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I've never trusted HP's, Compaqs, or Acers based on previous experience. Recently my teen stepdaughter's birthday came 'round and she wanted her own computer ... I figured for $350 it was a decent gamble. We're on a budget, and the idea was just to get her something to do her silly MSN chat, mySpace, and homework on (so she wouldn't be spending time on our work comps!) So we went with a Pavillion.
I should have listened to myself. The 160 GB Samsung HD lasted a total of 5 days. I've torn down and rebult a lot of computers, starting in the Mac OS 5 days where a 40MB HD was HUGE, and have NEVER seen a brand new HD go down so fast. I will spare you my frustration with the India-based support line.
Hewlett-Packard, stick with printers, thank you.
</rant>
I've had two internal hard drives crash and one external one to go down. The external was a Maxtor that I abused by throwing it in the bag with my laptop. I don't know the manufacturers of the other two.
This is part of the "bathtub" failure curve many components are claimed (though not fully proven) to have.
Many early failures, then pretty steady performance for the design life of the item, then a steeply rising failure rate as parts wear out.
One early failure does not mean HP is rubbish (though spying on board members might do...).
Rgds
Damon
However, budget computers generally mean budget parts, so an "expensive" computer may actually be a better deal than a cheap one... up to a point.
Jim
WD Raptor 10,000 RPM 36.7G
AMD 64x2 4200 Dual CPU
Cosair XMS 800 DDR2 - 1G
Leadtech GEForce 6600GT Video Card
Samsung 16X DVD Reader / Burner
MSI K9N SLI Platinum Motherboard
Samsung SyncMaser 931 (19" LCD)
Antec Sonata Lifestyle II Case
I'm not a gamer, but this machine flies and the components are all high quality. The case is super quiet too.
For computers now, laptop especially I stick with Dell.
It can run Windoze now if you don't want to work on a quality operating system.
<"ducks head, waits for rocks to fly">
You PC people! You assembled your computer. The people in the plants with machines on the assembly line built the components.
Yeash!
[edited by: Khensu at 6:48 am (utc) on Sep. 21, 2006]
I really wish my laptop could run a sensible *nix OS, so this time, and freed from the need to exchange poxy Word documents with my colleagues, I may go Mac or I may try to force Linux or Solaris onto an existing laptop...
I don't like being a major version behind on Java though, as Macs are.
Rgds
Damon
In the days that the latest Compaq Portable was the size of a large sewing machine (though without pedals, thankfully!) I had one Compaq and one Amstrad (right at the other end of the price/reliability spectrum). Each failed exactly once and had to go back to base. So for any one user/owner the stats of small numbers may mask any "quality" factors.
(On the other hand, when we had shipped to the company I worked at 20+ years ago one of those first Compaq Portable II Model III "sewing machines", somehow the CRT managed to arc onto the motherboard one day. There was a small pause, the screen blanked, and then showed the text "motherboard failure". You find me *ANY* computer that will recover with some grace from 30,000 Volts right up the CPU! B^>)
Rgds
Damon
In the shop I work in, we buy HP Business systems for use in schools by teachers and students. The reliability rate is very good. Also, as was stated above, it will either fail immediately or the day after the warranty runs out.
Hope this helps,
Barry
Can you support that statement?
Rgds
Damon
However, budget computers generally mean budget parts, so an "expensive" computer may actually be a better deal than a cheap one... up to a point.
Which is what hurts most about it, I **knew** I was going down and dirty on this one. So I saw it coming.
For computers now, laptop especially I stick with Dell.
I've worked pretty closely with a few admins and have had my own experiences - it seems like most of the companies install the cheapest equipment possible, but when you crack open a Dell it still seems to carry quality components. My daughter has one, and every one I've been able to open has always had Good Stuff inside. :-)
I find it interesting that the replacement drive HP sent is a Western Digital instead of the Samsung it came with. It came in the usual foam lined box, but upon opening it it was jostled in the foam at almost a 45 degree angle. Greeeeaaat . . . .
