The Last Component To Fail In My Computer Was The...
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- How much of your coding is done by AI coding agents these days? Posted on June 21st, 2026 | 27 comments
8800Ultra (Score:4, Informative)
Re:8800Ultra (Score:4, Funny)
Without u, Asus would be Ass.
Re: (Score:2)
Same boat here. 2 evga motherboards (i680 and i780 based) and an 8800 GTS videocard all gone within 2 years and now their support is being obstructive. My new Gigabyte board is working nicely.
Re:8800Ultra (Score:5, Interesting)
My 8800 went bad. So did the cards of 3 people I know from work.
All 4 of them were fixed by throwing them in an oven for 8 minutes at 385F. More info here:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1421792 [hardforum.com]
I don't know if any of the cards were under warranty, that may have been a better method.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Behold. The horror.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1104341
Re:8800Ultra (Score:4, Insightful)
I use my oven to cook all the time. "Foodie" is my personal brand of geekiness. Alton Brown and Jamie Oliver are my heroes.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've long advocated Alton Brown's recipes by the sheer fact that they are created with the chemistry of food in mind. He doesn't just cook something a certain way because it works better, he tries to find what scientifically works better.
Whether it results in better tasting food or not, at the very least the placebo effect is certainly at work here. Also....SCIENCE!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
i did that too for a while, then started cooking and preparing food. Costs me an hour or so a day... 15 minutes for breakfast to cook, 20 minutes to prepare 3 sandwiches ahead of time for lunches, ... eh, I spend like 5 minutes in the kitchen to boil a hotdog or fry a hamburger. Sometimes I cook in bulk or just heat up a baked potato and turkey leg in the toaster oven.
My food load dropped from $500/mo to $125/mo.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming that you are equally satisfied with your food quality, then your economic gain solely depends on how much value you place in your time. Assuming you cook for one hour per day, for 30 days, that means that your break even point is $12/hour ($375/30hours ~ $12/hour). For a busy person, who is financially secure, they may rather not spend the time. If you have lots of free time, and maybe not as much money, cooking is a better option.
Once again, logic agrees with intuition. horray
PS.. Wait, what the h
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're assuming that cooking is a labor activity, not a leisure activity. There are (for instance) lawyers who make hundreds of dollars an hour and yet mow their own lawns instead of paying some kid $10/hr to do it, simply because they enjoy the activity. Your argument basically boils down to "Well why do you spend five hours a day watching TV? You'd make more money if you paid someone to watch it for you!"
Making food is much the same; it is fun, and has enjoyable results. The financial considerations are s
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Aren't RMAed products from EVGA only for one year? I think lifetime is only for before RMA. Anyways, I also had my EVGA video cards (GeForce 7950 GT KO AGP and also a 8800 GT PCIe (on my second one -- I wonder if this one will die soon too :P) die early too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
EVGA obviously [suso.org] has a bad capacitor [badcaps.net] problem still going on. I have had 3 of their cards fail on me, haven't bought any from them for a few years now.
Harddisks (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Harddisks (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Quite a few HDDs that go bad often happens because the logic board goes tits up.
Now I have this image of lonely geeks opening up their computer cases and fondling the logic boards.
Re:Harddisks (Score:5, Funny)
Now I have this image of lonely geeks opening up their computer cases and fondling the logic boards.
So...
Necrotechnophilia?
Re:Harddisks (Score:5, Informative)
I agree with DigiShaman 100%. I don't have any mod points or I'd mod it up.
I'd also check your house wiring. I have a customer who goes through 2GB RAM a year (not flash drives, RAM) because her house isn't grounded. All her electronics are messed up because there's no way to handle ESD in her 70 year old house.
I had another customer whose home I would go to and constantly be getting shocked every time I touched something. There house, too, was not grounded even though it was only a few years old. Somebody had disconnected the grounding rod and had forgotten to reconnect it. Oops!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Also, sometimes you can get an overvoltage or undervoltage. A VOM is cheap and can save you a bundle in replacement costs. If your voltage is wrong, contact the power company.
