Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Flying Fox, Thresher
cass wrote:Memory... never had a bad piece of memory. I have bought it by the pound, off ebay, out of junk stuff, govt surplus, never had a piece that wouldn't run rated speed and voltage. Had a mouse piss on some and ruin it, and stepped on some and broke it. From my experience, testing memory is a complete waste of time when troubleshooting. Eventually I have to come across a bad piece, but not so far.
apertur3 wrote:This thread makes me sad.
Geez, people are so brain dead.
These kind of people must really make companies like Newegg lose a lot of money.
Why was I so afraid of buying an open-box mobo again?
cass wrote:Power supplies. Spending money here is mandatory if you want a running system. When I was buying cheap power supplies by the case 10-20% were bad right out of the box. They would either not start, or start and burn up motherboards, or just start and cut off. Power supplies die from fan death mostly... once in a while one lives long enough for a capacitor to go bad. Better name brand psu's are not as bad.... I have only had one "better" psu to die early (like in the first 18 months). I don't mind spending $80 or more on a psu anymore.... at one time I wouldn't consider anything more than $50, but that got expensive with psu's quitting every week..
Memory... never had a bad piece of memory. I have bought it by the pound, off ebay, out of junk stuff, govt surplus, never had a piece that wouldn't run rated speed and voltage. Had a mouse piss on some and ruin it, and stepped on some and broke it. From my experience, testing memory is a complete waste of time when troubleshooting. Eventually I have to come across a bad piece, but not so far.
LoneWolf15 wrote:Yeah, but that's all hard-won experience talking. The rare OCD-ish person aside, most people aren't that systematic and organized until forced to be -- usually by having to go back and troubleshoot a failure. Folks are so eager to get the new machine up and running that they can't force themselves to leave a memtest running overnight or take the time to do a lot of these other little things that don't matter when everything works perfectly but are incredibly valuable if something goes wrong (the irony, of course, is that the people who've learned to cover every little detail generally don't have things go wrong).When I build a system, even a basic one, I treat it like a work of art. Cables tied up. Everything tested. Drives flush with the front. Every little detail. It probably comes from the fact that the tech that taught me over fifteen years ago would tear an entire system apart and make me build it from scratch if he didn't like the way I did it. I only screwed up once or twice back in the beginning, and I learned --and I don't accept shoddy work from myself on a build.
Turkina wrote:I find that mildly surprising. I suppose being smaller overall they might get abused / shocked to a greater degree, but the 2.5" drives are designed for mobile applications and you would think wouldn't be worse.Laptop drives in 2.5 inch kits do worse, though, overall.
CB5000 wrote:What, you mean the cooling pins?I remembered another person on his first gaming build that was trying to install his CPU upside down... I mean, wouldn't common sense dictate that the pins have to touch the connectors on the mobo???
CB5000 wrote:Actually I have to say that almost all of my component failures came from capacitors bulging, leaking, exploding, smoking etc etc. Which is why if I buy anything anymore, I try to look for components featuring solid polymer capacitors or capacitors rated to 105C and made in japan.
just brew it! wrote:I've had an awful lot of fans fail (this is the reason I favor passively cooled video cards), but fortunately the fan failures generally have not killed the component the fan was supposed to be cooling!
Captain Ned wrote:just brew it! wrote:I've had an awful lot of fans fail (this is the reason I favor passively cooled video cards), but fortunately the fan failures generally have not killed the component the fan was supposed to be cooling!
The only fans I've ever had fail were those mosquito-pitched 40mm jobs so common on Socket A Athlon mobos. Zalman must have made a mint on their passive heatsink for those boards.
LoneWolf15 wrote:When I build a system, even a basic one, I treat it like a work of art. Cables tied up. Everything tested. Drives flush with the front. Every little detail. It probably comes from the fact that the tech that taught me over fifteen years ago would tear an entire system apart and make me build it from scratch if he didn't like the way I did it. I only screwed up once or twice back in the beginning, and I learned --and I don't accept shoddy work from myself on a build.
