Which harware could last a lifetime?

[CoffeeFiend]

In the good ol' times there was a saying to the effect of "whenever you have a problem with a SCSI device, the cause can be among several ones, but it is ALWAYS the cable, and when it is not the cable it is the termination".

Same here. I've seen plenty of bad cables overall. SATA cables are pretty brittle too.

I've seen defective CPUs, including some that "cooked" due to a fan failure (I've even had one replaced under warranty for that myself!)

RAM - defective RAM with errors is hardly uncommon, especially in old PCs (memtest86+ isn't well known for no reason)

Motherboard - millions of them dead due to bad caps alone, or look at all the laptops with G86 GPUs on them which are dying from it, they are easily killed by a faulty cheapo PSU too (e.g. the 5VSB spikes on the old Bestec)

Monitor - old CRTs were easy to damage (just pick a unsupported res/timing) and even now, now CCFLs are dying instead, and I've even seen some that are burned in (first hand)

CD or DVD drive or burner - lasers weaken/die after a while, I've replaced a lot of those

Expansion cards - I've at least a couple dozen of bad video cards. As far as "other cards" (NICs, modems and so on) it's not quite as bad though.

Keyboard - again, I've seen at least a couple dozen where you really had to pound on some key for it to work (especially keys used a lot in some games). Older keyboards with mechanical switches lasted FAR longer.

Fans - duh... who hasn't heard a fan that's completely shot and makes quite a lot of noise? That's when the HSF isn't filled with dust/lint in the first place.

Mouse - it's rather common that the microswitches in them fail (bouncing as they do, where your computer sees a double click when you've only clicked; or where you really have to mash on the buttons for them to work)

Power Supplies - tons of them dead, especially those from the bad cap era, or those cheapos that some people buy that sometimes fry the whole PC

hard drives are one of the worst: thermal problems (IBM "deathstars"), bad firmware bricking them (seagates), or back then fujitsu who lost a similar class action lawsuit due to their drives failing

....

None of it is guaranteed to last forever, and anyone's who worked in this stuff for long enough has seen just about any kind of part that has failed. Funnily, the stuff that tends to last longer (e.g. speakers or PCI cards) are also the easiest to find replacements for.

[jaclaz]

Motherboard - millions of them dead due to bad caps alone, or look at all the laptops with G86 GPUs on them which are dying from it, they are easily killed by a faulty cheapo PSU too

.... and heaps of them saved by replacing the fuse on the keyboard DIN/PS2 connector....

I remember a period when there was a "repair shop" in the city that sold for sixpence "dead motherboards" (something like the equivalent of 2 or 3 US$).

On average I would say that 7 out of 10 had been replaced because the keyboard fuse was blown or the BIOS had been zapped by Chernobyl or a variant of it. (and this is enough to describe the technical level of the self proclaimed experts that ran the shop )

jaclaz

[IcemanND]

Power/data cables. The pieces I have had to replace the least over the last 30 years.

[Ponch]

Heatsinks never die. But then CPU and form factors are rapidly obsolete.

[puntoMX]

Motherboard - millions of them dead due to bad caps alone, or look at all the laptops with G86 GPUs on them which are dying from it, they are easily killed by a faulty cheapo PSU too

.... and heaps of them saved by replacing the fuse on the keyboard DIN/PS2 connector....

I remember a period when there was a "repair shop" in the city that sold for sixpence "dead motherboards" (something like the equivalent of 2 or 3 US$).

On average I would say that 7 out of 10 had been replaced because the keyboard fuse was blown or the BIOS had been zapped by Chernobyl or a variant of it. (and this is enough to describe the technical level of the self proclaimed experts that ran the shop )

jaclaz

Indeed. And not only Chernobyl or a variant, but also the user that flashed the BIOS wrong. Most of what I see of failing stuff is just USER ABUSE... Remember when S462 came in? People were scraping the PCBs with their cooler-clips and breaking the lines near the socket on them; ASUS got so many returns from us that they finally put a sticker under the socket clips. Even I p***ed my self from time to time to get that cooler on right with a screwdriver (or 2 ) without shooting out and taking out components (extra points!).

[Tripredacus]

I tried to use personal experience for my answer, but being in IT (both as support and production) I've seen just about everything go bad... except heatsinks... Alas some of these "bad things" are due to less technical people trying to do things that either "sound like it should work" or "can't do any type of math without a calculator.

CPU: Defective CPUs out of the box are quite rare. Defective people... not so much. Two times I recall:

- One time an assembler did a brain fart and didn't match up the "golden arrows" to install the CPU. Seen it both on ZIF and the newer Intel sockets. Doesn't matter if they are keyed.

- Sometimes outside forces can cause problems for your CPU. Such as the janitorial staff at a college that decide to close the ventilation doors to the server room and then turn off the internal fans. This would result in the only time I've seen an admin running about the building freaking out... and the only time I've seen a CPU melt.

Motherboard: Caps are big issues, but sometimes the error is in the design. The worst case was shipping 1000 PCs which got a 100% DOA rate on install. All were returned, all boards replaced and shipped back out. Then all got 100% DOA again! We then switch to another board manufacturer... no problems there! Except... sometimes people like to spill their coffee in the PC and send it back as "it just stopped working, don't know why" in the RMA notes.