Spun up though, and is on disk #9 as we speak. It's going to take me two hours to root out all the garbage the system restore disks are installing. :-)
I've been on the phone a total of about an hour.
The reps can't even speak English, I don't have a clue what they're saying half the time.
They want me to start from the beginning, LOL ... "It appears you didn't reformat your hard drive, please insert disk #1 and restart the computer."
What then, get to disk 11 and DUH . . . .
I swear, never again. I'm about to hop it down to Staples for a new copy of XP.
Day three, more disks are on their way but I will bet that it's still going to choke on disk #11. I have (in spite of better judgement) started over three times, including one time using ctrl+backspace to get to the manufacturers menu and doing a manual erasure/format of the HD . . . only to have this stupid recovery program do the same things over again once it starts up . . . . to no avail.
I can't even call to complain to someone in English. :-)
Spring for a new copy of XP or wait . . . spring or wait . . . . personally I'd like to wrap my knarled fingers around the throat of some HP exec . . . :-)
Wow! It takes a commendable amount of talent to judge a hard drive's age by the way it sounds.
I can hear when a drive in a computer I work with on a daily base starts to detoriate, but determining the age of an unknown drive on its sound is too high-level for me. I normally read the date on the disk label when I want to know how old it is ;)
The sound of a known drive is my first signal to replace it. My average harddisk has a lifespan of one to two years. When its sound starts to change, or when some actions take longer than expected due to some soft disk errors which are not reported by the OS yet, I buy a replacement and use a partition mover like Ghost to move the old info to the new one. The old disk goes in my archive, as a self-starting full backup, in case I need access to my old configuration. I backup data on a regular base on CDs, but sometimes you just don't need your old data, but also your old configuration. Swapping my replaced disk back in gives me instantly access to both program's and data of a previous date.
My Compaq (bought just before Compaq went HP) has now his (her?) third boot disk because of my early replacement policy.
From previous work experience I must say that failure within five days is exceptional. We had more than 50 desktops floating around and never had a disk failure within the first three years. But maybe they had a proper burn-in test where lower priced consumer based products are shipped with disks right from the manufacturer.
I still have a 40 MB Mac HD here, a Maxtor, one day on a whim I stuck it in to my G3, powered it up, I could even browse the data on it! This thing has got to be 13 years old.
I also have an IBM 386 I can't let myself get rid of, 20 MB HD, runs as good as the day I bought it. Veeeeerrryyyy slowly . . but it runs.
Server and web server HD's fail all the time because they are constantly reading and writing, 24/7, they are worked to death. The admins I worked with at an ISP would only use the best SCSI drives they could find, and on the average one would fail every three months (a solid case for selecting an ISP that uses hot-swappable drives and a solid backup system.) These old hard drives I have are only worthless because they are so slow, they still spin up, read/write.
But as for judging an HD's age by it's sound? This gets into the same area as the digital vs. analog revolution when CD's came out, it will be argued ad infinitum and unless we're talking about a sealed bearing failure or motor failure, something that manifests a high whining sound, there is nothing that can prove to me the sound of an HD indicates how much life it has left. Believe as you wish.
So. I bought a clean new copy of Win XP home edtion, installed, it, she's happy, my blood pressure is back down, suffice it to say that Hewlett-Packard never resolved my problem with this computer and kept throwing me the same pre-programmed solutions and advice from their manuals. Their "technical support engineers" are definately not trained to handle situations where they are needed most, when the above pre-programmed solutions do not work. Further elaboration will ony draw flames from HP supporters so . . . done deal. Never again. :-)
have NEVER seen a brand new HD go down so fast.
I've had a couple of HP's, they're just fine, Thinkpads rock, but those Dell laptops, ugh, and we're not just talking about the batteries best taken to Burning Man.
Back to hard drives, not sure what the testing criteria is, if they do complete unit burn-in these days or just sample a few units for percentage of failure.