UberGerbil wrote:CB5000 wrote:What, you mean the cooling pins?I remembered another person on his first gaming build that was trying to install his CPU upside down... I mean, wouldn't common sense dictate that the pins have to touch the connectors on the mobo???
morphine wrote:When I see "DOA boards", I can only think of one word: ASRock.
Walkintarget wrote:Its rare that you log in to Newegg to praise a working mobo that you bought. You bought it, so therefore it SHOULD work.
Most people that get a dead board need to vent, and as such they are much more inclined to post about THAT then are the ones who got a working board and don't need to tell everyone !
I got a DOA Sapphire Toxic 6950 card last month - first DOA I ever had, and I must have posted about it at least 3 times at sites other than Newegg, so thats the nature of it all.
c1arity wrote:My two personal favorites were people putting 6-pin pci-e connectors into the 8-pin cpu power connector (jamming it in there) and arguing with me that you didn't need to use that same power connector and that it was just there for overclocking.
c1arity wrote:My experience: people think they are more competent then they really are and thus feel like it can't possibly be their fault
travbrad wrote:You'd think people would be able to match up a an 8-pin connector to an 8-pin plug, but I guess not. Orangutans can figure out which hole to put strange shapes in. This is really only slightly more complicated...
morphine wrote:When I see "DOA boards", I can only think of one word: ASRock.
Jim552 wrote:As far a 'brain-dead-owners' go...
A long time ago a friend of mine was walking through a friend of his in installed additional/replacement RAM.
(the abbreviated story...)
A friend calls another friend for help...
"I've received my new memory sticks, and I have the computer open. I am not sure what do after that? Can talk me through it?"
"you will see 2 memory sticks in your computer that look pretty much the same as the ones you received in the mail. Take note how the chips are oriented. On each side of those there are plastic levers holding them in place. Open the levers and pull out the 2 memory sticks."
"Okay, done."
"Orient your new memory sticks the same was as the ones you removed, make sure the levers are open, line each one up in the memory socket and press them into place. When you press them in the levers should close and lock in place. They will go in snuggly, but if they seem to stick or are rocking back and forth then take them out and look at the orientation. The memory sticks have a slot in the bottom that lines up with a small tab in the socket. Let me know when you are done."
A little time goes by...
"Okay, complete."
"Now make sure nothing has dropped into the case, make sure no wires are touching the fans, check to make sure the memory in the sockets properly. When you have done that, then turn the computer on, and let's see if it goes through the self check."
Silence.
"Did you hear me?"
"Yes, but I am confused."
"About what?"
"You said turn the computer on... It's already on, so I am not sure what to do?"
...
That was the last time he helped ANYONE he didn't know well before hand with Hardware over the phone.
just brew it! wrote:travbrad wrote:You'd think people would be able to match up a an 8-pin connector to an 8-pin plug, but I guess not. Orangutans can figure out which hole to put strange shapes in. This is really only slightly more complicated...
FWIW a 6-pin PCIe power connector *will* mate with a 4-pin CPU power socket without being forced at all. You'll just have 2 of the contacts from the PCIe plug sitting outside the mobo power socket. If you're trying to replace a PSU while laying on your side underneath a desk in the semi-dark with only an LED keychain flashlight for illumination, and plugging in connectors mostly by feel, you might miss it!
Yes, I've been there, done that... fortunately the PSU responded in a sensible way to having its +12V rail shorted out -- it refused to turn on until the mistake was corrected!
travbrad wrote:c1arity wrote:My experience: people think they are more competent then they really are and thus feel like it can't possibly be their fault
Yep, especially when combined with the "new PC" excitement factor where they are tempted to rush and get it up and running quickly. There are plenty of guides/pictures and even specific youtube videos for a given motherboard/cpu/etc, it's amazing more people don't watch those.
For example, the CPU retention lever for my ASUS-P8Z68 board seemed to be taking A LOT of force, so I quick googled for a video of it to make sure it was supposed to be that way. Luckily it was, but this is the type of thing some people seem too confident/excited to do.
travbrad wrote:You'd think people would be able to match up a an 8-pin connector to an 8-pin plug, but I guess not. Orangutans can figure out which hole to put strange shapes in. This is really only slightly more complicated...
Yep! Now imagine it jammed in...and the degree of skill that took.