Failure Rate of PC Manufacturers? 75
The ever-popular Anonymous Coward asks: "Hello.
We are conducting a write-up for our clients, however we cannot seem to locate any published failure rate of PC manufacturers. Google does bring up past PC Magazine articles - but nothing recent. Does Slashdot know of a way to find this information, as this strikes me as valuable information for the computer buyer. We sell many PC's (B3 VAR) and have done for the last 5 years. We can and will produce our failure rate info - why aren't the big companies doing so?"
Pardon me for stating the obvious... (Score:4, Insightful)
For personal use the PC will most likely become obsolete (at least in the eyes of the user) before it becomes broken. On slashdot we've seen stories (over and over again
If it's for business use, and you've got to have 100% uptime, failure rate sill doesn't matter, since at these prices you buy multiple redundant systems and then sleep well at night.
Besides, how do you collect your data? It seems to me that by the time you've got good long-haul use data on your systems you won't be selling them anymore in favor of new models. And I don't see how extropolating data for new models based on old model performance is terribly useful.
By way of analogy - if new cars only cost a grand, you'd replace your car long before anything serious went wrong with it. About the time the ashtrays were full, a flat tire would be just the excuse you'd need to go shopping for the Latest Greatest Leetest Carxen.
Re:Pardon me for stating the obvious... (Score:1)
Re:Pardon me for stating the obvious... (Score:3, Informative)
Crappy hardware means more replacements, more downtime for workers and more time reimaging and coordinating the scheduling techs or CEs to replace broken equipment. That translates to more staff and more money.
After you factor in salary, benefits, training, telecom costs and equipment,
Re:Pardon me for stating the obvious... (Score:2, Informative)
But doesn't the need for upgrading put the failure rate below the noise floor?
Otherwise a 10 year old PC that was still working just fine would be an incredible savings to your company.
As a doorstop, I guess. But I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you're replacing the old dinosaurs with newer, m
Re:Pardon me for stating the obvious... (Score:2)
In the environment that I describe, staffing and keeping parts inventory for a repair depot for older, out of warranty hardware isn't feasible.
Re:Pardon me for stating the obvious... (Score:1, Insightful)
Bullshit (Score:2)
If you need redundancy, it's probably at a server level. Servers are not necessarily available at such cheap prices.
For desktops, if the unit dies in 3 months then you can probably get a better unit at less cost, but you still have to have somebody paid to swap the machine/components and reinstall software as necessarily.
I
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
Re:Pardon me for stating the obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
I do.
I'm not saving any money by paying less for something, bringing it home/work or waiting for it to be shipped, plugging it in, having it either be DOA or worse dying soon after deployment, then ship the broken thing back, wait again for the replacement, reconfigure the box again (if it works)
I have recently gotten so pissed off at the lack of QA in electronics that I vent on whoever is in my way on the return process. I went off s
Re:Pardon me for stating the obvious... (Score:1)
They also cost the better part of a grand apiece.
So how much more are you willing to pay for quality?
This one is obvious... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This one is obvious... (Score:2)
Re:This one is obvious... (Score:3, Funny)
Beauty may be skin deep, but dumbass goes to the bone.
Consumer reports (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Consumer reports (Score:2)
Re:Failure Rate may be a Red Herring (Score:1)
Read
The
Fucking
Summary
And not only the title.
Re:Failure Rate may be a Red Herring (Score:1)
Actually I did read the entire article summary and still thought the entire time that it was talking about PC manufacturers going out of business. I guess I am too dense and I have never thought of "failure rates" of PCs in that sense. Oh well.
why not? (Score:1, Insightful)
how do you compare an [insert high quality mfgr] box located in a kintergarten library (dusty + children) to a no name box used by post docs in a climate controlled research lab?
all the major manufacture
Re:why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
They download anything, don't give a darn about security, and are knowledgeable and proud enough to do real damage.
