I hate PCs -_-;;

Post by **Icarus** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 1:31 am

On Friday I suffered the worst hardware failure I've ever had in a decade. The PSU decided to pack in.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "How is that bad?". Well, from experience, whenever something in a computer decides to pack in, it usually doesn't go quietly, and takes something else with it. In my case, the PSU died, and decided to take the motherboard and my Athlon XP CPU with it >_<#

So I've just recently undergone a forced upgrade at a time when I really shouldn't be spending more money. Having purchased a new mobo, an Athon64 for it, and a new graphics card (as the new motherboard does not support AGP8x, only PCI-E 16x, rendering my previous card obsolete) I have just recently finished sorting out the hardware problems, only to run into software problems.

Yup, when the PSU died it managed to corrupt part of my primary drive as well (I was uploading my Garegga ST replays to ikaruga.co.uk at the time) and I've had to take the roundabout way of installing an old backup 20GB drive with WinXP SP1, just so I can spend the rest of the week backing up everything off my 320GB combined drives -_-;;

So why am I ranting? I'm a little pissed with the constant change in PC technology that renders components that once worked obsolete when something goes wrong. It's incredibly irritating when you fork out assloads for stuff to make your PC work better, only to find that the "standard" for the technology has changed (CPUs and graphics cards are culprits in this regard). I don't even play the latest 3D-heavy PC games, and have no interest in any of them, so why do I have to force-upgrade whenever my comp decides to kick the bucket? Gah.

I guess I'm really irked about the costs. I have just spent the equivalent of a brand new Mac Mini, on PC parts that have no guarantee of lasting a year or so due to their excessive power consumption. And having to reinstall Windows XP through the revisions just to get my PC stable again, so I can back up all my stuff, AND THEN format every drive of data to sort out my hardware configuration properly is leaving a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

I kind of wish I had invested in a Mac from the start all those years ago, and not a PC -_-;;

I'll be gone for a while, while I attempt to get this whole mess sorted. (Typing this from a somewhat stable barebones XP install.) PMs and e-mails will be replied to, of course, as I can check stuff at Uni.

Anyone else got any hardware horror stories to share? ^_^

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 1:47 am

Sorry to hear about that.

Dell's have good warantees.

I build my own computers and just risk the hardware failures (and have been bitten quite a few times). But I did buy a Dell laptop and was happy with the 4 years of at home service (which I used 3 times).

I had a PSU go years ago and it took with it my hard drive, and about 2-3 years of unbacked up code

Post by **Shatterhand** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:00 am

I find stupid how companies give no support and just drop completely old hardware.

I know here in Brazil, many people do not own a computer, because they dont have the money to buy one, or couldn't be arsed to spend so much money in something they don't need all that much.

I may be wrong, but I believe old technology should be a lot more cheap to produce.

I was using a Pentium MMX 233 Mhz with 96mb of ram up until last February, and I could do most anything I wanted with it (Ok, I couldn't run Halo, but I could run Half-Life, Quake 3, and lots of cool PC shmups

).

So I wonder... if people could produce low-end PCs, I bet they could sell it at 3rd world countries (In South America and In Africa for example), still get their money back, and support older hardware.

Davey · Post by **Davey** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:22 am

This is why I don't build PCs. I'd much rather have a company to bitch at in the unlikely event that things blow up. Plus, whenever I toy with the idea of getting a new PC, building one usually doesn't save over an equivalent Dell if they have a good deal going on at the time (sucks that it rules out AMD, though).

Shatterhand wrote:I may be wrong, but I believe old technology should be a lot more cheap to produce.

Behold, $100 Linux laptop. Should I make a pun about the correllation between computer usage and cranking? No, I'll refrain.

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 3:59 am

My Antec power supply died just the night before the London bomb blasts, but fortunately, it only killed itself and nothing else. I have a 3 year warranty on it though. IIRC, Antec has a fail safe mechanism that should keep the components safe, even if the PSU buys it.

When my older system died, the power supply fried the board and the DVD drive, but not itself. Odd, huh?

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 4:08 am

Shatterhand wrote: I may be wrong, but I believe old technology should be a lot more cheap to produce.

I'd say it's probably be more expensive to produce low end chips. Not on the production side, but with the return on investment. The amount of money they make producing high end chips/MBs wayyyy outweighs the amount they'd make producing and selling cheaper and slower chips.

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:01 am

There are still Athlon64 boards available with AGP support (I happen to be partial to the Abit AV8 board myself, which is what's in this system. Depending on how old your old card is, it might not be a bad idea to upgrade though.

