PC or Mac?

[ChristianRock]

I've got a Seagate 36Gb Cheetah HD that I installed in 2000 and it's still going strong

 

The machine just died a couple weeks ago though, I'm pretty sure it's the power supply, as it's on permanent "off" and doesn't even hint at wanting to turn on.

[Dr.Innovation]

When I spent my hard earned money , I demand it to last.At least 10 years. If it does not, then It has lost me as a customer. It wont save it if its a pc, a cute mac, an ultra fat analogue or a mega complex VA. The end.

You can demand anything you like, however your warranty
and warranty of the components used say otherwise

Parts fail.
A competent DAW builder would stress/bench test
the components to ensure maximum care is taken
for the best possible experience. -which can still result
in failed components.

[Metrosonus]

I'll give you the less than three years = bad quality thing. But you can't get around the fact that heat significantly reduces the life span of electronics.

 

I used to hate working on PCs that were filled with what I used to call trailer funk; cigarette smoke and tar, cat / dog hair and air freshener. I've seen it so bad you could literally scrape the tar off.

 

 

Most pre-built PCs have rather questionable quality IMHO

 

 

Thats funny because my whole reason to stick with prebuilts was based on two things. Cost and the fact that every PC I made died within 4-5 years. We have Dells here at my college that are left on 24/7 and taken all the abuse students give them and they've outlived my PCs and are still running.

 

I think it all just goes to show that YMMV and do what ever works for you.

[kilon]

I'll give you the less than three years = bad quality thing. But you can't get around the fact that heat significantly reduces the life span of electronics. I used to hate working on PCs that were filled with what I used to call trailer funk; cigarette smoke and tar, cat / dog hair and air freshener. I've seen it so bad you could literally scrape the tar off. Thats funny because my whole reason to stick with prebuilts was based on two things. Cost and the fact that every PC I made died within 4-5 years. We have Dells here at my college that are left on 24/7 and taken all the abuse students give them and they've outlived my PCs and are still running. I think it all just goes to show that YMMV and do what ever works for you.

 

 

I had an Amstrad CPC 6128 which I bought back in 1988 (I was 9 years old), when the computer died and it died because of my mistake , I opened it up to see how it looked inside and not only I found tons of dust but even two spiders in a rather embarassing position, they had made the internals obviously their home because the inside was full of webs. Dust and webs did not make the computer fail at all, rather my stupidity to use a power adaptor that was unfit for the machine, I was 14 at the time, and still new with computers.

 

Heat is an issue always, but I specifically talked about 3 years max usage.

 

Concerning dust , its not the reason to make a computer fail inside that 3 year time frame. Afterall all of my most (besides those two at work) pcs have failed inside 1 year, I had 1 burned motherboard (in 6 months ), 1 burned processor (in 6 months), 1 broken plug nail (in 1 year) for the power suply of the laptop (moreover for that tiny piece of metal the company was asking me to change the whole internals of the laptop and of course pay 90 % of the purchase price ,a around 1300 euros. INSANE!!!!! That company was HP. I manage to find my onw "nail" and hire a relative to yeld it together and payed him the nail and the servish 50 euros. And they think Apple is over priced ??? ), another laptop did not handle heat well at all it was overheating and its plastic shell cracked in 2 years and melted the internals . And I had other fails too , which is hard to remember now.

 

So as you can see, dust was not my real problem.

 

All of them had premium components , top companies and of course there were far more expensive than my iMAC 20'' Core 2 Duo . I am just wondering how long the imac will last without a single fail. For now it holds the record 3 years and 2 months (I dont count my old 486 DX 60 mhz computer which I have bought ages ago ).

 

Will see.

[carbon111]

Thats funny because my whole reason to stick with prebuilts was based on two things. Cost and the fact that every PC I made died within 4-5 years. We have Dells here at my college that are left on 24/7 and taken all the abuse students give them and they've outlived my PCs and are still running. I think it all just goes to show that YMMV and do what ever works for you.

Exactly.