I used to work for a company that made big drives and tape backup combo units in the 80s and we brought in truckloads of drives. From each lot of drives we put a percentage of them in a test matrix and if there was more than (i think) 2% of the units with failure in the media we rejected the whole lot of them. That means the drives you guys were buying off the shelf, and probably still are, is seconds rejected from major vendors.
However, if we accepted the lot, every unit was put thru the test matrix which took many hours to complete to verify good integrity media. Each drive that didn't complete successfully was set aside and never went into shipping equipment.
With all that said, we had no clue about the mechanics of the unit, only the media, so it was still possible bouncing a drive across country in a truck, no matter how well you packed it, could muck up the mechanical parts.
FWIW, never blame the computer on the hard disk as there are only 2 moving parts in the machine, the fan and the hard disk, and the computer manufacturer doesn't make either and those 2 things are always prone to failure.
Now if their motherboard fries, kick their buts up and down the block with my blessing ;)
[edited by: incrediBILL at 4:44 pm (utc) on Sep. 25, 2006]
I'm aware these issues are true of most companies. I'm also aware I'm and idiot for falling for the lure of low price. I knew better and did it anyway. So in one sense I deserved a turkey.
LAST CHAPTER: Although I got the comp working on a fresh copy of XP, it did not recognize the on-board Realtek hardware. A reply from support email sent me to two links to download drivers, which did not appear on a search of their site.
You guessed it - didn't work. In fact, in one attempt to install the computer REBOOTED in the middle of the install, and would not start XP. LOL!
I rebooted in safe mode, disabled the broken driver, and relayed the info to support. after a few hours they replied, "oh, I see you are having trouble with the onboard audio. (duh.) Well, you need to download this UAA driver first (Universal audio architecture.)"
I didn't ask why they couldn't tell me that five hours ago. All working now . . . . this was Saturday, the "new restore disks" came in today.
What do ya think, shall I try to install them?
NOT! Frisbee anyone? :-P
I'm also aware I'm and idiot for falling for the lure of low price.
If it failed in only 5 days I would've demanded a complete replacement machine as I'm not dealing with a "repair" when it's still under the store return policy timeframe.
Short of failure to return it, I would invoke the "lemon protection" on the credit card that I charge things on and they would eat it, one way or another.
See, that's why I shop at certain stores for certain things, like the new computer will probably be the boxed set sold at Costco as they just return it and give you a replacement, no fuss, no muss.
That's how you shop ;)
Typically big companys like dell, hp etc don't ship new harddrives with machines, they normally ship refurbished drives.
That is a massive statement. Can you substantiate it, as I am sure the press and many who own high end Dell or other laptops would love to know where you got this gem of information from.
FWIW, never blame the computer on the hard disk as there are only 2 moving parts in the machine, the fan and the hard disk, and the computer manufacturer doesn't make either and those 2 things are always prone to failure.
One of the Compaq laptops I owned, went back to the service centre so many time I still wish to this day I had smashed it into a few thousand pieces and bought an advertisement in a local magazine offering one piece each per copy. After all one small piece was about as useful as the whole thing!
This was some years ago but from memory, pretty much everything that could break did, even the screen! But it was not just the hardware customer service as well.
I have had only one prob with all the Dell laptops I have had, and it was fixed faster than even I believed possible.
This is not to say I would not switch, the Inspiron's and now the XPS seems to fit my needs, Sony though does keep attracting my eye, plus they are available in the shops.
FWIW, I have an ancient Thinkpad that I still use for travel since any idiot that steals it has a laptop worth less than $100, or if it breaks in transit it's no big loss. However, this thing just keeps ticking and it's been all over the country even to last year's PubCon and will join me again this year at PubCon. As a matter of fact, it's up and running right now 24/7 as a "kiosk" in the kitchen just in case the wife needs to check a recipe or something. Most reliable laptop we've ever had.
