Darth Avlectus Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 Apparently 1 in every 3 laptops will fail and die within 3 years of life. Well I could have told you *that* one. (I'll never trust Norton to protect me again! And PCtools is un-delete-able from my other computer I no longer take online, no help to get rid of it! ) Aaaaaanywayyyyy.......... http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/154921 The Y! article So your new laptop computer died in inside of a year. "I'll never buy a computer from [insert manufacturer name here] again!" I've heard the protests time and time again. Yeah, maybe you got a lemon, but no matter which brand you bought, you truly are not alone in this situation: An analysis of 30,000 new laptops from SquareTrade, which provides aftermarket warranty coverage for electronics products, has found that in the first three years of ownership, nearly a third of laptops (31 percent) will fail. That's actually better than I would have expected based on my experience and observations on how people treat their equipment. SquareTrade has more detailed information (the full PDF of the company's study is available here) on the research on its website. But here are some highlights about how, why, and which laptops fail: > 20.4 percent of failures are due to hardware malfunctions. 10.6 percent are due to drops, spills, or other accidental damage. > Netbooks have a roughly 20 percent higher failure rate due to hardware malfunctions than standard laptops. The more you pay for your laptop, the less likely it is to fail in general (maybe because you're more careful with it?). > The most reliable companies? A shocker: Toshiba and Asus, both with below a 16 percent failure rate due to hardware malfunction. > The least reliable brands? Acer, Gateway, and HP. HP's hardware malfunction rate, the worst in SquareTrade's analysis, is a whopping 25.6 percent. None of the numbers are overly surprising. As SquareTrade notes, "the typical laptop endures more use and abuse than nearly any other consumer electronic device (with the possible exception of cell phones)," so failures are really inevitable. Want to keep your notebook running for longer than a few years? Ensure your laptop is as drop-proofed as possible (use a padded bag or case, route cords so they won't be tripped on, lock children in another room), and protect it as best you can from heat and dust. I suppose if this gets to be real serious discussion (INTERNET: [serious business]) it could be moved to Kavar's or somewheres else that is tech related on LF. Considering, however, as how this is going to take off in many anecdotal directions, I figure put it where the jesters can joke and we have some levity too. So at that, Discuss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astor Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 So at that, Discuss. My four year old HP laptop still works - just about. It's a little slower than it was when I bought it, and the battery is on its way out, but it got two years of heavy usage without a problem, and when my old computer broke at the end of September this year, it got three weeks of heavy usage after barely being used for a year. But I have taken good care of it - it's never been dropped, had anything spilled on it, or been damaged (that I know of, at least). I guess it's like the article says at the bottom - care is the key. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Avlectus Posted November 23, 2009 Author Share Posted November 23, 2009 True enough. HP is supposedly the sucky brand but I know some elderly people who have one and it has worked fine for the 5 years or so they have had it. But people like them will treat even a cheap pair of sunglasses like gold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jawathehutt Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 Guess its good I have an asus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Lion54 Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 I guess it's like the article says at the bottom - care is the key. Definitely true. If something is faulty, then it will probably break regardless, but if everything is working right and you don't take care of it... well, that's your own fault. I need a laptop. Well, perhaps it's more accurate to say that I want one as it would make certain things at work easier, though it's not crucial. It's just a matter of money... I'll get one eventually but at the moment, I can't afford one. I've liked Asus for a while now and my last two motherboards have been Asus. Seems this article is pushing me more towards an Asus laptop once I have the money to spend on one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jae Onasi Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 I've had to send both of the laptops I've owned in for servicing. My HP has has had to go in twice. Moral of the story-buy the extended warranty, but NOT from the place you buy it from--they're horribly overpriced. Buy it directly from the laptop manufacturer. Best Buy wanted to charge $800 for a 3 year warranty. The same warranty from Compaq, the one that made my first laptop? $250. It will be well worth it, too. I've had major expensive failures with both laptops, and I'm very careful with them. It's one of the few times where I think extended warranties are actually worth the money. If you're thinking of buying a laptop, make sure to check out Consumer Reports. They do unbiased ratings (since they accept no advertising) on all the products they test. They also do surveys of their readers to find out appliance or product failure rates and what specificially went wrong. Picking from the more reliable brands will reduce your chance of laptop failures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamqd Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 I've never had a Laptop, but my Desktop went BSOD last week to my utter dismay, so I had to Fork out £600 for new stuff [/rage] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miltiades Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 My Laptop's only 2 years old yet, it still works like a charm, but I don't use it as much as my Desktop. It helps, though, that I tend to be careful with my belongings. I've seen people dropping their laptop carelessly. I'd be screaming it out, they think it's normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quanon Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 