My quote was speaking as an IT dept (yes, I'm the whole dept ) currently running 50+ PCs of various provenances over seven years at my current job (and many more for about a decade or so at my previous job). I can only speak to what my experience has shown.

Computer technology superceeds itself about every four months, making the marketed lifespan of any model of commercial PC usually less than six months, so I don't believe anything is built to last more than three years these days.

The innumerable commercial PCs I've opened up and serviced have all had mediocre components...possibly that's why they were being serviced, skewing my view somewhat.

Regardless, every PC I've hand-built with selected parts over the last decade is still going strong in some capacity (...except for one that suffered an industrial accident). That's more than thirty five PCs.

The oldest one I built that's at my current location is a 500Mhz dual-processor Pentium II machine built on a Tyan mobo - it serves as a DNC controller for four CNC machining centers against the back wall of one the shop floors:

[Metrosonus]

so I don't believe anything is built to last more than three years these days

 

that was sort of my point and I want to know what parts you were using as I wasn't having similar results. 9 times out of 10 I'd lose a controller or something mysterious would go on to where I could not source the problem unless I replaced the motherboard. Granted you can only do that so many times while still using the same RAM, CPU etc and then you have to upgrade the whole lot of em. That's where I gave up..

 

I didn't cheap out either, but I did read several articles that were postulating the same thing about hardware being designed to fail after so many years which may have possibly skewed my view point. And were talking about my dedicated media servers that were powered on twice a week for 2-3 hours.

 

Regardless, every PC I've hand-built with selected parts over the last decade is still going strong in some capacity (...except for one that suffered an industrial accident). That's more than thirty five PCs.

 

we get it. you're better than us

[carbon111]

that was sort of my point and I want to know what parts you were using as I wasn't having similar results.

I was saying commercial PCs aren't designed to last...and I think it's mainly due to the cost-saving they gain by employing mediocre components.

Build it yourself and the sky's your oyster!

...maybe you just had bad luck...or it's too moist and hot where you dwell.

we get it. you're better than us:D

[Metrosonus]

And I was saying off the shelf components aren't made to last

 

So where do we go in this mexican american italian stand off?

 

The only problem I will admit to is that I listened to the dell salesman and bought the upgraded ATI card for my laptop. I should have stuck with the factory Intel one. However at the time ATI was sort of a standard and now they just suck. It runs fine in compatibility mode, but still..

 

*edit.. I see what you did there

 

I do think thats been my problem. I've stuck with tiger direct for $ and service, but if their warehouse miami is anything like my dads here in tampa, they send back as much in RMA as they sell through sales. It's 100 degrees and is staffed by inebriated non English speaking people.

[carbon111]

Well, it's pretty moist up here too...never really hot though.
You live about as far from me as you can and still be in the US.

EDIT:
Y'know, just thinking about the kind of problems you've mentioned, you may want to think about something like this for your Northbridge next time you build a PC:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103155

I had a dead spot ventillation-wise near the Northbridge in one of my cases (that otherwise was exceptionally cool). My Northbridge was hitting crazy temps, even with the room ambience at 65F - a fan like the one above solved the issue.

[Plink Floyd]

(James) we get it. you're better than us

Yeah, I'm glad I never disagreed with him.

 

(yes, I'm the whole dept ) currently running 50+ PCs

That's a lot. Depending on mgmt, that could be anywhere from a pretty good gig to the third circle of hell.

[carbon111]

That's a lot. Depending on mgmt, that could be anywhere from a pretty good gig to the third circle of hell.

A little of both.

I'm also the Quality Control dept...and quite often anything else that needs doing. I've repaired and rebuilt many of our CNC machining centers (if it's too hairy a job, then I call a pro).

...and for some reason I end up doing a bit of HR because everyone is scared to talk to the boss.

[Plink Floyd]

I've stuck with tiger direct for $ and service

I used to buy lots of PC parts from them, but four or five years ago they sent me a rash of duff gear. At least six or eight mobos and other periphs were DOA. Now I just go to Fry's. They have full page adds in my daily paper at least five days a week, & on Friday it's an eight pager.

