I work in information technology on a rather large campus. We use many Athlon/Duron AMD chips, and I have to tell you that we have lost MANY chips and motherboards due to fan failure. When the fan stops, the CPU overheats, causing the computer to lock. The CPU then proceeds to actually fry the motherboard, causing a replacement CPU and motherboard to be necessary.
One day, we actually had 8 computers in a 40- computer lab down, because all of their fans had failed in the past few days, frying the boards. (Lesson to people in our purchasing dept: don't skimp on the fans!)
As far as fans melting off the heat sink, I've had that happen to me just once: this past week. I left my room Saturday night to go play euchre. Got back an hour later to find my computer off, and a smell of smoke in the air. Opened the case to find that the part of the fan that screws into the heatsink had melted and the fan had fallen off, ending up on top of my GeForce card.
I figure that after the fan melted off, the heat sink didn't do much good, the CPU overheated, and the motherboard fried. Another note of interest: the motherboard became so hot that I burned myself touching the edge of it.
I contacted AMD- they will replace my CPU and fan, due to warranty. They said that this has happened before, though it's rare. Unfortunately, they will not cover the damage they did to my board, and the board manufacturer won't either, as I bought it from a dealer they don't explicitly endorse. The dealer says it is the manufacturer's job to take care of defects, etc, so I am basically going through a bunch of hassle trying to get SOMEONE to cover the damage.
And if you're interested, the CPU is an XP 1700+ on an ECS K7S5A board.
All that to say, I know where this guy is coming from. I think it is a valid concern. And apparently AMD knows about this too. They have been working towards getting better, hopefully they will continue to improve. I go with the AMD chips because I like the better price and performance. If they continue to give me this much hassle, though, I'll consider switching to Intel...
I find it interesting how much the price increases per unit of value. Seems the fastest, most impressive motherboards and CPU's out there today only outperform the lesser price by a very small margin, and yet people will shell out big bucks for the latest and greatest.
My theory is to buy the second-tier of technology. For instance, I just picked up an Athlon XP 1700+, with a ECS K7S5A motherboard, GeForce 2 64 MB card, and lots of extras, for less than $400 with shipping, because I decided it wasn't worth an additional couple hundred to go with a GeForce 4 rather than a 2, etc. Pricewatch is a great place to look.
And the best part is that I now have a fairly good computer and still have the money to upgrade again in a year or so if I want to.
Out of curiosity, anyone out here going to buy this top-of-the-line board, and if so, why? (and how do you get so much cash, wanna give me some?) What benefits are there to having the best computer out there vs. the second best? (I'm a poor college student, I'm also slightly curious....)
If there is ever one music subscription service that lets you access ALL music from all the major and minor companies, and the software doesn't crash, then it would be worth paying for.
Right now, what bugs me is that there are so many different places out there, and I don't have the cash to subscribe to all of them, and chances are that I'd only want a few songs from each one, anyway!
The music service is a good idea, though. All the convenience of Napster, but still allowing the people who worked hard to create the music to get paid for it. If only the music industry would hurry up and get it done! If they hadn't made such a big stink, they probably could have bought out Napster and used that service- it was one that worked, at least!
What in the world are you people thinking? One of the reasons these companies have to make their products cost so much is so they actually make a profit. Every illegal copy takes away from that.
I know Star Trek is a huge enterprise (pun intended) now, but there are still a lot of people out there who worked really hard on the project, and deserve to get a bit of reward for their work.
My general rule of thumb for file copying is this: do I take income away from the owners of the copyright? For instance, when you watch TV and videotape an episode, the television company has already paid for the rights for the episode to be shown. So you're not taking anything away from the company. However, if they make a special high-quality DVD edition, and you just copy it, they are losing the money they would have gotten if you rented or *gasp* even bought it.
$100 for a season isn't that unreasonable. It works out to something like $3.50-$4.50 per episode, which is not that hard for you all to do. If you really want them, save your money and buy it! It works out to less than $2/day if each season comes out every two months. Not that hard to do, folks. I know some people who put more than that in the vending machines at work!