I had a Toshiba Tecra S2 for almost 5 years. The GPU on the Gforce gave up after those years of heavy gaming, watching movies abuse. It also travelled with me for 2 years to school, day in day out. Because of all that "work" I broke the cord for the power supply. The thing sucked its battery down fast, when gaming Anyway, if I would buy a laptop, it would be a Toshiba or Asus. If you're going to buy a PC, pay the price; I don't understand people looking for these bargain things. Often these things contain nameless motherboards, fixed graphiccards and whatnot. Plus they break easily. Its one of those things I think its best to pay a little more but be assured you got a good machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det. Bart Lasiter Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 Guess its good I have an asus the best laptops except maybe for thinkpads Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexrd Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 I'm happy with my HP. It has nearly 2 years old, and it's fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralPloKoon Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 I have a Macbook. It rocks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jammy-Jedi Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 My Dell is almost 2 years and dispite having tea spilt on it, during my dissitation, its still going strong a bit scratched used almost every day. So no problem there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommycat Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 lets see my last two laptops were both HP. One had a case failure after I left my wife and her new boyfriend threw it across the room. The other is still going strong. Gets used and abused as a band laptop. It has a whole bunch of mismatched software and firewire connections for recording... Granted I still back it up religiously. With 200 GB of audio, I don't want it to be lost because the thing had a guitar cabinet sitting on it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkstrong16 Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 I have a HP Pavilion that sucks... The Wireless adapter is broken, the display hinge broke, they did fix that but my laptop isn't on the free repair list for the wireless problem. It is slow and has crashed three or four times. requiring me to format the HDD. Although that was mainly Vista. Because once I put XP on it I haven't had any problems with crashing, yet.. Anyway.. It overheats like crazy and whenever a CD is running it will rattle pretty loudly. It still freezes up sometimes if I try to do to much. But all in all it was just a shiny, over priced piece of crap that I warned my Dad against getting. That was the new one, here is the old one.. I'll leave out most of its problems and get to the reason we needed a new one.. It over heated to the point it melted the casing and that caused the AC adapter port to brake. so without a way to charge the battery it is useless. That happened about a 6 months after we spent 300 dollers on a new screen because the last one broke.. So I am looking at a Toshiba or(after reading this thread) a Asus.. I want something that is decently priced, with 2+ GB ram, and that wont overheat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HdVaderII Posted November 24, 2009 Share Posted November 24, 2009 I have a Macbook. It rocks. I concur. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Q Posted November 24, 2009 Share Posted November 24, 2009 Guess its good I have an asus the best laptops except maybe for thinkpads Yes, and yes; Asus and Lenovo are both awesome. I might add Toshiba to the "recommended" list as well, because I've had good luck with their laptops as well; even the cheap ones. I have a Macbook. It rocks. I concur. You both fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamqd Posted November 24, 2009 Share Posted November 24, 2009 3 minutes Without Air 3 Days without Water 3 weeks without Food 3 Years Laptop Life... It's a Known fact GTA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Avlectus Posted November 24, 2009 Author Share Posted November 24, 2009 ^^^Then I got *hella* jacked. Well, tehnically it's only nonfunctional b/c I got it a new hard drive, but the ram chipset is-a-byebye. @ subject of brands: I know there is companies that specialize in selling gamer compuders both desktop and laptop and all at extremely reasonable prices. Also there areADX(I think) motherboards for small custom projects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jae Onasi Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 I have a HP Pavilion that sucks... The Wireless adapter is broken, the display hinge broke, they did fix that but my laptop isn't on the free repair list for the wireless problem. It is slow and has crashed three or four times. requiring me to format the HDD. Although that was mainly Vista. Because once I put XP on it I haven't had any problems with crashing, yet.. Anyway.. It overheats like crazy and whenever a CD is running it will rattle pretty loudly. It still freezes up sometimes if I try to do to much. The left display hinge is a known issue, and it had a recall on it about 6 months back. Mine broke before the recall, but it was under warranty so it got repaired. You can have someone put a new wireless adapter in, or purchase a USB adapter if you don't want to spend the money. The USB adapters aren't horribly expensive (35 bucks maybe? Not sure now). HP has 'kindly' cleaned the HDD for me when I've sent it in for repairs twice now. Vista is a problem if you don't have enough RAM--you really need 2Gb ram to run Vista without stuff crashing all the time. I agree the dvd/cd drive is very loud. My problem was dealing with their tech support. Both times I've gotten someone from outer east Bodaslavistan who wanted me to test 18 million things before finally agreeing that yes, the computer is dead and needs to be sent in to be fixed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForeverNight Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 Have an Asus Netbook, while it can't do much I think it's a gem for just sheer portability. As for notebooks, eh, I prefer Desktops for now (Ask me in a few years though... ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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