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commadorebob
Member Posts: 1,223 Arc User
I know this is way off topic, but I figure a bunch of nerds would appreciate this. And I feel like ranting.
[rant]
I have been using computers since 1992 (that I can recall). Over the years they have included:
1 Packard Bell
1 eMachines
3 Dell
8 HPs
1 Apple
It's that last one that I wish to discuss. I bought it for my wife four months ago. It was her birthday gift. She had been using the iPhone and iPad for so long she was too heavily entrenched into that ecosystem. So when her old PC got, well, old, I bought her a MBA in February of this year.
It died.
That's right, after four months, the thing stopped working. No drops. No spills. She was working on it one moment, and we get the folder with the "?" on it the next. I did all of the usual recovery steps and nothing worked. I took it to the Apple store and after ten minutes the "Genius" told me what I told him: the HDD was dead. On a four month old computer.
Never, have I lost a hard drive on any of my computers until yesterday. Never, in all of the drops, bumps, abuse, punching, and kicking had a single of my Windows machines lost a HDD. I was beyond ticked.
Look, I know this is the exception rather than the norm. But look at it from my POV. I have used PCs for two decades and have had over a dozen PCs in my home and it is the Mac that dies. Not only that, it dies in less time than it took for the battery in my XBOX controller to drain.
I have owned every consumer version of Windows since 3.0 (yes, including ME) and it is the Mac that gave us issues.
Sorry, Apple. Your track record is kind of poor at the moment.
*typed from an HP PC that has only been turned off twice in 18 months; and one of those was due to a week long power outage*
[/rant]
EDIT: WHEN I TYPE "HDD", I AM TALKING ABOUT THE HARD DRIVE. I KNOW THE MBA HAS AN *&$%ING SSD!
[rant]
I have been using computers since 1992 (that I can recall). Over the years they have included:
1 Packard Bell
1 eMachines
3 Dell
8 HPs
1 Apple
It's that last one that I wish to discuss. I bought it for my wife four months ago. It was her birthday gift. She had been using the iPhone and iPad for so long she was too heavily entrenched into that ecosystem. So when her old PC got, well, old, I bought her a MBA in February of this year.
It died.
That's right, after four months, the thing stopped working. No drops. No spills. She was working on it one moment, and we get the folder with the "?" on it the next. I did all of the usual recovery steps and nothing worked. I took it to the Apple store and after ten minutes the "Genius" told me what I told him: the HDD was dead. On a four month old computer.
Never, have I lost a hard drive on any of my computers until yesterday. Never, in all of the drops, bumps, abuse, punching, and kicking had a single of my Windows machines lost a HDD. I was beyond ticked.
Look, I know this is the exception rather than the norm. But look at it from my POV. I have used PCs for two decades and have had over a dozen PCs in my home and it is the Mac that dies. Not only that, it dies in less time than it took for the battery in my XBOX controller to drain.
I have owned every consumer version of Windows since 3.0 (yes, including ME) and it is the Mac that gave us issues.
Sorry, Apple. Your track record is kind of poor at the moment.
*typed from an HP PC that has only been turned off twice in 18 months; and one of those was due to a week long power outage*
[/rant]
EDIT: WHEN I TYPE "HDD", I AM TALKING ABOUT THE HARD DRIVE. I KNOW THE MBA HAS AN *&$%ING SSD!
"If you have never used Cello, I'm not interested in your browser opinion."
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
Post edited by commadorebob on
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You missed that "wife" part. There are certain things you do if you want.... :cool:
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
That's right: a window killed the Apple right in front of me.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Tsuki ni Kawatte Oshioki Yo
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
Same hardware drop-out rate as any other mass-produced item, they just cost more -- admittedly the Unix-esque OS is relatively stable, and they are a step above buying a pre-built from Walmart/Costco.
I'll stick to my homebuilts, though if I didn't game I would run Linux instead of Windows.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "I weary of the chase. Wait for me. I shall be merciful and quick."
Obviously what you bought was not a mac, but some sort of copy.
A Mac is solid as a rock, stable as a calculator and beautiful as a rose. There is no possible way a mac could get broke, as there is no way a mac breaks.
A Mac dosen't freeze either
You must now go to the altar of Jobs and pray for forgiveness.