My dad, who'd been an electrical lineman for forty years before retiring, knew about this and knew what to do when his light bulbs only lasted three months shortly after he retired and moved to Missouri. He said it only took them a day or two to replace the transformer.
Re:Harddisks (Score:5, Informative)
I've never had mod points, but if I had some now, I'd mod up this post/thread.
Several years ago I was complaining to my brother (he's a PC support guy) about how often my HDDs were failing. He suggested that I replace the power supply. I replaced it. The system was then rock-solid until I retired it.
Re:Harddisks (Score:4, Informative)
yes yes!
I'm shocked I've gotten this far through this thread without already finding the "complaining about PSUs" section.
I've seen many random issues caused by power supplies. When the computer is funny and you can't isolate the problem it always seems to be the PS.
I've had much reduced hardware failure since moving to only respected brand (mostly antec) PS + high quality power conditioning. Additionally, these items are less likely to go out of date and can be used across multiple generations of hardware.
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Ah, is that what Smart-UPS has over Back-UPS?
I don't have that, but I do have a Back-UPS XS 1000 that I got on a really good sale. It has saved my computer a lot of wear and tear that I know about, and probably more that I don't know about. There's no way I would run my main computer(s) without a UPS now.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The Back-UPS series is your basic UPS. Being that it's an APC, the quality is outstanding.
At work, I've generally found the electronics in cheap UPS's to begin failing after about a year, and in APC UPS's after about two years (the electronics, not the battery). APC is certainly better than others out there, but I don't know that I would call the build quality "outstanding". I'd say it's "Kinda like the king of the dipshits."
Check the heat... (Score:2)
Re:Harddisks (Score:5, Informative)
I didn't, and one day my hard drive was suddenly read-only. Tried rebooting to fix it... Bad idea. Never saw the data on it again.
Re:Harddisks (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Harddisks (Score:4, Informative)
LCD hinge on my laptop. (Score:4, Insightful)
None of the above (Score:2)
When I built this machine in December 2004, the Power Supply blew out the second I turned it on. Replaced it, has run just fine now for 5.5 years, though with upgrades to the CPU and video card. Longest I've ever been with the same machine, but a 2.4Ghz dual-core and an Nvidia GTX285 have been good enough to run every game that's come out... except for FF14. Even at a low resolution, I rarely get more than 15fps in the game.
I was debating finally building a new machine when I benchmarked it on a top of the
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Driver (Score:5, Insightful)
AMD, please hire actual programmers for the products formerly made by ATI.
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Well, just to play devil's advocate, you are mixing cards of different RAM amounts in Crossfire -- it's recommended you use the same amount of both card if possible. You can mix them up, if you want, but it's sketchy.
no failures in 10 years (Score:5, Funny)
10 years ago I bought a Powerbook G4 and ran it for 6 years without a single issue. Then I got burgled whilst on holiday, and it was no more. Once the insurance came through, I got a MacBook Pro (2006) and it's still my main workhorse today. No longer the fastest or bestest, but everything works.
While waiting for the insurance to pay up for the G4, a friend gave me an old T30 Thinkpad. I upped the RAM & HDD and installed Linux, then used it daily. That died in a house flood 2 years ago (burst water main, upstairs neighbour), again whilst I was on holiday.
This leads me to believe that the single largest cause of computer failure is going on holiday. Now, I take the fuckers with me.
Fan (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Get a ThermalTake. They might sound as boeing-engines, but they don't rattle.
Or a passive cooling solution...
Stable PSU is *essential* (Score:5, Insightful)
Over the past few years of building systems I have noticed how a poor quality Power Supply Unit can be the undoing of a great setup and can be the cause of a huge amount of sweat and tears - not to mention a huge hole burnt in your pocket.
Stable and clean power keeps your components happy for many years!
Dirty power usually affects things in strange ways which are not obvious and usually results in unnecessary replacement of components or damage to components which often causes extremely confusing intermittent faults.
