In your years of using computers, what's the most common component failure you've encountered?
In 20 years, I've had:
3 hard disk failures
2 keyboard failures (both laptop ones)
0 PSU failures
0 RAM failures (one suspected RAM failure but not determined with certainty)
3 motherboard failures
1 CPU fan failure
0 optical drive failures
1 monitor failure
0 failures of other cards (modems, sound cards, etc)
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In my 20 plus year with only my own hardware taken into account, since most of the time with other people's shit its the user that's a failure installing random shit that wrecks their shit
2 hard drives
2 motherboards/ram/cpus(they were so old i didn't even care to troubleshoot them)
That's it, most of my stuff lasts well into being obsolete and just needs to be replaced outright but i run it until it dies
Either I'm super lucky, i take care of my shit or a combination of the two, but I've never gotten anything that was doa
There was a survey on Tom's Hardware which had PSUs as the most often reported failure followed by RAM.
Only ever had a motherboard die.
It was a Gigabyte board.
Unless shitty old pre-builts count, in which case I've had a Hard disk die as well. It was a Maxtor or some shit.
I also had a laptop whose cooling system basically stopped keeping the device cool enough to run at full speed if that counts.
Why do laptop keyboards seem to fuck up so often?
>1 Hard drive
>2 PSU's
>3 Graphics cards 4850 480 590 that I can recall at least
>At least a few ram sticks
>1 motherboard/cpu failure
Definitely spend good money on a good psu, they are not worth saving 20 bucks for
Gotta make some backups of my data soon though, I've been lazy as hell
The only RAM failure I've ever had that wasn't caused by a socket issue was a 256k SIMM in an old 386 PC that I think had a stuck bit somewhere, because it was refusing to detect my joystick and I'd get random freeze-ups with a Parity Error message.
I suspect the failure point was in the first 64k of RAM where the BIOS puts its system data so it thought there was no joystick port present.
1 Samsung hdd (750gb)
1 CPU (after many faithful years of overclock)
2 monitors (1 CRT and 1 early lcd)
I have no idea what caused mine to go bad, could have been a simple fleck of dust getting stuck on the leads, but I had other ram around so i wasn't bothered
I keep replacing parts before they become an issue. Maybe that's the reason I am utterly penniless...
>In your years of using computers, what's the most common component failure you've encountered?
PEBKAC
Yet it detected all other hardware properly and also passed the POST. Oh well, I later upgraded the RAM and replaced the original SIMMs with 4MB ones so the problem disappeared then.
6 HDD
one laptop mobo
2 monitor power supply
4 optical drive
1 VGA card fan
RAM doesn't usually fail out of nowhere unless you bought it from a shitty manufacturer (ie. most factory-installed RAM in PCs). Usually you have to zap it with ESD or else a bad power supply can do it.
15+ years of being invested in computers
I've only ever had 2 Hard drive failures and one motherboard failure. There was a time where my CPU started to overheat, but I got a new heatsink before it completely failed on me.
You do know that POST RAM tests aren't that thorough and will often miss stuff especially if you have a lone stuck bit somewhere.
In around 15 years of computing the most coming item to fail would be hard drives. followed by graphics cards in my case.
Most reliable would probably be CPUs, everything from Pentium 2s through Athlon x2s, Core2 quads and i7s and they all lasted fine, in the case of the core2 it still works fine overclocked to 3.3ghz on air, a relative of mine uses it every day.
Hard drives are least, CPUs are most imho.
Yeah, I understand that, must have been one of the psu's killing them, I forgot the brand of ram, I think it was corsair, so not very good in the first place
All the same, two decades of computing and the only non-socket related RAM problem I've ever had was this one ancient-ass 256k stick, so...meh.
I forgot to add that I had a first gen i7 that made everything BSOD. Chucked that thing and the mobo pretty quickly.
Why do Corsair sticks look so fucking retarded?
Because Corsair doesn't know how to design decent heatsinks.
One PSU in about 20 years.
