesome not because it was, but because it didn't conflict with another hundred things on your system. I remember being unable to run ANYTHING when some programs were running. Antivirus? Your pc will be unavailable for the next half hour. HDD defrag? BonziBuddy?

And then .. all that went away.

Windows 7 will remain in my mind as the best OS ever made. I loved XP with a passion, but it was a delicate, fragile OS that would fail unless you treated it with love and care. W7 was a tank. Everything worked, shockingly, "out of the box".

Same for hardware. I remember the joy at getting my C2D 6600, but even that eventually became too weak to push your day-to-day use. And now, i have a 4670k and i should have upgraded years ago, but hey .. it works. It keeps working. A CPU from 2014, and IT STILL WORKS ! I mean, we'd think that a 6-month old CPU was old, this is 6 years old.

I wouldn't even overclock anymore, (mostly because there isn't any headroom anymore) because when you have a crap Celeron, you try to squeeze every last bit of power from it, but when you got a 5Ghz 10-core that can open 200 Chrome tabs at the same time AND run AV + multimedia at the same time, then you start to value things like noise, heat, lifespan of the CPU .. and stability. Or even just "why". Why overclock.

Everything runs fine, there's no stuttering or framerate agony that i can make better by:
1. installing "lite" (pirated) versions of the OS
2. disabling tons of useful services
3. editing my registry
4. buying specialized cooling hardware
5. delidding
6. pushing everything within an inch of critical failure

and i was always housekkping on XP. Cleaning manually the registry, uninstalling everything that could be uninstalled, i spent agens on BlackViper's website, on tech forums trying to find the latest hack or workaround, defragging my HD, diving in every app's advanced settings to optimize, like optimize was my holy word.

But i don't get excited anymore. 3080? 3090 ?
Man, just give me something that works. A thousand bucks for a GPU ?!?! ARE YOU INSANE? No bro, i just need to play some Quake every now and then and use the pc without it grinding to a halt.

 

[pete6032]

I think part of it is we all lose excitement as we get older. When I was younger I looked at my grandparents who hardly new how to use a VCR or television and thought I would never be like them because I loved technology and gadgets and that's how it would always be until the day I died. Well since I have gotten older it seems like I have everything I need, and the new cutting edge technology is not that much different than existing tech. A few year old smartphone, entry level tablet, and entry level laptop can do everything I want, and upgrading most devices every 3-5 years is all I need. I don't really have any interest in things like smartwatches, home automation, VR, etc.

 

[lxskllr]

Tech's boring as far as hardware goes, and today a "techie" is someone who can tell you the specs of some phone manufacturers shit out, or the latest OMG AMAZING (cr)app that'll end up yesterday's news in a year or two. Nobody *does* anything. They merely consume. There's interesting stuff being done with tiny arm computers, but that's kind of a one and done thing. You build your box, it works, and there's nothing left to do. You don't need to tech anymore.

 

[KB]

When I could overclock my CPU and get 20% more Mhz with a little cooling, it was exciting. Now I don't even bother. The only tech I can get into now is cell phones and VR.

 

[Viper GTS]

Maybe you're just looking at the wrong stuff?

Hardware definitely went through a boring phase that ended IMO about 3 years ago. We have seen massive gains in CPU and GPU performance, storage went from the slowest part of a PC to being completely limited by PCIe bandwidth. PCIe 4.0 NVME was capable of essentially maxing out PCIE 4.0 on day one. 3D XPoint exists. The water cooling market has absolutely exploded. I know kids that are excited about gaming PC hardware and water cooling. I'd argue a 14 year old today has it far better off than I did when I started doing this stuff. Peripherals are great too - Mini LED HDR monitors are imminent. High refresh rate displays are becoming commonplace (just went from 60 to 144 myself). I even BIOS modded a GPU yesterday, something I haven't done since flashing my 7900 GTO cards to 7900 GTX speeds back in ~2006.

I mean yes, a quad core i3 system with integrated graphics driving a 60hz 1080p display is good enough for the majority of the population. But if you enjoy this stuff and have money to spend there is no shortage of fun toys out there.

Viper GTS

 

[RLGL]

Boring, yes. Kinda nice in a way, easy on the checkbook. Btw what is a checkbook anyway?

 

[dasherHampton]

Absolutely.

There was a time when I used to order a PC part every single month from Newegg or TigerDIrect or some other online place. Sometimes I'd stay up all night optimizing and benchmarking. It was fun. My rig could play Crysis.

Back then I had this worthless Gateway office PC that someone gave me. Didn't even have an AGP slot. So I bought a regular PCI GPU (NVDA 5700 PCI I believe) and spent months trying to beat benchmarks. lol It was more fun than playing games. Every 10 point increase was like a victory. Does anyone remember all of those tools that people would use to improve performance, like Sandra (I think that's what it was called)?

I don't remember the last component I bought. Seriously - it might've been pre 2010.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Is it that technology isn't advancing as quickly as it once was?

Or is it that the advancement is still there - we just don't notice it as much because the difference between 200ms and 100ms isn't substantial to the human eye?

