…Purchase a new computer.

What is the life span of an engineering work station?  Some people say up to five years.  I have been working at CATI for almost nine years.  In that time frame I can think of at least seven different computers that I have had.  I know that it seems really high, but let’s take a closer look.  Most techs will say that you can figure that the average engineering work stations with SolidWorks will last three years.  If I went back three years and found that machine it would have been a Dell M70.  It at the time was a great machine.  SolidWorks 2007 installed (great release), 2 gb of RAM, that thing was great.  Now let’s take that same machine and put it into use today.  While it will still run SolidWorks, it is no longer certified.  2gb looking back seems like nothing.  Good luck finding a graphics driver let alone a certified one that works well.  Is it going to run, yes.  Is it going to run well and put me in a position to be productive? Absolutely not.  I hate to say it, but three years for an engineering PC is pushing it.  By now most companies are taking the computers that are rotating out of engineering and trickling them down into sales, or purchasing.  While they are on the low side for engineering, they are most likely perfect in their new sales or purchasing roles.  Keep reading, next time we will start to look at some of the options for hardware and software in new engineering machines.