20+ years
one fucking motherboard, and this was only a year and a half ago. im so fucking pissed because its their fault for the shitty design, a bin of bios chips went bad, as in physically defective. it was a z series motherboard so it was 200$ instantly pissed away
and i had some shitty hdd fail over 10 years ago once
1 HDD failure
1 mobo failure
1 PSU failure
In 13~ years, I've had:
1 hdd failure (maybe 3rd harddrive I bought, cheap as shit low rpm eco drive in 2009 onwards some time)
3~ keyboard failures (shitty chiclet laptop keyboards)
2 ssd failures (both the same model both failed around the same time (ungracefully) bought at the same time around the end of 2011 when I thought sandisks' reputation of bad ssds was no longer a thing, and used in different pcs with different usage patterns, never buy sandisk)
1 graceful ssd failure (i.e., full complete backup of data was possible)
0 psu failures (2 were stopped being used long before they had a chance to fail)
0 ram failures (probably)
1 mobo failure (probably, kept on hard freezing and I ruled out memory with memtest86+ with 80+ successful tests but it eventually froze after 13 hours)
0 cpu failures (probably, I can't rule out cpu/mobo because it requires buying a new cpu/model but when do cpus fail honestly)
1 cpu failure (cheap aftermarket heatsink for a pc that wasn't mine)
3~ case fan failures (more like resulted in them being noisy as shit as the bearing wore out)
a few misc failures including a usb wifi adapter or two, a pci wifi adapter or two, some usb flash drives and card storage, that sort of thing
I'm honestly surprised I haven't had more harddrive failures, I've had at least 12-14 ish harddrives and ssds including 4x2tb 5400rpm green drives that are getting close to a decade old now (one hitachi, one WD, two samsung spinpoints) along with much older lower capacity drives that are no longer in use (2x80gbs out of original pcs, 640gb, 250gb segate barricuda that I bought used, the one that did fail was a cheap 320gb segate if anyone's curious)
in 7 years ive had only a single failure and that was one stick of ram
This is gonna take some time to remember all this shit:
3 hard drive failures, 1 PSU failure (thank you antec), at least 3 dead mobos, 2 unfunctional DVD drives, 0 dead CPUs, 1 dead GPU (7600GT that failed after many years of service)
Seems to be HDDs and mobos that are failure-bait
HDDs because moving parts and mobos because they're hideously complex with so many points of possible failure
just to add to this, not so much a failure of tech but I have accidentally destroyed a *lot* of sata connectors due to cheap locking sata cables where they never release the lock, only device broken so far was an old optical drive where a pin came with it and an old motherboard where the connectors face straight up rather than being on the side
it takes so little force to actually break sata connectors that if you're trying it in an awkward position it can be indiscernible from regularly pulling out a sata cable from such a position
heed my warning, do not buy cheap locking sata cables, they are not worth it
>1 stick ram (corsair) 2006
>1 motherboard (MSI) 2008
>2 monitors (samsung 2010, achieva shim. 2015)
have been rocking the same corsair psu and seagate hdd from 2006. don't know how the hdd is still chugging along since it handles a lot of writing but i'd buy another seagate when it does croak.
1 hard disk failure
7+ (I've lost count from 7) mouse failures
2 CD-ROM reader/writer failure
13 years:
2 hard disks
2 psu failures
1 ram failure
0,5 motherboard failure ( network port died but the rest worked)
1 cpu fan failure
1 optical drive failure
2 monitors
1 Gpu failure
I always wondered whether you could use modern RAM sticks in a vintage box if you built an adapter for the socket and did something to downtune the voltage to 1.5V or whatever the modern stuff uses. You'd also only be using like one quarter or less of the stick's capacity.
It'd be if nothing else a funny experiment.
2 hdds
1 motherboard failure
one garbage cheap PSU failure that luckily didn't fry anything else
over the course of thirteen years
I get the impression that motherboards are the most random and dicey, never had a decent PSU fail and my current bronze rated seasonic is going on six years now.
BTW, the motherboards I've lost were due to overheating from dumb people in the family running them for hours on a hot summer day.
Well the only thing I actually had fail on me was a Radeon 9800 Pro, but to be fair, it was a dumpster dived card that got the oven treatment to work in the first place.
Judging from the PCs I got to repair, motherboards are the weak point.
>and an old motherboard
I meant to say connectors on an old motherboard
still has 1-2 of the 6 on the motherboard that are functioning
>I always wondered whether you could use modern RAM sticks in a vintage box if you built an adapter for the socket and did something to downtune the voltage to 1.5V
probably not, ram support is handled at the hardware level and even the newer skylakes which support ddr4 and "ddr3" only support "ddr3L" chips dependant upon motherboard support
I have been fooling around with computers for 17 years and IIRC:
2 corrupt RAM modules
4 Hard disk failures (all of these in the olden days, the name Maxtor comes to mind)
3 motherboard failures (all of these being newish ones)
1 PSU failure
1 optical-drive failure
and my SSD (Crucial M4) just bit the dust yesterday
In 18 years:
4 psu
3 mem sticks but they were killed due to incorrect voltage monitoring on mobo.
