Most failure prone PC component

[drevin]

What component(s) have been the most failure prone in the PCs that you have owned?

For me, it's probably the motherboard. I've had 3 MBs fail during 2000-2011. I've also experienced the following failures:

• 2 failed optical drives (Lite-On, Samsung)
• 1 blown PSU (generic)
• 1 failed HDD (Maxtor)
• 1 failed GPU (PNY 6600 GT)
• 2 RAM sticks MAY be faulty

None of my CPUs, network cards and sound cards have failed yet, although I have 2 onboard audio chips that work only partially.

 

[bastage]

What component(s) have been the most failure prone in the PCs that you have owned?

For me, it's probably the motherboard. I've had 3 MBs fail during 2000-2011. I've also experienced the following failures:

• 2 failed optical drives
• 2 RAM sticks MAY be faulty
• 1 blown PSU (generic)
• 1 failed HDD
• 1 failed GPU

None of my CPUs, network cards and sound cards have failed yet, although I have 2 onboard audio chips that work only partially.

Int he last 5 years I have had 1 set of DDR2 go bad (corsair) & about 5 mechanical HDD (2x seagates & 3x WD's all before switching to Samsungs which have been great (RIP Samsung)). And I have Had 2x SSD's die (1st was an Intel x18m & more recently a OCZ Vertex 2)

 

[Andrew_Carr]

Probably motherboard. Then HDD. Then optical drive. Then PSU.

I would say cpu's have been the most reliable in my experience, unless you fry them overclocking or something.

I would say though that I suspect the PSU could've been the cause of my mobo failures. I generally buy good but not great PSUs, and perhaps after a few years they just don't hold up and then cause the mobo to fail.

 

[scaarbelly]

1 blown psu - lesson learned, you get what you pay for.

3 Asus desktop mobo´s

2 Asus notebook mobo´s

1 Acer notebook mobo / don´t know brand they use, circa 2006.

1 hitachi hdd

1 Plextor dvd writer

1 Crucial ssd C300 - DOA, the replacement kicks butt.

 

[bamaland]

maybe im just unlucky.. i've went thru atleast 5-6 sets of ram 2 bad hdd's 1 dead psu
and a dvdrw that always over drew power

 

[Putz]

power supplies were 10:1 to anything else 10 years ago when i worked in a PC shop, but id imagine a huge part of that was the fact they were no name OEM crap.

last cpu i seen die was a tbird 1400 someone installed and left the heatsink off

PNY ti 4200 was another one i replaced alot of, also why ill never buy PNY again

 

[CleanSlate]

Like 6 dead Hard drives, 2 dead motherboards, 1 ram stick, 1 graphics card, 1 psu


I would say the hard drives are the worst because of all the moving parts. I used to use most of my hardware until it failed but lately I've decided to start cycling in and out new hardware every year or two to minimize hard drive failure possibilities.

 

[djstarfox]

I've replaced more DVD burners than motherboards, after they start burning coasters. However, motherboards are a very close 2nd place and certainly they are many times more expensive to replace than a DVD burner. They should be a lot more reliable, given no moving parts, the cost, and the hassle of replacement/OS activation/etc.

I've had unusually good luck with HDDs, however those are probably the most likely (and catastrophic) to die unexpectedly (or lose data).

 

[usbdevice]

Crap PSU, mobo, onboard sound, HDD, LCD, alot of optical drives.

 

[djBon2112]

I've gone through (either due to outright death or simply obsoleteness of features) more Motherboards than any other component, so I voted for that. But, overall I've only ever had one mobo, one PSU, one CPU, and a set of RAM go.

 

[Lycidas]

wireless cards in laptops

 

[Proxy]

I have had more kits of RAM go bad than anything else.

 

[Mercuri]

In my old computer, I kept getting I/O errors when attempting to burn CDs, until I underclocked my RAM from 400 to 333 MHz. Some Kingston Value Select, if I recall.

 

[Surly73]

I don't see a spot for "user".

I don't think I've had any of those components outright fail assuming that we're excluding fans.

I guess I'd say most likely to fail is HDDs, out of what's given there. My stuff just seems to run forever until it's so obsolete that it's completely useless.

Oh wait, I did have one HDD which developed a noisy bearing but no data loss replaced via RMA.

 

[xanvincent]

Voted for HDDs, although RAM is a close second. I have had two sets of crucial ballistix go bad, the original set and the replacement. I have close to 3 HDDs that have gone bad (luckily in warranty), that's part of the reason I opted for SSD.

 

[-Sn1PeR-]

I voted for PSUs, but I have had good luck ever since I started buying high quality ones and running everything on UPS. Cheap PSU's are just not worth it.