Besides which, once you figure in the price of your internet connection, and purchasing CDs to burn the data on, you really aren't saving that much money, but you're getting an inferior quality ripped file!
As for me, I think I'll start saving my money now. That extra footage bit sounds cool!
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One day, we actually had 8 computers in a 40- computer lab down, because all of their fans had failed in the past few days, frying the boards. (Lesson to people in our purchasing dept: don't skimp on the fans!)
As far as fans melting off the heat sink, I've had that happen to me just once: this past week. I left my room Saturday night to go play euchre. Got back an hour later to find my computer off, and a smell of smoke in the air. Opened the case to find that the part of the fan that screws into the heatsink had melted and the fan had fallen off, ending up on top of my GeForce card.
I figure that after the fan melted off, the heat sink didn't do much good, the CPU overheated, and the motherboard fried. Another note of interest: the motherboard became so hot that I burned myself touching the edge of it.
I contacted AMD- they will replace my CPU and fan, due to warranty. They said that this has happened before, though it's rare. Unfortunately, they will not cover the damage they did to my board, and the board manufacturer won't either, as I bought it from a dealer they don't explicitly endorse. The dealer says it is the manufacturer's job to take care of defects, etc, so I am basically going through a bunch of hassle trying to get SOMEONE to cover the damage.
And if you're interested, the CPU is an XP 1700+ on an ECS K7S5A board.
All that to say, I know where this guy is coming from. I think it is a valid concern. And apparently AMD knows about this too. They have been working towards getting better, hopefully they will continue to improve. I go with the AMD chips because I like the better price and performance. If they continue to give me this much hassle, though, I'll consider switching to Intel...
My theory is to buy the second-tier of technology. For instance, I just picked up an Athlon XP 1700+, with a ECS K7S5A motherboard, GeForce 2 64 MB card, and lots of extras, for less than $400 with shipping, because I decided it wasn't worth an additional couple hundred to go with a GeForce 4 rather than a 2, etc. Pricewatch is a great place to look.
And the best part is that I now have a fairly good computer and still have the money to upgrade again in a year or so if I want to.
Out of curiosity, anyone out here going to buy this top-of-the-line board, and if so, why? (and how do you get so much cash, wanna give me some?) What benefits are there to having the best computer out there vs. the second best? (I'm a poor college student, I'm also slightly curious....)
Again, for the 2049th or so time, Congratulations, Taco!
Right now, what bugs me is that there are so many different places out there, and I don't have the cash to subscribe to all of them, and chances are that I'd only want a few songs from each one, anyway!
The music service is a good idea, though. All the convenience of Napster, but still allowing the people who worked hard to create the music to get paid for it. If only the music industry would hurry up and get it done! If they hadn't made such a big stink, they probably could have bought out Napster and used that service- it was one that worked, at least!
I know Star Trek is a huge enterprise (pun intended) now, but there are still a lot of people out there who worked really hard on the project, and deserve to get a bit of reward for their work.
My general rule of thumb for file copying is this: do I take income away from the owners of the copyright? For instance, when you watch TV and videotape an episode, the television company has already paid for the rights for the episode to be shown. So you're not taking anything away from the company. However, if they make a special high-quality DVD edition, and you just copy it, they are losing the money they would have gotten if you rented or *gasp* even bought it.
$100 for a season isn't that unreasonable. It works out to something like $3.50-$4.50 per episode, which is not that hard for you all to do. If you really want them, save your money and buy it! It works out to less than $2/day if each season comes out every two months. Not that hard to do, folks. I know some people who put more than that in the vending machines at work!
Besides which, once you figure in the price of your internet connection, and purchasing CDs to burn the data on, you really aren't saving that much money, but you're getting an inferior quality ripped file!
As for me, I think I'll start saving my money now. That extra footage bit sounds cool!