OT: In Faulty-Computer Suit, Window to Dell Decline

[keith smith]

Both ways have their down sides.  I used to buy and build.  Then I started buying Dells.  I have saved some time and maybe even some money.  If one of them fails I loose both time and money.  Reliability is important to me.  I just don't fee like I want to research components, buy them and build them.   Maybe I need to revisit this whole thing next time I buy a new system.


------------------------

Keith Smith

--- On Wed, 6/30/10, Stephen <cryptworks at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Stephen <cryptworks at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: OT: In Faulty-Computer Suit, Window to Dell Decline
To: "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
Date: Wednesday, June 30, 2010, 8:38 AM

This is pretty much the norm across HP, Dell, Acer/Gateway, any of this tier of vendor.
the 2 options i find is buying my own parts and building the machines, however i cannot meet these prices (usually) for the bottom line, but i rarely have issues with the parts i buy. (i thank 4 years in tech support/R&D with an OEM white-box company for this)


however dell treats its optiplex lines very differently than its other lines and they are built with a better standard of hardware. usually less flexible but more reliable. in 120 machines i had one failure of a nic port, which was replaced very easily (board swap).



On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 7:03 PM, Technomage <technomage.hawke at gmail.com> wrote:





  
  


Interestingly enough, one of my clients had a newer model dell (less
than 3 years old) buy the farm as a result of bad caps

(5 of them along the regulator strip on the motherboard had popped, one
explosively so). I gave her my last remaining 

working older machine (and older AMD 3200+ 32 bit machine) that
actually seemed to work *better* than the machine

she originally brought to me.



Unfortunately, the hardware failure also resulted in her OS (windows xp
pro) having issues that took me multiple

tries and finally a full blown re-install to get corrected (the last at
my cost).



The situation as reported in the news article is actually a lot more
common than people are lead to believe. as companies try

to maximize their bottom line, they tend to cut corners (like finding
apparently cheaper vendors for some parts of their 

product line, etc). as stated, dell wasn't the only one to have these
problems (caused in large part by financial pressure

to get things done on the cheap).  I have at some point worked on many
machines (and other pieces or hardware) produced by 

a variety or foreign or domestic firms where cheap caps were the
primary cause of failure (computer PSU's being the most common

among them). 



anyone here know how all this got started? a little piece of botched
industrial espionage in Japan where a Taiwanese competitor 

tried to steal the formula for the electrolyte compound used in the
production of capacitors. Only they got the incomplete formula

missing the depolarizing agent (the chemical that prevents both
electrolytic breakdown and oxidation of the metal strips used in 

such devices). the problem wasn't discovered until almost 2 years later
when caps started exploding in cheap power supplies. 



here's a wiki on the article:

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



what is more amazing, some of these bad caps are still sitting on store
shelves in some shops waiting to be sold or being used in 

new equipment (such as the new wireless N routers and other consumer
gear).





On 6/29/10 4:41 PM, keith smith wrote:

  
    
      
        I have 3 Dells and might not buy anything new until next
year.  I'm now considering  another vendor even though I have had great
experience with their products and service.

        

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/In-FaultyComputer-Suit-Window-nytimes-2375403564.html?x=0

        

        

------------------------

Keith Smith
      
    
  
  







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-- 
A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.



Stephen



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