You don't have to spend a fortune on your PSU, but it really makes economic sense to spend a relitivly small amount more than the bare minimum which guarantees reliability and longevity of your hardware. Usually those with an 80+ certification should be fine... but read reviews! I would recommend the Antec EarthWatts.
Re:Stable PSU is *essential* (Score:4, Insightful)
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I cannot stress this enough! My last year at college, a friend built his first superior performance machine, and used a case with a shoddy PSU. All of the data from his college years was on my file-server and his hard-drives (about 900gb between three drives), and his PSU cooked all of the drives. I immediately made him use an extra Antec PSU from a recent server upgrade.
My hardware failures are almost nonexistent; my problems are always with new pieces that are broken or mislabeled.
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Keyboard.... (Score:3, Funny)
After my keyboard consumed 2 beers and half bottle of red wine, I was still able to get another year out of, all be it some of the keys were a little sticky. Also uppercase E could only be done with the right shift, and uppercase V could only be done with the left shift, the space bar didn't work all the time. Replacing the keyboard made my laptop feels very new again....
The laptop is an HP Pavillion dv9600. I am surprised how well it has stood up to the abuse I've handed out.
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cripeshowdoyouworkwithoutspace?
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I.did.it.with.dots..Very.annoying.having.no.space.key.
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If using windows with code page 437 [wikipedia.org] support, you can just get around this by holding down the alt key then press 3 2 on the numeric pad....that, or 255, just to mess with people.
Magic! ;)
Oh...what? You were joking? I don't get it.
Re: (Score:2)
I wasn't joking. When my MBP's keyboard broke down and my spacebar was dead I used dots for spaces.
Software? (Score:5, Insightful)
The "computer" is not only the hardware. In My experience, software failures cause more data loss, or loss of service, than hardware failures do.
Sometimes the software fails because it is too complex to use, and the operators don't quite understand it and use it wrongly. Or the software designers haven't tested it enough.
For example, I have seen more RAID systems lose data because of failures within the disk software, than I have seen disk crashes. (I'm not saying RAID is bad, but use quality products with care and don't let RAID replace backups.)
Re: (Score:2)
If we were to consider software failures as component failures, this poll would be a non-starter. Software fails daily. Got a 404 lately? Fail. Had to reboot your windows box? Fail. Got the latest "Here you go" or the PDF-exploit worm? Fail. Your spam filter did not catch all of your spam? Fail. Your fancy smartphone froze up and had to be power-cycled? Fail.
Half the software I use does not perform anywhere close to my expectations. I am used to it; I am a software engineer by trade, I write my own bugs, my
Re:Software? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most interesting hardware failure I've seen has got to be a RAID/HDD interaction. Two hard drives mirrored. One of the hard drives dies, RAID takes over, but doesn't pop up any type of notification. Two months later, the "failed" hard drive comes back to life and gets mirrored over the hard drive that was working.
Net result: All of a sudden, the computer went back in time two months.
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I found the combination of decent hardware RAID with shoddy consumer-grade hard drives to be quite hilarious (once I had managed to rescue data from the array that is).
Basically what happened to me was that one of the three disks in a RAID 5 in my file server began to fail, it had a bunch of sectors it just wouldn't write to. Now, normally this should just result in a write error but instead what happened was that the disk tried to write over and over again and refused to do anything else, this in turn made
Trial and error (Score:3, Interesting)
Biggest issue with computer problems is that it requires trial and error procedure to identify the problem component. My latest component to fail was a faulty RAM stick - often testing the system by removing individual RAM sticks is a good first step.
Sometimes it can be a hard drive fault - could be a data issue which is remedied by a thorough format, though it's possible for disks to develop hardware faults. CPU problems are often more obvious than memory or HD - sudden shutdowns and even motherboard messages upon startup that allude to the processor can indicate where the problem lies.
Video card is usually obvious; visually through artifacts or overall display errors. Many motherboards today have onboard display components appended which, if you remove the GPU unit and install drivers, can clue one in as to whether or not the GPU is acting up.