Re:why not? (Score:1)
Time-span? (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I've found that Compaq/HP systems more often than not have problems right out of the box (or right after the system restore, as it were), while Dells have a pretty good run, until the end user mucks it up with malware. I haven't had too much experience with Gateway systems to get an idea about their outcome.
Re:Time-span? (Score:4, Informative)
HP/compaq Dell gateway, I see see about the same numbers of all of these, and the failures are usually accessories or minor components, drives, memory failure, cpu failure, bad cables, etc.
IBM outnumber each of the other big 3 by about 2 to 1
IBM problems tend to be more serious as well. I can't believe how many I've seen with bad motherboards.
I rarely see any from small companies who assemble PCs with off the shelf components.
In 7 years no one has brought in a server for repair
Re:Time-span? (Score:1)
I think I know why nobody has brought in a server. They are either tech-saavy enough to know how to fix their problem, or know someone that is, either in the IT dept. of their workplace, or through other channels.
the failures are usually accessories or minor components, drives, memory failure, cpu failure, bad cables, etc.
I wish I could see something along this line. Just about all the systems that ha
Re:Time-span? (Score:2)
Re:Time-span? (Score:1)
Re:Time-span? (Score:1)
as for reformats, I do see many of those, but the the discussion was about failure rates not spyware and virus infections
Re:Time-span? (Score:2)
My experience with Compaq/HP is exactly the opposite - 99.9% of the time they just work, and continue to almost forever.
Of course, that 0.1% of the cases where they don't work are the Presario crap, but the Deskpro and server-class machines are rock-solid.
There's a lot to be said about old PC reviews (Score:2, Insightful)
These days, with 'web magazines', a PC comparison has 5 PC's and a paragraph or two about each one.
Of course, magazines weren't perfect. The top rated PC's were often the most advertised. Manufacturers probably got smart
Re:There's a lot to be said about old PC reviews (Score:2)
Consumer reports says: (Score:5, Informative)
Based on more than 69,000 desktop (73,000 laptop) computers purchased new from 2000 to 2004. Data were standardized to eliminate differences linked to age and use. Differences of less than 4 points are not meaningful.
Repairs and serious problems:
Desktops:
Laptops:
these are disgusting numbers. (Score:2)
If I ever needed ammo to prove that building it yourself is better whenever possible, this is it. Although I'd like to see motherboard failure rates, also, and not just reported by the manufacturer, because hardly anyone reall
Re:these are disgusting numbers. (Score:2)
I self-built my current Althon64 home PC and at the weekend one of the tabs the CPU cooler attaches to snapped, cooler flew off with enough force to pull the CPU out of it's socket.
I'd say that's a pretty "serious problem", and it's not like it was a cheap generic board either - it's an MSI K8N with the stock AMD retail cooler. Been in place just over a year (2 days past warranty!), system not moved or disturbed in that time.
I'm wondering how affected those numbers were by large batches of faulty compo
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
It is, however, nice to see Apple on the top of both surveys. Even th
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
All covered by warranty of course, and Toshiba insisted that this was completely normal. They must have lost thousands on that sale.
Probably a very atypical experience, but I'm not trying a Toshiba any time soon. I went IBM Thinkpad from that point.
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
So I went to the retailer and personally spoke with their Toshiba rep, who said that in his many years as such he had never heard of Toshiba replacing a computer.
Problem was I bought it through my business, and B2B means that your "consumer rights" are basically none...
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
Either that, or ask them for the phone number for the nearest IBM marketing rep. That would have probably lit a fire. I'm sure that IBM or Compaq would have been happy to take the laptop and details for a replacement....
(I can be a vicious bastard when pushed).
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
Apple, no major surprise there.. I heard about their power packs on the whitebox IMacs being a fire hazard. Their current problem is video processor failures and LCD issues.