As for building over buying a PC, as far as I'm conderned there is no contest. I will never buy an OEM desktop system as long as I live (I do own a Dell notebook and a couple of their PocketPCs, but that's a different story.) You may have to pay a bit more that way, and you're pretty much on your own for support, but as long as you know what you're doing a self-built computer is every bit as reliable as anything you're going to find prebuilt, plus you know what you've got, and you'll quite often have much better quality components. Another hidden cost of OEM systems is that if it fails out of warranty, you might find yourself having to replace the whole thing in order to get a working computer again. As cost saving measures, a lot of the big OEMs tend to use a lot of non-standard parts. Not only can these parts often only be replaced only throught the OEM (usually at inflated cost) but they also limit upgradeability.

That said, if you're going the OEM route, I've had good luck with Dell stuff in the past. At work, I have a bench of 32 machines I do my testing on. The majority of these machines are HP DC7100s, and a couple of them have had some random and annoying failures. The Dells, although older, have been largely trouble free.

Post by **system11** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:04 am

2 years ago I built a monster of a machine. Twin CPUs (fast ones), twin U320 scsi drives, enough cooling to keep it nice and cold, a seriously expensive brand name PSU, etc etc.

2x drive failure
1x cpu failure
6x cpu fan failure

Pointless. PC tech is shit. Even when it's up to date, it breaks. Next time I'll buy a midrange Shuttle system and run it out of the box, for much, much less money.

Ramus · Post by **Ramus** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:26 pm

My PC died and I lost over half of my final paper just 1 day before it was due. This was a paper for a class that was very important for my major and could not afford anything less than an "A". I've used Mac ever since without any complaints or problems. Sorry to hear about your crappy PC experience.

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:58 pm

i hate PCs too, no fancy reasons like yours only i worked as a technician @ ericsson for a few years sitting in front of computers all day long running tests.. you get kinda sick of it after a while

.. luckily for me computer geeks are 25 a dozen these days so when something breaks i can just pay someone else a penny to fix it

Bingo · Post by **Bingo** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:49 pm

The shitty thing about PC problems is there's always a chain reaction. And it doesn't stop with the PSU deciding it needs company in the beyond. Your case is not even bad, it's the norm. First hardware won't fucking die alone, then you can't replace only the broken parts. So you buy more parts which in turn require more upgrades to stay compatible. And once you're done with the hardware side the software that's been working flawlessly for years starts giving you error messages you've never even heard of. Now your hardware is the latest and greatest but your internet doesn't work. Once you get that fixed you realize the onboard sound on your new mobo doesn't like your new CPU and remains silent. You get a cheap soundcard only to find out that it doesn't like the chipset and you have to get everything firmware flashed from a floppy drive you never knew was broken. Once everything is up and running your harddrives aren't properly detected and the friendly OS helps you initialize your whole data storage before you can say "What the fuck?". With a triumphant laugh you backup the most vital data from your third backup, an iPod mini. You pause for a second because the iPod mini was recognized without issues.

A couple hundred bucks and countless fucking hours later the new beast that only had one broken part is now running. You rejoice, start up MAME only to discover that it doesn't like your new toy. You spend a few days reinstaling everything three times and trying 10 different drivers, but only succeed at finding ways to make your computer not recognize JPG files and have choppy AVI playback. The fourth driver install also silences your new cheap soundcard. You say "Fuck!", do a clean install and learn to do without MAME and JPGs. You also vow to not ever touch the vitals of that computer again...

...until about 3 months later when the new iTunes requires a soundcard driver update, which messes with your network connection and scares your cat half to death because a new sound profile with an earthshaking startup jingle has been activated for your listening pleasure. You shortly debate kicking the shit of the 'puter, taking a picture and putting it online. But then you remember your connection is hosed, and if it weren't, your JPG support is broken anyway. Besides, you're scared of the jingle when you turn it on. And you have no real desire to turn it on, because it can't even run MAME.

Damn machines, they make us their slaves, I swear!

*edit: 90% of the above is actually my last trip to the PC junkyard, the rest is some artistic license for added effect and flavour.

Samudra · Post by **Samudra** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:55 pm

What kind of PSU were you using? There are very cheap kinds around.
Don't save costs on these kind of parts.

I had a cheap one (died within years and did so alone) and an expensive one once together and you would not believe the difference in weight between the two things!
My 486 DX 33 is about 10 years old now and still uses the same high quality German PSU.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:10 am

landshark wrote:Sorry to hear about that.

Dell's have good warantees.

I build my own computers and just risk the hardware failures (and have been bitten quite a few times). But I did buy a Dell laptop and was happy with the 4 years of at home service (which I used 3 times).