Power supplies are less formulaic, but are also vital. If you've a bad PSU it can potentially fry an entire system should it have a fault - obviously that's costly and frustrating unless you derive more pleasure from a loud, sudden bang and a bricked system than you would a remedied, alive computer.
Obviously buying reputable brands rather than obscure 'third-party' manufactured components is wise. Product reviews tend to crop up recently after purchase - a component could perform well for awhile then perish, with few reviews online reflecting this. That said I've bought various computer hardware over the years and some obscure China-made stuff has performed as well as pricier, renowned brand equivalents.
For the time being we've still this incumbent trial and error equation facing nerds. Chances are if you own one or more computers some suspected hardware fault will crop up. For nerds who build their own computers this is somewhat less of an issue; an annoyance that can be dealt with. To my mind, the best method is to be very speedy and rigorous if you believe there's a hardware issue - a software malady tends to be (in home computer cases) innocuous; you just backup any wanted files and format the hard disk. Hardware problems can hinder or even damage a system permanently.
Re: (Score:2)
Upgrade treadmill (Score:2)
Laptop battery (Score:2)
Keyboard (Score:2)
My MacBook Pro didn't turn out as sturdy as I thought it would be. First the CD drive broke down, although I almost never use it. That was repaired under warranty. A few months later suddenly quite a few keys on my keyboard didn't work anymore. A new keyboard cost me a reasonable 70 euros, including the replacement by a skilled workman. The thing has been working fine ever since.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No problem. And you're right. My mother has an HP laptop and I was astonished to see on iFixit how easy it is to take that one apart. But of course the thinness and beauty of Apple products come at a price. You can't really blame Apple for that. My 15.4" MBP is at least half as thick as my mother's 15.4" HP. There is just no room for handy clickety mechanisms inside it.
Keyboard (Score:2)
My microsoft natural keyboard (hey, I have carpal tunnel) had the "n" key quit working. I took it apart and cleaned it out, but it stayed dead.
Called them last week, and after getting the run around for about half an hour (Took forever to find where to find the warranty info online, then had to punch in S/N, then got an 800 number to call, which directed me to another 800 number) I finally talked to someone. They replaced it free of charge, and I didn't even have to send the broken one back in.
LCD monitor (Score:2)
My last piece of hardware to fail was the LCD monitor. Started getting lots of dead pixels. Every time I turned it back on from standby, it would add a few more. It got to the point that I could no longer read the date in the corner of the screen, nor could I effectively use the menu without guessing where the mouse pointer was. Then there was the whole inability to read /.
Wonderful excuse to buy one of those new LED monitors.
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Combinations for mine. (Score:2)
My Fortron/FSP PSU died after two years of usage in my old Linux/Debian box. It also took out my EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (512 MB of RAM), a 512 MB RAM, and damaged my Athlon 64 X2 CPU (machine errors and kernel panics once in a while). :(
Standalone headless devices (Score:2)
My wireless routers keep croaking over and dying. Mostly the ones provided by Comcast/Verizon. I think I am on the 4th one in 2-3 years. When another one bites the dust, I pull out my old trusty WRT54G, which still works like a champ.
My print server recently went to the hardware heaven.
Most recently my Roku box started flaking. Not sure what I'll do when that one dies. Can't easily replace that with WRT54G...
Those aren't very complex devices by today's standards. What's going on here? Widespread quality con
Re:Standalone headless devices (Score:5, Interesting)
Bad capacitors.
I have repaired several dozen NAT boxes and multi hundreds of credit card terminals by simply replacing the capacitors.
Most of the time you can tell they are bad because they become all puffy and the plastic shrink wrap on them gets all goofy looking.
Sometimes you can smell a bad cap as it leaks electrolyte and that stuff stinks real bad, like something rotten.
What's a component? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a Mac user, you insensitive clod!
Re:What's a component? (Score:5, Funny)
So in your case the component that failed was between the keyboard and the chair.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think what was meant here was that Macs don't fail. They go out of style first.
