What Computer Technology Needs is Standardizing

What I would like to see would be a computer upgrade store where all the parts are pretty much standardized. How would this be accomplished? In this article I try to emphasize what would be needed to make computers more standardized so that almost anyone can fix or upgrade their computers.

The shrinking cost of computers has lowered manufacturers warranties. Technology advances so fast that broken computers have been ending up in landfills. Now its to the point that landfills are no longer accepting them. The average cost of a desktop is between $300-600 so many machines get retired within a few years. The cost of replacement parts are low to so it would be easy to get a broken computer back to working order.

The problem is that the average consumer does not have the knowledge to figure out whats wrong with their computer. When your car is broken you take it to a mechanic. However, when you paid $15,000 for a car you don't think twice about not driving it into a junkyard. For the computer that you spent less than $600 you just want to toss it out. Who wants to pay a technician a $100 just to find out what is wrong with it.

What the consumer should be able to do is to purchase a disk or CD that will determine in plain English what the problem is. From that point he could do the work himself or have someone do it for him. What would make it easy if all computer cases and motherboards were standardized. Let me explain how this would work.

Cases

Cases come in different styles and colors but are classified by the size. In other words you have the very small case to the full tower case. The small case is usually called the micro tower. For this article we will be dealing with ATX cases. So, the sizes usually go like this Micro ATX, Mini or Mid tower, and full tower. If all computers manufactured would come in 3 or 4 case sizes that are standardized than finding motherboards to fit them would be easy as well cause they would be standardized.

Motherboards

Motherboards come in so many different configurations its confusing to the consumer. Manly cause the CPU is just as varied as the board. Normally the micro ATX board for example will use a 478 CPU size and will fit the micro ATX case. Each motherboard will support a CPU up to a certain MHZ and maximum memory for so many GB. Where the confusion comes in with memory is the speed of the memory. Motherboards handle a range of memory speed as well. What would solve this problem for the consumer is standardized numbering or color coding system. This way they would know they have the right replacement.

Its done with car parts it can be done with computer parts as well. Right now there is really know way to purchase a motherboard and CPU locally unless you had repair work done and the tech shop replaced it for you.

This idea would save our environment cause a lot less computers would be thrown away and their usefulness could be stretched for few more years.