I had a PSU go years ago and it took with it my hard drive, and about 2-3 years of unbacked up code

They may have good warantees, but their customer service is the worst I have ever encountered.

Fighter17 · Post by **Fighter17** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:29 am

I used to have a Compaq computer from 1996 with Windows 95 OS. It lasted me seven years until I throw it out in the trash. My father has a cheap Gateway computer from 2001, and the only problem ever was the hard drive. It got fried last year and my father replaced the hard drive for around $100. I now have a new Compaq laptop (R4000 series) with a AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0 Ghz), and so far no problems. I got a lot of hardware for a good price (around $800). Not to long ago I purchase a cooling fan for my laptop because I don't want the motherboard to be fired less than a year..

Post by **Shatterhand** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:44 am

"Computers were invented to solve the problems that didn't exist before computers existed"

Davey · Post by **Davey** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:22 am

Shatterhand wrote:"Computers were invented to solve the problems that didn't exist before computers existed"

Nonsense. Philosophers have long wondered if 2^(213,466,917)-1 is prime.

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:48 am

dave4shmups wrote: They may have good warantees, but their customer service is the worst I have ever encountered.

Interesting. They actually had some of the best I've encountered in the computer world. Maybe it was because of the support package I had.

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:36 am

PC's are problematic because they are not used as business machines anymore.

The same PC needs play games, MP3's, movies and business related applications. Most of them have umpteen different products that all do roughly the same thing, but are completely incompatible.

PC's are responsible for degrading people online, porn, illegal soliciting of copyright software/music. Having a PC is the easiest way to get a virus, a pop up or spam. To top it off, you have to pay even more money for more applications to block this type of material.

Which is why I only own a console (I am at work). I like playing on even terms/conditions and I know the shit works, how it works and I know I can't fix it if it goes wrong. If I thought I could fix it, I would probably do more damage. So its a safety net for me

Post by **system11** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 10:16 am

neorichieb1971 wrote:PC's are problematic because they are not used as business machines anymore.

The same PC needs play games, MP3's, movies and business related applications. Most of them have umpteen different products that all do roughly the same thing, but are completely incompatible.

You've kind of hit the problem there. PCs are problematic because there's no such thing as a standard PC. I think even Microsoft could get it right with Windows if they only had to support one or two of every type of hardware. Of course that doesn't explain why Linux is more reliable, but hey - it's definitely a real consideration.

This non-standardness prevails through the x86 world. Example - Dell sell (or used to) servers called the 1650. We have quite a few of them, I've seen at least three different hardware layouts, sold as being exactly the same machine.

neorichieb1971 wrote: PC's are responsible for degrading people online, porn, illegal soliciting of copyright software/music. Having a PC is the easiest way to get a virus, a pop up or spam. To top it off, you have to pay even more money for more applications to block this type of material.

Now you're crazy. Users are responsible for downloading porn, music, games etc. The PC isn't degrading them (hell, I don't even consider porn degrading depending on type), they're just using it as a tool to get what they already wanted. The virus problem is down to Microsoft making shitty software, other PC operating systems aren't touched by the hand of virii unless you actively -try- to get one. Spam is down to unscrupulous people making a quick buck off dumb marketers - I've had postal spam for years. You only have to pay to avoid this if you're trapped in the Microsoft world.

neorichieb1971 wrote: Which is why I only own a console (I am at work). I like playing on even terms/conditions

This is exactly why I only play games online with Xbox Live, and don't play PC games at all.

FatCobra · Post by **FatCobra** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:17 pm

The problem with PC's is that $300 videocard you bought 5 years ago is now considered a $30 piece of crap.

PC's are somewhat organic because there's no set standard and a home-made computer will probably go thru several hardware pieces.

Besides, when that old part does go, that's your computer saying that it needs an upgrade.

Samudra · Post by **Samudra** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:54 pm

bloodflowers wrote:The virus problem is down to Microsoft making shitty software, other PC operating systems aren't touched by the hand of virii unless you actively -try- to get one.

True, Microsoft isn't exactly producing quality software and is helping the problem in this way; but do you really think there would be no mass of viruses on other operations systems if these would be as widely used?

Linux may be more secure in terms it is harder to get root, but (local) exploits are always possible. Same goes for the Mac.

As for standards, look at the Amiga. People are still making demos for it and winning in the Assembly, competing against pc, even as late as 2001.

neorichieb1971 wrote:PC's are responsible for degrading people online, porn, illegal soliciting of copyright software/music. Having a PC is the easiest way to get a virus, a pop up or spam. To top it off, you have to pay even more money for more applications to block this type of material.