1 hdd
>Well the only thing I actually had fail on me was a Radeon 9800 Pro, but to be fair, it was a dumpster dived card that got the oven treatment to work in the first place.
ah fuck you reminded me, I had a 9800gtx that failed on me, the oven treatment worked a few times but eventually a capacitor near the vram failed
>Judging from the PCs I got to repair, motherboards are the weak point.
which is a shame too especially with intel, replacing my motherboard(or cpu) on my skylake rig would have been 1/2~ the cost of just blatantly upgrading to a new socket/chipset
the more likely replacement would have been a far worse chipset on a used mobo for more than I paid originally
RAM is a passive component though, is it not? As far as I know, DRAMs work largely the same as they have since the 70s except for higher capacity and less power usage. But I could be wrong.
10 years, 2 psu failures, one hard drive, one dvd drive.
3 GPUs
3 PSUs
1 or 2 corrupt RAM sticks
1 HDD that died completely (went into click mode)
1 HDD that started getting a lot of bad sectors
I've had pretty decent luck.
1 monitor failure.
1 hard drive failure.
1 partial mobo failure (network and audio stopped working on the board for some reason but everything else worked fine)
I think he's referring to RAM speeds and pinouts though.
in 10 years and 3 separate systems
2 hdd (wd green/ toshiba)
1 psu ($100 antec one)
the storage technology might be relatively unchanged but I don't think the interfaces are all that backwards compatible especially in regards to pin count and pinouts
at most you might have ddram backwards compatibility with some complicated adapters but even ddr isn't that vintage
Some socket 478 MSI mobo dieded and presumably took the 1.8ghz P4 chip with it in 2003.
One Seagate half terabyte HDD software failure due to poorly programmed firmware (still works just needs serial flashing) .
One western digital HDD clickety clack clacked right out of the box, meant to replace an older western digital failure back in 2005.
One Apevia PSU explosion.
Nvidia 460 gtx had enough of GTA V and committed seppuku after so many crashes.
I dunno. The pinouts look basically the same comparing old 72-pin sticks except the modern stuff has a lot more pins as capacity has grown (up to 200 of them now). It's still the basic same address, RAS/CAS, power, ground, and data connections.
But again, I'm not an engineer so what do I know.
Needs a template desu.
Over 10 years:
>CPU's: 1: Intel Core i7-920, Dell BIOS didn't control its thermals properly, replaced under warranty
>GPU's: 1: XFX HD7850, replaced under warranty
>MOBO's: 0
>RAM: 1 stick of DDR3
>HDD's: 4, 1 seagate desktop, 1 WD desktop. 2 WD laptop
>SSD's: 0
>PSU's: 0, based Seasonic
>Monitors: 0, Dell monitors seem to last desu.
>Keyboards: 0
>Mice: 1 shitty unknown wireless mouse
>Fans: 0
>Misc: Superlux 668B headphones.
wouldn't old motherboards be too slow for that stuff?
Actually the way RAM speeds work are "The RAM must be at or faster than your motherboard". You can use faster RAM all you like; it will just operate at a slower speed. You can't use slow RAM though if the board is too fast for it.
Yeah you could probably get a DDR stick to work in a 486 if you built some ridiculous socket adapter, but I don't see the point of the whole exercise. Besides, old motherboards feed 5V to the RAM which would crispy fry DDR since it's designed for modern 1-2V power.
The one monitor that outright failed on me was an LG 4:3 LCD that I got from a thrift store. One day the picture went blank, so I just assume the inverter failed.
Considering it was a thrift store find and LG is a junk brand anyway...meh.
RAM is basically RAM, except that low-end brands usually don't perform as thorough QC checks which means that bung chips are more likely to pass and be shipped.
I had one graphics card failure due to overheating in a MacBook Pro 2011.
Apple took care of that for free though.
Other than that, I didn't have anything fail on me yet.
about 20 HDD failures
1 SSD failure
1 keyboard failure
1 CPU failure
2 mobo failures
Since I started coming back into computers again at least 3 years ago, the only component failure I experienced was a stick of bad ram causing a reboot loop but that was easily found and RMA'd. Otherwise I've been pretty lucky with my stuff
>1 dead SSD
>2 maybe dead HDD's (Didnt get them to show up in pc)
>1 dead PSU because i flipped the 120/240v switch
>my life
I've had 3 gpus blow up on me.
