Failure Rate of PC Manufacturers?

The ever-popular Anonymous Coward asks: "Hello. We are conducting a write-up for our clients, however we cannot seem to locate any published failure rate of PC manufacturers. Google does bring up past PC Magazine articles - but nothing recent. Does Slashdot know of a way to find this information, as this strikes me as valuable information for the computer buyer. We sell many PC's (B3 VAR) and have done for the last 5 years. We can and will produce our failure rate info - why aren't the big companies doing so?"

Comments

Consumer reports says:

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC so no one knows :) Consumer Reports tracks this info. Here it is, with their disclaimer:

Based on more than 69,000 desktop (73,000 laptop) computers purchased new from 2000 to 2004. Data were standardized to eliminate differences linked to age and use. Differences of less than 4 points are not meaningful.

Repairs and serious problems:

Desktops:

• Apple: 12%
• Sony: 16%
• Dell: 17%
• eMachines: 19%
• IBM: 20%
• HP: 21%
• Compaq: 21%
• Gateway: 24%

Laptops:

• Toshiba: 16%
• Apple: 16%
• IBM: 17%
• Sony: 17%
• Dell: 17%
• HP: 19%
• Gateway: 21%
• Compaq: 21%

Re:Time-span?

[EricV314a]

I can give you an adiea fo what I see at my shop.
HP/compaq Dell gateway, I see see about the same numbers of all of these, and the failures are usually accessories or minor components, drives, memory failure, cpu failure, bad cables, etc.
IBM outnumber each of the other big 3 by about 2 to 1
IBM problems tend to be more serious as well. I can't believe how many I've seen with bad motherboards.
I rarely see any from small companies who assemble PCs with off the shelf components.
In 7 years no one has brought in a server for repair