Technology is only a tool. Its use shows us nothing more than the ugliness of the collective human psyche.

Remember that video camera with an infrared option Sony released some years ago? Guess what it was used for when it became apparent the infrared made it possible to look through clothes with it?

There is lots of freeware out there btw. No need to pay for real quality (i.e. assembly) software.

Davey · Post by **Davey** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 10:40 pm

bloodflowers wrote:I think even Microsoft could get it right with Windows if they only had to support one or two of every type of hardware.

Quite possibly. I remember reading that something like 70% of all stability problems in Windows are caused by driver issues. This is according to Microsoft, who gathered this from all those annoying "Report this problem to Microsoft" prompts.

snap monkey · Post by **snap monkey** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 12:08 am

Ramus wrote:My PC died and I lost over half of my final paper just 1 day before it was due. This was a paper for a class that was very important for my major and could not afford anything less than an "A". I've used Mac ever since without any complaints or problems. Sorry to hear about your crappy PC experience.

So did you get an extension?

The n00b · Post by **The n00b** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 1:17 am

bloodflowers wrote:[ Of course that doesn't explain why Linux is more reliable, but hey - it's definitely a real consideration.

The virus problem is down to Microsoft making shitty software, other PC operating systems aren't touched by the hand of virii unless you actively -try- to get one.

hahahahahehehehohoho....HAHAHAHAH. Who the hell made this post? I mean seriously, I'm tempted to say someone hijacked Bloodflowers' account because that is how misinformed this post is.

1. Linux more reliable? Which distro? Which hardware are you using? How long are you keeping it up for? Really this is like me saying "Computers are fast!" Anyway Windows xp x64 is pretty damn stable but everything is relative.

2. No the virus problem is almost entirely down to virus writers writing virii for only the most popular OS'. No half sane virus writer is going to sit down and make a hugely complicated virus for an OS that only you and your cousin use. It makes no fuckin sense. At the same time, I'm sure the most popular distros of linux have virus problems too but not to the extent of windows. Why? Because it's just not worth it.

Davey · Post by **Davey** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 2:41 am

The n00b wrote:No half sane virus writer is going to sit down and make a hugely complicated virus for an OS that only you and your cousin use.

You see, there's these things called "servers," and a lot of them run OSes other than Windows. Companies use them all the time, even ones that aren't owned by me and/or my cousin. In fact, they rely on them being up and running, like, all the time. But, you're right, why would anybody target some podunk OS? It's not like anybody's using them, so why bother?

The n00b · Post by **The n00b** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:01 am

Davey wrote:
The n00b wrote:No half sane virus writer is going to sit down and make a hugely complicated virus for an OS that only you and your cousin use.
You see, there's these things called "servers," and a lot of them run OSes other than Windows. Companies use them all the time, even ones that aren't owned by me and/or my cousin. In fact, they rely on them being up and running, like, all the time. But, you're right, why would anybody target some podunk OS? It's not like anybody's using them, so why bother?

You see there's this thing called "popularity." It happens when a significant portion of a given population prefers something over another. The favored object is called "popular." When something is overwhelmingly "popular" it is favored by an extreme majority of the given population over all other alternatives. I'm sure the alternatives have a significant fanbase but again they cannot compete "popularity" wise with the object of the public's extreme devotion.

Now there's no way windows can be that popular compared to your average linux distro...

*cough* http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/compu ... ckers.idg/

Come on windows can't be that popular, linux has be gaining!
http://searchwin2000.techtarget.com/ori ... 69,00.html

Google help me!
http://news.com.com/The+slow+road+to+Wi ... 46046.html

Oh wait here's a good link for you since I don't think google will help you too much... http://slashdot.org

Now I'm pretty sure you were only being facetious but on the outside chance you were serious(or really dim) here's a repeat for you. I'm sure various linux distros are popular but virus writers tend to target the most popular OS so they can get the most so called "bang for their buck." I don't know why because virus writing is a pretty damn stupid way to spend your time but that's what they do.

There ARE virii for linux. Just not as many.

Davey · Post by **Davey** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:26 am

Yes, I know Linux doesn't amount to shit on the desktop. I primarily use Windows XP myself. However, it is far from insignificant in the server market. I get annoyed by the "nobody writes viruses for it because nobody uses it" argument, because that's just not true.

It's pure speculation as to whether the lack of Mac and *nix viruses is truly due to their obscurity, or if they're inherently more secure. And unless their market share changes, you can't prove that argument either way.

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:54 am

Linux is gaining huge grounds in the embedded market as well.