[ElectricPuppy]

oh man, do I hate going to Fry's. You can never find anyone to help you, and when you finally rope somebody, they don't know anything, and the cash register line is always an hour long, and all the products on the shelves seem to be open box with pieces missing.

 

I don't go there no mo'.

[soundwave106]

Maybe the vendor does make a difference. I've always used Newegg for computer stuff.

[Metrosonus]

oh man, do I hate going to Fry's. You can never find anyone to help you, and when you finally rope somebody, they don't know anything, and the cash register line is always an hour long, and all the products on the shelves seem to be open box with pieces missing. I don't go there no mo'.

This Fry's is some sort of west coast wal mart?



(I know what it is )

four or five years ago they sent me a rash of duff gear.

And that's the last time I bought anything from them as well. Funny that.

You live about as far from me as you can and still be in the US

I'm not sure how to take that

I had a dead spot ventillation-wise near the Northbridge in one of my cases (that otherwise was exceptionally cool). My Northbridge was hitting crazy temps, even with the room ambience at 65F - a fan like the one above solved the issue.

it may have been something like that. I had one of those crazy mod cases though with the side door fans, front, back and top. So it was either that or just bad hardware

[carbon111]

I'm not sure how to take that

It means you live in a sweltering jungle swamp populated by gentle bears, ultra-cool vice cops, perky dolphins, "burned" spies and airboats.

it may have been something like that. I had one of those crazy mod cases though with the side door fans, front, back and top. So it was either that or just bad hardware

Monitor those chipset temps as well as processor temps.

[Plink Floyd]

...Fry's rantery...

That's too bad, our local store doesn't have those open box/long line issues. But I never expect the clerks to offer useful advice. I just accept the fact that I have to do my own homework if I want to get the best price. Same with Big Box Hardware. I usually know more about what I want than the shelf stockers.

[Mediterranean]

Gigabyte...

[suitandtieguy]

for every one PC user there are three teenage girls sitting on a 28 inch mac that their parents bought them posting on myspace right now about how much their life sucks.

 

 

yes but other than those teenage girls writing buffy/twilight crossover slashfic the rest of us are actually getting work done.

[j_e_f_f_g]

If you're getting periodic failures with quality components in your lab, then you definitely need to be checking the operation of your power grid, and or the humidity of the lab. Sounds like you're either getting power surges and brown-outs that are wrecking havoc on the equipment, or the humidity is unacceptably high. Like many of the other guys in this thread, I've got PCs that are over 10 years old still running fine. (On the other hand, laptops aside from perhaps Lenovo/IBM, are notoriously failure prone. If you're going small form-factor, I strongly recommend a fanless system. Otherwise, forget it).

In fact, I've literally dropped my gig PC on hard cement floors a few times, and although the case is dented, it still runs fine. But then, it's a good gigabyte MB, and other quality components.

I do stay away from is Western Digital hard drives. Not had good luck with those.

[Metrosonus]

yes but other than those teenage girls writing buffy/twilight crossover slashfic the rest of us are actually getting work done.

Yea, but for every one of you, there's ten more that shope at ambercomribe and fitch. I'm about to add more chaos to the system as i'm about to join you anyhow

[Metrosonus]

It means you live in a sweltering jungle swamp populated by gentle bears, ultra-cool vice cops, perky dolphins, "burned" spies and airboats.

panthers, gentle panthers, not bears. and pythons. not monty.

[A_saVANT]

tri-booted hackintosh FTW.

Ubuntu/Snow Leopard/Windows 7

Not that I have this.

[carbon111]

panthers, gentle panthers, not bears. and pythons. not monty.

Oh, and Ron Howard called, says he wants his little brother back...

[Metrosonus]

that guys a freak, he can have em.

 

I think he's chained to the set of sea hunt somewhere. I heard they put him there after they discovered him posing as an animitronic on Disney's jungle cruise ride. of course he came down with a mean case of dementia after living off the the river water for a while. Although i've heard the stuff in the jungle cruise isn't that bad as compared to the water in it's a small world. apparently tom cruise tried some before appearing on oprah.