How long will G50Vt last?

I just wonder when will my ASUS G50Vt-X3 be out-dated? I know it's hard to request it remaining as a powerful gaming machine for a long time. But can I still play modern game at high quality for 1 or 1.5 coming years? And until I finish my university, I may need it to do some CAD (run AutoCAD), so that will it be able to do that job for 4-5 years?

 

I don't know much about AutoCAD, but the 9800M GS will definitely keep you going for at least the next year and a half.

 

You should be perfectly fine running AutoCAD.. and even Solidworks, Catia, Inventor, and every other 3D CAD modelling programs you come across... I'm still running strong on an Asus z70va (x700 128mb) and I've had no problem running CAD and 3d modeling programs so far. Then again, I haven't been able to run any games released within the past 2-2.5 years

 

Another thing to take into account is reliability. Some laptops bought today will not last for 4 to 5 years, especially mainstream budget laptops. You need to go for business laptops for that (and even then it's not for sure). And nearly the entire ASUS lineup of today is basically budget mainstream laptops.

That is not to say that it will definitely fail before that. Component failure is a significantly stochastic process, and things can only be stated in a probabilistic fashion. But there's a good chance of failure within 5 years.

 

You mean my first laptop, the 1550USD G50Vt-X3 will not last for 4-5 year? Oh, how terrible, I won't be able to buy another laptop until I finish my university and have a good job.
Can anyone give me some tips helping me to lengthen the life of my coming laptop? I want it to stay alive as long as possible.

 

I did not mean it will not last. I meant there is a good likelihood that there will be a fault within 4-5 years. If you are lucky that fault is not something expensive and can be replaced easily -- or something non-essential that you can live without, such as bluetooth.

Tips for lengthening the life:

* be careful with it and don't abuse it;

* try to keep it cool (and that entails regular cleaning of the fan, perhaps after a couple of years an exchange of the thermal paste);

* set up the LCD and HDD to turn off/spindown after reasonable amounts of time to conserve their life (don't overdoit though! for instance HDDs have a limited number of spindown/spinup cycles that gets consumed quicker if you set the timeout too low).

* maintain the battery properly (do some shallow discharges a couple of times a week, a full discharge every couple of months or so).

* be sure that applications consume reasonable amounts of power (which includes making sure you have no malware on the computer ).

That's about all that comes to mind right now.

 

Since you have a G50VT I'm assuming you're not going to be carrying this it very often. So they MAJOR abuse any laptop faces is regular wear and tear from getting thrown around. I usually leave my F3 on my table most of the time so it'll probably last 4 years, but I always find a need to change every 2 years (due to technology).

You can buy a laptop cooler to keep the components even cooler.

Perform a defrag at least once a month. If you don't you're computer will feel like its slowing down due to aging rather than proper maintenance. Use Jkdefrag, I've been using it for a while.

Avoid touching computer components unless you're grounded or the static may short circuit them (I mean when you're cleaning the internals).

That's all I can add to EBE's list :X