🚀 go-pugleaf

borge@iinet.net.au (Borge Pedersen) writes:

>So how many times have you heard of computers that kill - who is
>beating the drum - for what purpose?

Interesting question. The main problem is that the makes of power supplies
can't be trusted to make them work properly as it is. I have seen more
hard disks destroyed by over-heating than anything else over the last 5
years, and the vast majority of them were due to cheap, nasty power supply
fans failing. A BBS I use had its first hardware failure when a power
supply failed. Of my own PCs, the _only_ hardware failures I've ever had
over a decade have been a power supply in my PC, and a VGA monitor which
started smoking due to some electrical fault.

The mention of TV sets makes me all the more suspicious. TV sets are often
kept for decades and work happily. The folks who throw computers together
don't expect them to be used for more than 2 or 3 years and, lo and behold,
many power supplies start failing around that time.

From hundreds of PCs in private and commercial environments, it is clear
that the power supplies are the most unreliable component in many brands,
with an unacceptable number of them failing and frequently causing other
hardware to be destroyed as a result. Any industry which consistently
manufactures its products down to a price with no regard for reliability
has no credibility, can't be trusted, and has only itself to blame when
customers start calling for controls.

--
Craig Macbride	<craig@rmit.edu.au>	URL: http://www.bf.rmit.edu.au/~craigm

"I'm not sure that actually made sense but I'm afraid that if I tried to go
back and figure it out, I would start bleeding from my ears."
- Londo, Babylon 5, "Convictions"