Dell, well, what I can I say? They buy Intel boards and their chips.. Majorit
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:1)
meaning a bad keyboard or mouse counts the same as bad cpu or mainboard
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
Consumers aren't going to be able to distinguish hardware problems from software ones.
I'd be more interested in seeing warranty claim data from business customers. I think that actual hardware failures within a 4-year cycle for IBM/HP/Dell "business" PCs would be somewhere in the 3-5% range.
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:1)
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
There are other differences too... comsumer PCs will include Windows XP Home and can't join a domain. You also usually get a shorter warranty and different software load.
The business PCs focus on stability for drivers and common, high quality parts. IBM guarantees driver compatability for all PCs m
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
Hm, squares with numbers I've seen (Score:2)
Toshiba is too high. I've been lucky and seen 0% there.
I wonder why NCR didn't make the list? We were seeing over 80% failure there.
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:1)
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:1)
IBM: Inferior But Marketable?
IBM: I Broke Mine
IBM: Infernal Business Machine
IBM: Intentionally Brain-damaged Machinery
IBM: It's Being Mended
IBM: Inmense Ball of Muck
IBM: I Believe in Memorex
IBM: It's Better than Macintosh!
IBM: Idiots Built Me
IBM: Intense Bowel Movement
IBM: I've Been Mislead
IBM: It's Better Manually
IBM: Infinitly Better Macintosh
IBM: Indefinitly Boggled Machine
IBM: I Bought a Mac
IBM: I Bought Macintosh
IBM: I'll Buy Macintosh
IBM: I've Been Moved
IBM: I've Been Mugged
IBM:
Re:Consumer reports says: (Score:2)
Ask Gartner (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, if you're just a podunk little outfit that they think will redistribute this stuff at a drop of a hat, they may refuse to sell it to you. But it can't hurt to ask.
Well, they're cheap, but.... (Score:3, Insightful)
PCWorld.com (Score:2)
No link here, as it's been a few years since I have subscribed to the (dead tree version of the) magazine. Google is your friend, though.
Re:PCWorld.com (Score:2)
Case in point: a few years back, Dell had ads all over their magazine, and won almost every review. I remember one particular comparison between a Dell and another brand - the second brand won the competition in just about every respect...but somehow the Dell got to be the PC World winner. Another example, when they do their annual "survey" of support quality, Dell was always a step above everyone else, and even when the support quali
when i worked at... (Score:2, Informative)
emphasis on average
sometimes we had items with 10% failure, but usually most things were like 1 or 2%
not that it seemed like that when working helldesk
Consumer Reports (Score:1)
Google for "success rates"... (Score:3, Insightful)
(back when I worked in the repair depot, I remember Packard Bells were approaching a 50% failure rate. Then they merged with NEC - still not sure who got the worst of that deal, given the crap PCs NEC used to ship...)
Re:Google for "success rates"... (Score:3, Interesting)
Our store sold about 3,000 of them (they were stacked in a big pyramid in the middle of the store and sold out), and ended up getting over 1,200 back due to defects of some sort.
We actually rented a warehouse to handle the repair of them, and while trying to cannibalize parts (as getting warranty parts took about 3 months) we noticed that each machine had different parts. Some had top of the line me
White Box (Score:2, Insightful)
For the general desk top including small office servers, find a local white box builder who can churn out systems. Specify motherboard and CPU. No the shop won't have 7x
Re:White Box (Score:3, Informative)
Bigger customers will have a dedicated rep, and will be able to just order replacement parts.
White box builders are a fucked business model... most can't afford to service customers with 50+ workstations.
Re:White Box (Score:3, Interesting)
At my last job we had 2 white box shops down the road. We picked
Re:White Box (Score:1)
IBM servers hehe has this funny policy in that they only promise tech on site within four hours, the part? well the part can take a few days. Oh so fun.
HPaq, bah they try,
In the end the solution is to have hot spares. One per few hund
Tandem FT (Score:3, Interesting)
We used to publish them (Score:1)
Huh? (Score:2)