BIOS POST - 3 long beeps?

[jaclaz]

Jaclaz, it's called MTBF

Sure , being a bit technically knowledgeable, and an engineer by education and trade, I do know what a MTBF is.

But what I wished to see (and keep hidden to my PC's ) is data about actual MTBF declared by manufacturers AND the way they calculated this AND an actual database of past events to be able to analyze it's data statistically and find out what the actual Life of the object would be/have been, which is a totally different thing from MTBF.

Since you like Wikipedia articles, in computer matters, very often Service Life:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_life

is shorter than expected MTBF but actual Life can greatly outnumber BOTH.

Besides, there is also the Planned Obsolence problem:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

At least theoretically a computer should be a Durable good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good

but MTBF does not make much sense or it is impossible to be calculated reliably on a complex system like the PC is.

It can - at most - be applied to parts of it:

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/pc_hardware_fa...t_34_years.html

like an hard drive, but you don't really espect MTBF to be reliable and applicable to the particularly small sample (two units) the OP has:

http://www.tech-faq.com/mtbf.shtml

Here is a more accurate definition of MTBF:

http://www.relex.com/resources/prediction.asp

What is MTBF? There are many forms of the MTBF definition. In general, MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) is the mean value of the lengths of time between consecutive failures, under stated conditions, for a stated period in the life of a functional unit. A more simplified MTBF definition for Reliability Predictions can be stated as the average time (usually expressed in hours) that a component works without failure.

"Computer-life" is nearer to Reliability than to MTBF, this might be of interest:

http://www.vicorpower.com/documents/quality/Rel_MTBF.pdf

But still it is a probability, and from an engineering or mathematical point of view, "3 to 4" years is a non-number, it's a "vague range", and applying it generically to ANY PC, regardless of:

• how many hours per day
  
• how many days per week
  
• how many weeks per year
  

it is on, regardless of:

• make/model/technology used
  
• type of applications running on it
  
• whether it is always on or swithed ON/OFF often
  
• quality of AC power ("straight", filtered, UPS)
  
• quality of environment (conditioned room/outdoor shed/cellar/your bedroom)
  
• maintenance performed (dust cleaning/checking fans/checking thermal paste where applicable)
  

and of course:

• luck
  

is simply inaccurate.

In other words the "3 to 4" years does NOT represent "computer-life", it is simply puntoMX's report on his personal experience, or that of his friends, or that of the places where he worked, of course it is worth consideration , but not in the least represents a one-size-fits-all value, at the most it could be called "rule of thumb" or "common sense" .

jaclaz

[cluberti]

Also being an engineer and 20 years in the business, I know how it works as well. And yes, you can get more than 5 years out of most good equipment, but we've all had hardware (sometimes even from "good" companies) that flakes out within 12 months.

[Ponch]

Hmm, both boards are DFI, both have issues...

The currently used mobo boots into Win2K and Win98 fine, but boots only one of about 10 times into WinXP, the other times it freezes on the logo screen. Once it boots, it seems to work fine.

(My mother uses Win98, thus avoiding the WinXP issue.)

There is also a problem with the ATA HDDs DMA (random, seems to work for long periods fine) and also problem with built-in LAN (so using PCI LAN card).

I guess you mean Windows XP logo, (not DFI logo), in which case, the problem (on that one) migt be software or HDD hardware related.

Are all OSs on the same physical disk ?

I'm now entering the pedantic discussion about MTBF. In my experience, there are parts that are bad and fail quickly and parts that are good and go far longer than 8 years, so that "no warranty that they will wotk well" is to be taken both ways, there is no more warranty (except "commercial") that a computer will work well in it's first years either.

Take 100 lamps, wait for the 50th to blow, it says nothing at all about how long the remaining lamps will stay on.

[jaclaz]

In my experience, there are parts that are bad and fail quickly and parts that are good and go far longer than 8 years, so that "no warranty that they will wotk well" is to be taken both ways, there is no more warranty (except "commercial") that a computer will work well in it's first years either.

Yep , often first year covers part of the "downhill" section of the typical bath tub curve.

jaclaz

[puntoMX]

In other words the "3 to 4" years does NOT represent "computer-life", it is simply puntoMX's report on his personal experience, or that of his friends, or that of the places where he worked, of course it is worth consideration , but not in the least represents a one-size-fits-all value, at the most it could be called "rule of thumb" or "common sense" .

Okay, so what do you really want?; A complete under build report of each component used on every computer part? That I can´t give you that but when I say 3 to 4 years than I´m talking about "general" life of a computer under "normal" use, without the screen and input devices. In accountancy the value is set to 0 (zero) in 3 years so, not only to be "obsolete" but also because of the MTBF AND CTO.

The numbers 3 to 4 years are taken from my own experience, as this is my profession for more than 12 years now, and my hobby for 15 years before that.

Remember that there are chemicals used that EVEN degrade when using or not using the equipment, and yes, some fail even out of there package... And there are more points...

[cluberti]

OK, original questions answered. Closing thread before all the feathers get ruffled off.

[Closed].