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

yeah.

you know what, i grew up with computers, and even back in the 90s (the greatest decade our planet has seen, bar none) computers were still shit. Stuff didn't work. Plug&Play was something they actually flaunted as "revolutionary", because before this it you needed to add drivers, who then would create conflicts, who would eventually make your install explode.
Games stuttering, browsers crashing, getting random error "XX)00888157627D does not fluxomiate the parallax ports; please exorbitate the pereotide connection in AA5456F under bitreduction" that basically meant you were gonna bring back whatever you bought to the store and just say "it doesn't work".

... WinAMP was so awesome not because it was, but because it didn't conflict with another hundred things on your system. I remember being unable to run ANYTHING when some programs were running. Antivirus? Your pc will be unavailable for the next half hour. HDD defrag? BonziBuddy?

And then .. all that went away.

Windows 7 will remain in my mind as the best OS ever made. I loved XP with a passion, but it was a delicate, fragile OS that would fail unless you treated it with love and care. W7 was a tank. Everything worked, shockingly, "out of the box".

Same for hardware. I remember the joy at getting my C2D 6600, but even that eventually became too weak to push your day-to-day use. And now, i have a 4670k and i should have upgraded years ago, but hey .. it works. It keeps working. A CPU from 2014, and IT STILL WORKS ! I mean, we'd think that a 6-month old CPU was old, this is 6 years old.

I wouldn't even overclock anymore, (mostly because there isn't any headroom anymore) because when you have a crap Celeron, you try to squeeze every last bit of power from it, but when you got a 5Ghz 10-core that can open 200 Chrome tabs at the same time AND run AV + multimedia at the same time, then you start to value things like noise, heat, lifespan of the CPU .. and stability. Or even just "why". Why overclock.

Everything runs fine, there's no stuttering or framerate agony that i can make better by:
1. installing "lite" (pirated) versions of the OS
2. disabling tons of useful services
3. editing my registry
4. buying specialized cooling hardware
5. delidding
6. pushing everything within an inch of critical failure

and i was always housekkping on XP. Cleaning manually the registry, uninstalling everything that could be uninstalled, i spent agens on BlackViper's website, on tech forums trying to find the latest hack or workaround, defragging my HD, diving in every app's advanced settings to optimize, like optimize was my holy word.

But i don't get excited anymore. 3080? 3090 ?
Man, just give me something that works. A thousand bucks for a GPU ?!?! ARE YOU INSANE? No bro, i just need to play some Quake every now and then and use the pc without it grinding to a halt.

This too. I used to format my HD so often because things would always just eventually go significantly slower.

I was formatting so often (every few months? twice a year? Something like that) that there was a big community around making unattended custom windows disks so that we could format, re-install the OS, and have it re-install all of the programs we wanted via batch file. There was actually a huge community behind it where we all taught eachother how to make windows unattended and how to install/register any and all apps. I think it was something along the lines of msfn.org and an "unattended windows" forum.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Single core CPU bottleneck games tend to be my favorite PC games. Watching and manipulating a massively complex real-time world gets me all hot and bothered.

We've been stuck at ~Skylake single-threaded performance for over half a decade, and popular hardware limitations ultimately dictate how gnarly these types of games can be.

I'm pretty excited about Zen 4 and whatever lake Intel is drowning in.

 

[bigi]

Yes, good topic.

All PC "tech" has mostly gone to shit.

The whole RGB crap
ATX, mATX form factors are still around which is an absurd.
The new games are bad. Kids have been told to rely on graphics and that makes a good game.
The whole CPU/GPU fiascos. One after another. When you think of it, current tech with Moore's law to explain it, make all a dead horse really. There is nowhere to go.
All of the useless web based local copies make stuff slow even though the hardware has improved.
3D "tech" - gone
VR "tech" - slow. I consider it gone.

All of the MSFT 'dominance' has brought us here. Nothing is happening.

Kids don't want a PC. They have phones.

... and so forth.

 

[Fritzo]

Yeah, I became bored about 10 years ago. I think the reason why is PCs today can now do anything we dreamed about 20 years ago. Components are fully modular, everything is self-configuring, even lower-end PCs are super fast, and gaming graphics are incredibly realistic.

Back then, the challenge was to get limited equipment to perform better than anything on the market at the time. Now that everything is special, nothing is. I moved my interest to automation and A.I. That's where all the cool stuff is happening these days.

 

[Fritzo]

Yes, good topic.

All PC "tech" has mostly gone to shit.


The new games are bad. Kids have been told to rely on graphics and that makes a good game.

I completely disagree with this. I'm 50 and am STILL playing some of the most amazing games of my life. I recently stumbled upon a game called Everspace that...while having jaw-dropping graphics (especially on multiple monitors), the gameplay is fantastic (it's like a combination of Doom and FTL). They just came out with Everspace 2 so pick the original up on the cheap if you can.

Games like Witcher III, Red Dead Redemption, The Last of Us, Uncharted, God of War, Far Cry 5, Doom Eternal...and dozens of others are like playing the main character in a big-budget movie. Sim games like Elite Dangerous or the new MS Flight Simulator are so realistic it boggles the mind. We're in a Golden Age of gaming right now (and Steam's sales are proving that). If you were a gamer and fell out of it, I encourage you to take a peek at the titles again.