Fans and caps (Score:2, Interesting)
Keyboard (Score:2)
drives are crap (Score:2)
the increasing number of cheap drives also means a lowering of QA/QC. I have a drive that runs very hot and noisy, but found this out only after it failed and was removed from the case, let the buyer beware. (not an isolated problem)
My motherboard (Score:2, Funny)
The computer fell over with a slightly-oversized heatsink attached to the CPU & mainboard. It tore a hole around the cpu & mounting sockets into the mainboard. Didn't work anymore.
Network Card (Score:2)
Turned on the computer and smelled smoke. The NIC had released its magic smoke and was dead after that.
Last component to fail? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, the FIRST component to fail in my LAST computer was the power supply. I have no idea what the LAST component to fail is. Let's just say it never got its chance to fail.
Motherboard... (Score:2)
My mother-in-law always said, "you can have nice things, or you can have children." Damn, I hate it when she's right.
Re: (Score:2)
FAN (Score:2)
Display hinges on Thinkpad (Score:2)
No component failures for last 6 years on my trusty Z60m, but finally the screws connecting the hinges to the LCD panel (or rather, their plastic mounts) gave away. I guess it's time to upgrade. Luckily, I can still use my old dock and supplies with a Thinkpad W500.
Motherboard w/ everything on it :( (Score:2)
Hamster ?!? (Score:2)
Last or latest? (Score:3, Informative)
"Latest component to fail" would refer to the most recent failure, with the poll results bearing some correlation to the *least durable* class of component.
The last component in my computer to fail was the (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The last component in my computer to fail was t (Score:5, Funny)
Cup holder (Score:4, Funny)
Only the optical drive (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Fan (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fan (Score:5, Informative)
More likely - buy a decent case.
It does not matter how good is a single fan in a bad case it will still fail. Even if the fan does not fail, it still fails to cool some nooks and crannies so you end up with capacitors popping in the badly cooled areas.
My always-on machines always have at least case 2 fans - front intake large diameter slow fan and temperature controlled exhaust fan on the back. I also use PS with temperature controlled fans like Akasa or Tagan so if the main flow across the case from front+back goes bust for some reason it revs up and sucks the hot air out. Add to that rev monitoring and temperature monitoring and you get a system that is will survive for a few months after a case fan failure.
If your case does not have a suitable position for front intake this gadget tends to do the trick:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/SilverStone-CFP52B-Cooling-front-Panel-converts-3x525-into-4x-35-bays-Hot-Swap-black-RoHS [scan.co.uk]
If used in conjunction with a temperature controlled rear exhaust fan it is a good idea to plug it through a resistor so it revs down. Otherwise the rear fan will free-wheel and its revs will not be indicative of the temperature in the case.
My fans never fail (Score:5, Funny)
My fans always applaud everything I do and support me all the way.
Re:Fan (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Fan for me too, but the fan itself cares not for the temperature of the computer so I don't know why you bother to mention it. The little bearings just wear out after a while. Fortunately modern CPUs and GPUs shut themselves off rather than overheat.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yup, fan failure here, too. I had a hard disk cooling fan get completely stuck (could not even get the fan to move anymore by hand), and another case fan did not exactly fail as in "not working anymore", but more as in "producing annoying noise", so I exchanged it.
Stuff with moving parts is really the most likely to fail. Fans most often, then hard disks. Other components fail very rarely before you throw them out anyway because they're too old. Maybe cheapo capacitors on the mainboard, but that's it.
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Don't tell me you wore it out.
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I never had a disk flaked because of an OS crash. I did have half of the pictures I took that day ruined once because that bloody Windows Image Viewer thingy that comes standard with windows *overwrites the original file* when you turn a picture to get it right side up. The person who thought that that is handy and desirable should be keelhauled three times at least.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the question was meant to be "most recent to fail".
I struggled for a while trying to understand the question as it was posed and failed.
the question, as posed is as meaningless as "the most recent not to fail"
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Started a CD burning...
Well theres your problem.
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