I must admit that I like they STOLE code from... was it FreeBSD? And I must say that it's really freindly coming from a KDE enviroment on the Linux to Mac...
is everything else apple produce over priced and a steaming pile of ****e YES
All hail the blue screen of death
I first used Macs when they were little cream shoe boxes in 1990? with the awkward square mouse. Can't stand the OS and lack of software. I'm much more comfortable with PC's. When I came time to buy a Tablet, I purchased a Android (Xoom) and stayed away from iPads. What Apple do very well is marketing.
end of the day nothing is infallible. these are all complex bits of kit and one tiny problem or defect can cripple any computer at any time no matter the brand. it often just comes down to bad luck.
You need to re-adjust your sarcasm meter... It's malfunctioning...
Seriously... you should have caught the obvious sarcasm in that.
True that.
The ironic thing about my office computers from Dell and Compaq have a modest chance of hardware failure due to defective parts. Laptops with failed cooling systems, HDD deaths after one year, etc.
However I have a different experience with DIY or semi-DIY projects.
The PCs that run for 5-7 years without a hitch are the semi DIY PCs built from off-the-shelf parts by Chinese workers (they sell for much cheaper, and you get to handpick what you want). These PCs are operated in non-air conditioned, dusty environments (my home) have heavy modifications and often run 24/7 without maintenance for years.
The only thing that eventually fails on my home PCs are graphics cards as I usually o/c them to the limit of their stock cooling systems (or run with the case off), and that does affect the operating life of the card. Other parts usually last the life of the machine so long as it came with it.
The reliability of off the shelf redneck engineered PCs means that in my entire lifetime I think I've owned just three computers excluding tablets and netbooks.
Oh, speaking of tablets - I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab that after a mere one year of use started to have random battery failures. Apparently 1st - batch Tabs have poor quality Chinese batteries and this issue is resolved now but that kills my interest in the brand totally.
I mean, I have Chinese phones which cost just $50 retail, have a huge battery life, and despite their crude imitation software, are as rugged as an AK-47 during 'outfield' use with motorcycle clubs. They and my ancient Nokia phones can last just about forever and are well worth their purchase price.
That can't be said about the Galaxy Tab which cost upwards of $650 at first launch which is almost the price of an iPad... minus everything great about the iPad which is the huge battery and fast processor.
My Youtube Channel
This is my POV on them..
Apple are very much like gates back in the day, they want everyone to use their products.
They are like kids in a sandpit but wont share or want to play with anyone else its all "MINE"
They can infringe on everyone else's patents and not pay them a penny but when anyone else uses theirs.. They throw paddies and sue them left right and centre, I dont see how that is fair?
I'm just glad the other manufacturers are fighting back and saying STFU apple sit back and let us sell our cool gizmo's
Im a pc & android user btw.. FTW
http://img9.joyreactor.com/pics/post/comics-apple-microsoft-table-pc-214699.jpeg
Back in 05 or so I think Fujitsu tablet PCs were prominently used by Jean-Luc Picard in ST: Nemesis and while I found the product placement entertaining in a 'next generation computing' way, I doubt anyone cared either.
My Youtube Channel
Well when you think about it, Tablets are a really old idea... The first time I ever saw the concept were the basic ones in TOS, then later the PADD's in TNG and various other series, then PDA's (while being smaller versions)...
EDIT: The WinXP variant was heavily used in Stargate Atlantis.
My apologies for the above highlighted (also about the Apple - nothing against 'em personally.. but never had a reason to own one either)
Best way to get more life is a laptop is to open it up and make sure the heatsink system is actually touching what it needs too -- sometimes brass shim material is needed.
That and a higher-end cooling pad.
Admittedly, some laptops just have poorly designed cooling and will cook themselves to death anyways.
When getting a graphics card, I immediately replace the cooling with aftermarket unless it's one of the few that comes with something beefy. My current card came stock with a twin-fan spaghetti of heat pipes, so I stuck with it.
Between being picky about GPU cooling and throwing out the fans that come with the case in favor of some higher quality (if a bit noisier) ones has served me well.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "I weary of the chase. Wait for me. I shall be merciful and quick."