ODDs: Lasers going out aren't as common. I've had much more problems with the drive mechanism that opens and closes the door. Lite-On is really bad in this regard.

Modems were really weak against electricity. Of course, moreso in products like WebTV. It seems any time there was a thunderstorm, you ran the chance of getting your modem fried, but that was probably due to the telephone system more than the modem. But strangely, you'd never hear about such a casualty rate for telephones.

[puntoMX]

Motherboard: Caps are big issues, but sometimes the error is in the design. The worst case was shipping 1000 PCs which got a 100% DOA rate on install. All were returned, all boards replaced and shipped back out. Then all got 100% DOA again! We then switch to another board manufacturer... no problems there! Except... sometimes people like to spill their coffee in the PC and send it back as "it just stopped working, don't know why" in the RMA notes.

WTF?!

[CoffeeFiend]

ODDs: Lasers going out aren't as common. I've had much more problems with the drive mechanism that opens and closes the door. Lite-On is really bad in this regard.

Then you must have got your DVD drives from the same manufacturer as your motherboards Or your clients think it's a cup holder perhaps? I've seen occasional lockups (paperclip fix) but none of them seized or such.

Seriously, even on this forum I've seen several posts like "why will my DVD burner only see CDs but not DVDs anymore?" or such. It's a VERY common problem with optical drives. As far as mechanisms that don't work I've only seen a handful myself.

[jaclaz]

I typically "fix" several CD/DVD readers/burners a year (just in the restricted circle of friends/acquaintenances) because of the load/eject mechanism has got stuck.

It is typical of machines where the CD/DVD drive is rarely used or not used at all for months.

Normally all is needed is disassemblng, cleaning from dust and applying a couple drops (no more) of lubricant.

In some cases I manually "smooth/round" a bit the "latch" (it depends on models).

I wouldn't rate this particular issue as "hardware defect", it is something that anyone with a minimal mechanical skills (and not necessarily any IT ones) can fix with no particular tools in, say, ten minutes.

But, yes I have seen many of thse combo CD/DVD's with one of the two lasers not working, usually with other kind of users (kids), most probably they simply "wear out" with intensive use.

@Tripredacus

I have seen *EVERYTHING* (and I mean EVERYTHING ) happening to electronic devices when thunderstorms passed by.

Again I would rate these as "force majeure" or "act of God", rather than hardware defect.

jaclaz

Edited October 10, 2011 by jaclaz

[Ponch]

As far as mechanisms that don't work I've only seen a handful myself.

I've seen plenty (same brand though, in Fujtsu-Siemens PCs) that 1 year later would not open when vertical.

[Tripredacus]

Motherboard: Caps are big issues, but sometimes the error is in the design. The worst case was shipping 1000 PCs which got a 100% DOA rate on install. All were returned, all boards replaced and shipped back out. Then all got 100% DOA again! We then switch to another board manufacturer... no problems there! Except... sometimes people like to spill their coffee in the PC and send it back as "it just stopped working, don't know why" in the RMA notes.

WTF?!

It was one of the MSI P4M800 boards, their first rev. I can't remember the p/n for it atm. After they came back those 1000 dead boards we RMA back to MSI. They had remanufactured them as they came back with the same serial numbers, but has a resistor soldered to the board. Those went out as the replacements and then they all failed again. On the second RMA, the client was getting pretty angry about it and we switched them to an Intel board. It was quite soon that MSI came out with a replacement board that didn't have that problem.

Although, its quite possible that you can still start your motherboard on fire by hooking the front-panel USB up backwards and plug a USB 1.1 (or higher) device into it. I'll save that story for tomorrow.

[allen2]

Although, its quite possible that you can still start your motherboard on fire by hooking the front-panel USB up backwards and plug a USB 1.1 (or higher) device into it. I'll save that story for tomorrow.

That remember a story of mine: it was with a P4 on an asus P4S8X-X with a good heatsink (don't remember the make but i bought it to replace the noisy intel one) and for a change the computer case was closed.

I was using the computer when i smell like some rubber burning, i though it was something in the kitchen and didn't bother to actually find exactly what it was but when i saw a white smoke coming out the case, i understood: the heatsink fan was stuck and it began to burn and even when i stopped the computer (unplugged the power cord), it was still making flames. I had luck the flames disappeared very fast (but there was still a lot of smoke) and i could remove the heatsink with a kitchen grip and throw it in the kitchen sink and open the water tap.

Believe it or not the P4 and the motherboard weren't damaged and might still be working (i still have them somewhere).

[Tripredacus]

Starting your PC on fire... Easy way: have a certain part of the HDD touching the chassis and turn the PC on. Like touching one of the chips. Did that once by accident.

As far as the USB issue... Not all case manufacturers are the same. I can't remember which one it was... it was either Chenbro or Inwin... their budget line didn't have their USB headers keyed. While most would say "OK i'll have to match up the colors in the book" which is fine... for older MSI boards this was a problem. Take your average assembler (who isn't technical which might also seem strange) and a non-keyed connector and a fault that spans all boards.

Normally, if you hook up the USB front panel backwards on the board, USB should just not work. This is true on Intel boards. But on MSI boards it causes a short. The end result is the USB chip starts on fire (pretty colors come out of it) and also your USB key pops. We got real careful about doing it right and I haven't heard about it in awhile. Either way it gets annoying especially when your expensive HASP keys pop and melt on you.