This was referred to as the BIOS (Basic Input Output System) on older computers, but on modern computers, this has been replaced with UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface).
If you have a laptop with a removable bottom panel, you may also see this information printed on the mainboard in many cases, but it’s usually not necessary since the date should be indicated elsewhere.Īnother good indicator of how old a computer is is the age of the motherboard’s firmware. Although in the case of the CPU, it’s not worth removing the heatsink (and heat paste) to see a date, because you can simply infer it from the model of CPU. The same goes for almost any component, so if you feel you need to you can check for date stamps on every other component too. Still, unless the computer has been upgraded extensively, the motherboard’s date of manufacture should be close to the average age of the computer itself. You can also check the motherboard itself for a manufacturing date, although of course this only tells you the age of the motherboard itself. If you have a desktop computer with an easily-removable side panel, you may actually find the computer’s manufacturing date printed on a label inside the system. You may have to look up if this is the case using a web search so that you know how to interpret any extra information encoded in the serial number. Even if it isn’t apparent, the manufacturing date is sometimes encoded in the serial number. In many cases, the manufacturing date will be plainly stated on these stickers. This is usually only a trick that applies to laptops, since even prebuilt desktop systems are typically assembled from off-the-shelf components, each with their individual date.Įven if you’ve long thrown away the computer’s box, you probably haven’t removed the serial number sticker. If the computer’s original packaging is still around or the documentation that came with it, there’s a good chance the manufacturing date is stamped somewhere on the packaging or in the manual.
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