An HD 4850 had a bug land on it mid battlefield 2 session and burst into flames around the poor bastard.
A gtx 260 I was messing around with seeing how hot I could run it before it died (logitech software read 114℃ before blue screen occurred)
And recently my 270x and 280x (different boxes) fell victim to a lightning strike.
16 years
5+ ripped off headphone cables or connectors because i stood up while wearing them
3 USB sticks (accidentaly broke off while they were plugged in)
4-6 mice (no-click/doubleclick/jitterclick)
2 Keyboards (spilled drink of death, shitty quality barely lasted beyond 1 year warranty)
1 external HDD corruption (all data lost and scratching noises, but stil usable after format)
1 laptop battery (lasts 10 min max)
1 CPU fan (touched it while running, ouch)
1 PSU fan (bearing out of balance, even greasing didnt fix it for long)
1 monitor (50 cents for a replacement capacitor)
1 speakers (another cap replacement)
1 RAM tick (shows no errors, but has out-of-memory crashes if above 50% ram usage)
3 mobos
1 PSU(fan not working but I'm still using it :^)
4 RAMs(fucking motherboard killed them)
10 years:
>3 HDD
>2 keyboards (1 laptop)
>1 laptop power supply (due to keyboard)
>1 RAM module
>1 CPU fan
Still using the fan and heatsink passively. Higher temps, but works great still
I have a computer since 1993
4 HDD failures
4 Optic drive failures
2 Power supply failures
1 Motherboard failure
1 RAM stick failure
1 GPU failure
1 Monitor failure
If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about or versed in oldskool PCs...
stanislavs.org
0000:4010-4011 contain the bytes that shows your installed hardware as reported by the BIOS. It seems like one bit in the SIMM got stuck in the "off" position and that bit coincidentally happened to be bit 4 of 0000:4011, which reports whether you have a joystick port or not.
User error. Happens daily
>6 years
>2 GPU fan failures
Fucking Sapphire lmao. Atleast they were both within warranty. Hoping for a monitor failure though, mine's nearing ten years and is starting to look really bleak
Same here, man. In '93 I got a hand-me-down piece of shit 8086, and "upgraded" to another hand-me-down i386 a few months later (486DX was the shit back then iirc, the first Pentium 60, I think?, came out in 94, got a Pentium-75 desktop in '95 for $2000). Wonder if you are my age.
I have only ever had a sata connector on a hot swap bay break. I bricked a motherboard one time but that was my fault.
However, headphones/headsets break all the fucking time!
>Cut my life into pieces
sheeeeit it the past 5 years I can think of ...
4 drive failures (fucking seagate)
3 mobo failures (1 laptop 1 desktop 1 server)
2 ram failures
1 fan failure
1 psu failure
I have bad computer luck :/
Come to think of it, I had a sapphire HD 3870 with a fan that basically went to shit. Bearing went bust and some of the plastic frame crumbled. Some wd-40 and adhesive later, and the fan just werks, albeit at a noise level of 200ish db
2 Graphics Cards Nvidia and Ati
2 Mouse
1 CD Burner
1 Monitor
1 PSU (Logisys)
1 RAM (1 of 4 bad stick) in shitty Dell.
0 HDD
since 2004:
> 2x mobo failure (capacitors went to shit and other time cooler mounting broke - both Pentium4 times)
> 2x RAM failure (both A-Data)
> 1x PSU failure (Eurocase lol my first PC)
> 1x SATA cable failure
thats all
pic related is the best looking ddr4 ram on the market right now imo
USB hubs
Motherboard components, i.e. USB port or ethernet port
CRT monitors, eventually the picture turned to shit
I've also had a couple optical drives suddenly refuse to read and/or burn discs.
15years i guess
1 laptop motherboard failure (dont know the details) but fixed
2 ram failures
1 HDD failure 2000 maxtor a shit
1 gpu fan failure (fashioned a new one with another fan some resistors and a bend-aid, out of electrical tape at he moment)
1 cpu fan failure
3 optical drive failures
1 monitor failure (fixed, the fuckes still works, it came from the pentium 100 era)
1vga cable failure (shit litterally exploded)
2 PSUs (one OCZ, one Corsair)
2 motherboards (one Asus 775, other Asrock 1156)
1 monitor (LG)
That would be in around 10 years in 4 desktop computers. And if laptops count, I had and Acer which had to be RMA'd 3 times under warranty because of assorted failures (board and GPU).
killed one keyboard
2 hard disk failures (2 were dropped)
1 psu failure
1 motherboard failure
in 10 years
1 ram stick failed when I overclocked it stupid high. I think I broke one of the chips on it as all the errors were in one 256mb area.
