Slashdot Mirror
Most Common Ways to Kill a PC
Sparky the Service Center Dude writes "PCstats covers the most common ways to kill a PC in this "what not to do" guide. Everything from exploding capacitors, to cat hair, to dodgy components and overclocking account for users killing their own PC's. The most common PC killer? The Power Supply."
Malware and spam.
Don't those stats mean the most common way to recycle a PC is just to replace its power supply? I've pulled several working PCs out of the "trash" (NYC curbside - cleaner than a dumpster, dirtier than a Toronto dumpster). I had a "$2000" stereo system I rescued from yuppie abandonment by merely replacing its "motherboard" and speaker fuses.
--
make install -not war
Speaking as someone who has worked at a college computer store, I would have to say water/beer is the biggest enemy to the life of a computer.
"OMG! I was just having a drink and chatting with my girlfriends online, and I accidentally spilled it on my laptop! Daddy, buy me a new one!"
On several occaions, I have also run across a laptop that was damaged during...um...let's just say "coital activities". Those definitely make the hall of fame.
Windows ME. Seriously, all trolling aside, this is the worst operating system known to man.
Power supply is dead simple to replace. remove four screws and possibly your cd-rom drive and slide it out. The real problem is that after market power supplies usually cost more than a cheap case. Of course the power supply in a cheap $40 case is not the same quality as the $60 replacements.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Yeah. Because destroying shit just to destroy it, no matter who is paying for it, is a good idea kids. No wonder the world is so fucked up.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
No freaking kidding. I've been at my current job since I got out of college a little over 2 years ago. After working for a couple of months, I had to go to the first session of some bogus training for young engineers, set up so the new blood from all over the company could mingle and network. I was *shocked* when one of the multiple-session veterans talked about how they'd just about destroyed a rental car on another trip. He condescendingly explained that another time he'd told that story, someone had freaked out a little, because they were too inexperienced to understand that the cars were insured and it couldn't come back on you.
When kids are 12 years old, I can see it a little, but 22-25? Cripes. I wanted to punch him in the head and it wasn't even my car.
Wouldn't the sugar from the Sprite lock those things up worse than whatever he rinsed off?
Abso-fricking-lutely correct.
The spec's written on most el-cheapo Chinese PSU's are about as accurate and truthfull as the wattage claims written on the box of those $25 "1000 WATT" PC speakers you bought at the local PC market. The difference being that if you blow up your craptastic speakers you just need to buy new speakers, but a bad PSU can cause you to re-purchase a completely new PC.
It amazes me the number of "tech heads" out there who will pay AU$900 for a top of the line GPU (just to gain another 3fps in Doom 3) but will try to run it and their P4EE off a $15 SangChoyBow "500 WATT" powersupply.
Incredible.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
"One example being them using IE instead of Firefox even though I've told them a hundred times to use Firefox."
Simple solution: Change all the shortcuts with the big blue "e" and point them to Firefox.
You have to look at users like Pavlov looked at dogs
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
So - the warranty claims are paid for out of that great big bucket of money in the sky? Not in your life.
Ever wonder why products with a 3 year warranty cost more than products with 1 year warranty? It's rarely because of higher manufacturing costs. It's because manufacturers are factoring the increased likelyhood of failure into their sale price.
When little f*cknuckles like the grandparent decide it's fun to start breaking hardware for no particular reason, the cost of their vandalism isn't magically disappeared - the manufacturer says "Well, these widgets seem to break quite a bit, so we'd better up the price to cover our losses on warranty claims". As a result, MY hardware becomes more expensive.
I for one (and the parent for another) resent having to pay more for OUR hardware so some little f*cking ingrate can bust up his school's hardware on a whim.
Russ %-)
... and never, ever play leapfrog with a unicorn.
"The PSU looks like cake after you do the motherboard"
These days, yes, back in the old days pre ATX, when PC's had turbo buttons and "megahurtz LED displays" the powerswitch was often on the front of the case and their was 240 power being routed to the front panel. Ofetn times you had to remove the front panel so you could get to the powerswitch which also had to be removed, and occasionally you had to unsolder and resolder the switch back on to the power switch leads.
It could be quite the PITA I assure you. I have some old PC's of this type running Linux to this day.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
I have a few questions that could pretty easily narrow down the cause.
First, did you have the computer on a surge protector or UPS? If so, was it still working properly aftwards, or did it show that it needed to be replaced?
Did your power supply's fuse blow, or not? All the power supplies I've ever taken apart have had fuses.
If the fuse didn't blow, and the surge protector/UPS wasn't overloaded, then just about the only possibility is that something just got quite hot (eg. heatsink fell off) and there was highly flamable material inside the computer, possibly the paint used on the case, or perhaps a lot of plastic inside, such as numerous very large fans? Or, maybe somebody just spilled their vodka
I've seen a lot of computers blown to pieces by surges, failing capacitors, cheap power supplies, etc, but never catching on fire, so you had a rather unique situation.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant