Time to give up on the dream?

[Captain Kirk]

I think my luck with PC building is in the pits right now. Two systems ago, the rig I was building had a DOA motherboard. It took several RMAs to get that system running 100%. One system ago, I had a sound card and a power supply fail. The former just died - no lights, no detection, nadda - the latter blew its magic smoke out, literally. This last system (specs in my sig) has had its share of stability issues. Every time I think I have it sorted out and running good, it turns around and starts cluster crashing on me. I came back from a holiday vacation to find that a couple case fans were on their way out...

I just find it sad that an old - assembled in Texas! - P3 Dell I have is still running strong, when I have all these custom PCs suffering from one ailment or another. I like to think I take care in assembling my rigs; nice workspace, anti-static wrist bands, good tools, decent parts, etc. Has anyone else had similar experiences in the last few systems they've put together? Any tips for better resiliency? I enjoy the process, but there's nothing more disheartening than watching something you put blood, sweat, and tears into misbehaving so badly .

I figure for this last system, I might load a clean copy of 7 and see where that gets me. Failing that, I guess it's new mobo time as I can't quite afford a whole new rig (yet ).

 

[engiNURD]

My oldest custom built PC that I have yet to sell is still running strong. It's a Pentium MMX 200Mhz running Win98se w/ 256MB of EDO RAM, a TNT2 PCI vidcard, a 10GB 5400RPM Caviar, and a 4x CD Burner. It's gone through several PSUs, though, lol. I don't remember the original parts, but the core of the system remained the same. I think thats the 2nd vidcard and 3rd HDD. Maybe the RAM was half that at first, and I know it originally had a 24x CD-ROM instead of the burner, hehehe. Oh, and it was originally running Win95. I've sold most of my old systems, though.

Overall, I guess I've had good luck with my systems. They're all running stable and rarely have issues. I used to RMA HDDs a lot until I got a UPS, lol. Within the past few years, I rarely get any DOA items (especially since I stopped shopping at Fry's for mobos, lol) and I've only had to RMA a few items. My avg RMA/failure rate is 7% in the Core2 era. I have a long hand-me-down chain that I keep rather up to date, so I go through a LOT of parts (actually too many parts, hehe). Though, since I now sell my old stuff, I rarely keep a system in service longer than 3 yrs. My oldest system that gets used on a daily basis is 4yrs old, and its been stable ever since I built it aside from the RAM failing once. Also note that all the systems get partial upgrades over the years, so they don't really stay the same throughout their "lifetime."

 

[gwarren007]

I pick parts that I can see surviving 5 years, even though I know I won't have them that long, and I pass them down to family as I need to. Many are still going strong, some need a little tlc.

The dell P3's in the little cases are tough units, most of the P4's that dell had didn't fare as well.

 

[Shalafi]

hardware will fail eventually, that's a given, i don't see why you're surprised, although that is some rather bad luck . . . .

 

[engiNURD]

Yah, most (98%) of my 5+ yr old systems were still running strong when I sold them (typically sold just the mobo/cpu/ram as cheap combos over the last couple yrs).

... most of the P4's that dell had didn't fare as well.

... and it was mainly because of the bad capacitor issues from that time period -- so many other components from that era that used the faulty fuhjyyu caps were also notorious for high failure rates when exposed to high heat for prolonged periods.