4 laptop mechanical harddrives (ssd's all the fucking way)
no deskptop mech hard drives
2 kayboard failures but they were utterly my fault due to major issues with self control and anger
2 laptop screens due to clumsiness
Had one of the sata power connectors on my new power supply break becasue it was made from super brittle plastic different from all the others.
My previous rig survived 7 chinkshit PSUs in the span of 4 years, in hindsight that was pretty lucky
>1 fried motherboard
>a million dead hard drives
everything else usually gets replaced before it dies.
Well shit, let me think
Since 2000 because in the 90s I used computers from HP and Dell
5-6 MoBos at least, probably more and 3-4 arrived defective.
2 GPUs
2 ODDs
1 CPU
1 HDD
0 PSUs, RAM modules
Probably some other miscelaneous cards like modems and NICs, can't remember
Motherboards have been by far the most prone to failure, which isn't surprising considering it's the most complex board in a computer.
That CPU was probably also killed by the motherboard, though I am still using it with another CPU.
Haven't had issues with PSUs, I guess it helps that I've always bought from good brands like Seasonic or FSP.
Moral of the story don't skimp on PSUs and Motherboards.
CPUs (almost) never die
PSU's are reasonably common to die
HDD's commonly die
Motherboards rarely die
RAM sometimes dies
GPU's sometimes die
There you go. 7+ years of experience working in an IT shop which builds all the PC's by themself and repairs them too.
Only ever had a ethernet slot on my motherboard fail. Twice. Two separate motherboards. Lightning sucks for me.
In 27 years, I've had:
5 hard disk failures
1 keyboard failures (m11x keyboard)
1 PSU failures
0 RAM failures
0 motherboard failures
0 CPU fan failure
1 optical drive failures
0 monitor failure
0 failures of other cards (modems, sound cards, etc)
Biggest problem brands:
XFX/Pine on GPUs
Hitachi DeathStar Hard drives
Three mobos, five HDDs, two RAM sticks, one laptop hinge assembly, one trackpad (both lelnovo stinkpads), one macbook GPU and the fucking spacebar
Everything but the GPU and mobos happened on stinkpads. They weren't abused, they just fell apart basically. Repairs were cheap and easy, though. Stinkpads are the harleys of laptops.
For over 20 years I've used the cheapest motherboards available. I've never had issues with them.
0 disk failures
1 keyboard failure
1 PSU failure
0 RAM
0 Mobo
0 CPU fan failures
0 ODD failures
1 (laptop) monitor failure
0 other failures.
2 Motherboards went bad on me. Everything else has been great. I suspect my old HD 7850 was on it's way out but it didn't outright fail.
3 hard disk failures
0 keyboard failures
0 PSU failures
0 RAM failures (one suspected RAM failure but not determined with certainty)
0 motherboard failures
0 CPU fan failure
47 optical drive failures, mostly in the late 90s and early 2000s
0 monitor failure
0 failures of other cards (modems, sound cards, etc)
>previous keyboard started smoking
>mouse's scroll wheel actuates 3 or 4 times for every one click
>previous motherboard sparked and died spontaneously
>47 optical drive failures
I take it you were into pirating PS1 games.
The biggest problems have ALWAYS been with ATI/AMD chipsets.
Personally I never had problems with VIA or Nvidia chipsets for AMD when they still made those.
SiS chipsets, does anyone remember SiS. Absolute rubbish!
Only one and unsurprisingly it was shit.
my decade of failures are:
>2 cpus
>1 gpu
>1 mobo
>0 ram
>2 hdd
>0 ssd
>4 psu
>0 monitor
>5 mice
>3 keyboards
>3 fans
>1 cap card
>0 drives
>3 leds
>1 speaker set
i have huge hands and fuck up most m+kbs by being a fat handed oaf but my current mech is pretty solid and has lasted 2 years.
hard drives and a geforce 4
In the 15 years ive been using computers, only 1 harddrive failed on me. nothing else has ever failed on me as far as i can remember
In the 14 years ive had ive only had a mobo battery that was defected by the manufacturer which would cause my boot sequence to change