Since 1992 you have only experrianced 1 hard drive failure? You need to play the lottery or gamble with luck like that. I've been a user since mid 80's, back to the Eagle IIs and IBM PCXT, and I couldn't count the number or drive failures i have suffered through since them. In the last 5 years, not counting external drives, my household (4 laptops, 3 pc's) have had 3 drive failures. 2 of which were in the first year, and under the pc mfg's warrenty, and the 3rd was within the 5 year drive mfg warrent. Drive failures happen, reguardless of mfg. and you Apple drive was probably manufactured in the same line that made the drive on my wifes Dell Netbook.
Want to know what's even better: the first HP my dad every bought is still running. It is serving as weather instrument data collector and publisher. It still has the original HDD that was in it in 1996*.
*= 16 years ago... so my memory may be a little fuzzy on the exact date of purchase
Edit: Let me add that the HDD was generally the second thing we replaced (after the RAM of course). It wasn't because anything was wrong with them, I frequently filled them up so I needed bigger drives. Still, none died within four months.
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
The time Jobs spent between his stints at Apple was the creation of NeXT and when he came back, based OSX off of OpenStep which came from NeXTSTEP, which did have some BSD code but was a mach kernel. I wouldn't exactly say they stole it, since Jobs was the person behind the whole thing.
You as an individual are not a statistically significant sample. Just say'n.
Here is an interesting read from google about their statistics on Hard Drive failures.
Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population
I work in a large organization with approximately 2000 computers. I see approximately 1 in ten mechanical hard drives fail within 4 years (our replacement cycle). We run about 60/40 Windows/Mac platforms, with a smattering of Linux machines (that generally are the same HP boxes). There doesn't appear to be any significant data on my end that one fails more than the other. There is a slightly higher number of drive failures with Macintoshes but it's generally because a higher percentage of our Mac users have laptops which take more tumbles as a general rule. If there were more Windows users with laptops i would expect the failure rate from damage to rise as well.
Sometimes you'll see a batch of machines that have HD's from the same manufacturing batch have bulk issues. Over the course of a year I once had 35 drives die out of an order of 50. After the 5th or 6th RMA, HP just sent us a stack of drives to replace the oncoming failures with.
Once had a 4 drives out of an order of 10 MacBooks fail within 3 months. Again, likely a manufacturing defect in that batch of drives.
Arguably we are still not large enough to be a statistically significant sample with only 2000 production machines.
I understand your frustration with a dead drive but "In all my life I've never seen a drive die" is anecdotal evidence at best. If drive failures were as uncommon as you seem to believe there would not be entire industries centered around the recovery of data from dead drives. I see so much drive death I double back up all my personal data.
Anecdotally I've had one drive failure across drives that must number close to a hundred in all my days. But my sample size is so low, it can't be construed as evidence of any meaningful pattern.
I'm not trying to start an argument or pick sides, just the OCD in me having a bone to pick with faulty conclusions from insufficient data. One drive failure does not make Apple "Crapple", one drive failure doesn't make Microsoft "Microcrap".
Cheers.
*Edit*
I don't have any meaningful data on SSDs, we've only got a couple in use. I'm deploying a lab of 50 this fall so we'll see how that goes.
Now that they're over a lot of the "new tech problems," SSD's should be great in laptops -- much better tolerance for heat and vibration over a mechanical drive.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "I weary of the chase. Wait for me. I shall be merciful and quick."
I've got 2 in my desktop, 2 in my laptop, and 1 in my netbook. For normal usage they won't degrade anytime soon. In a server environment... now that's a bit different. 1 of the ones in the desktop and both in the laptop have been in regular use for a few years now and show no degradation at all.
And my OP said that. I said this is not the norm, but this is viewed from my POV. I don't care what the stats say. I'm strictly talking from my own perspective.
13+ Windows PC => 0 Dead HDD
1 Mac PC => 1 Dead 4 mo. old HDD
From my own personal POV, that sucks. This was a rant, not an examination of the overall quality of all >1 billion PC ever sold.
Sad part, the Mac in question has flash storage. The "Genius" told me he has seen this several times.
That last part concerns me. This ONE "Genius" has seen this issue multiple times. This is not the Grand Central Station Apple Store, this is an Apple Store in the middle of a town of 500,000.
How widespread is this problem?
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
Some of the new "enterprise" grade drives have very high over-provisioning levels that they claim is acceptable for high I/O. I've used OWC SSDs in 2 machines now,and they proclaim 28% over-provisioning*on their enterprise drives.
The whole, flash eventually wears out thing, still gives me pause for high I/O use.