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Why such high failure rates?

Relative

Relative

Relative

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Joined
20 Jul 2006
Posts
85
Perhaps I've been unlucky over the years, but it seems to me that the two components that have the highest rate of failure are the HDD and graphics cards. I can understand HDD because of their moving parts. However, I can't understand why graphics cards are like this. They are essentially smaller computers with a small motherboard, dedicated memory, and its own processing unit. Why would we have lower standards for graphics cards when we have much higher standards regarding the components that make up the rest of a PC?
 
Your experience differs to mine, then. PSUs and mobos are the only things I've ever had fail.

Occasionally one of the OcUK staff comment on their much wider experience of component returns. I think one of the posts I read on this suggested that memory modules had a failure rate higher than I'd have expected, but I can't quite recall.
 
I don't know how true this is but I always thought that it was the memory chips on the back on the card that normally were the first to go. Apart from a back plate on some models there isn't usually much provided in the way of cooling at all.
 
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Ive had:

faulty DDR2, a 780GTX VRAM die on me after 3 days, a Old school IDE drive 80gb flaked out with a huge click and thats about it tbh.

Also a Radeon 9800XT dies on me after about 3 years... other than that nothing ever faulty just upgraded...
 
I find new hard drives are far less reliable than the old small capacity ones. The 40GB IDE drive in this pc (work) is showing 50,350 hours power on time and is still going strong *looks for wood to touch*

Been lucky with RAM and GPUs, motherboards and PSUs less so, but I've had literally thousands of PCs in my care over the years
 
Relative said:
Perhaps I've been unlucky over the years, but it seems to me that the two components that have the highest rate of failure are the HDD and graphics cards. I can understand HDD because of their moving parts. However, I can't understand why graphics cards are like this. They are essentially smaller computers with a small motherboard, dedicated memory, and its own processing unit. Why would we have lower standards for graphics cards when we have much higher standards regarding the components that make up the rest of a PC?
Click to expand...

Do you use any ESD protection when working on your PC's ?
 
Never had much luck with graphics cards either, in the last three and a half years I have had all of these cards and one motherboard die on me.

BFG 8800gtx, dead

Sparkle GTX275, dead

BFG GTX280 OC, dead

Assus Striker II motherboard, , So cool the guys on the Asus tech forums gave it it's own name S.S.D.S, Striker Sudden Death Syndrome.Allthough mine only had a mild attack only 2 of the dimm slots failed

BFG GTX280 OC2, Stiill works but randomly locks up, still useing it as my spare card)

Powercolor Eyefinity 6 5870 2gb, fualty fan curently waiting a replacment
 
Graphics cards seem pretty reliable in my experience. Lost count how many hard disks have failed. Cheap PSU can be problematic.

Remember heat will kill components so good air flow is key.
 
Heat, its really that simple, the hotter the component, the more stuff in a small area, the higher failure rate chance it has, most components are sub 2% failure rates, infact most are below 1%, by quite a long way.

A normal mobo is, however big they are, with not a huge amount of traces, and they generally mostly power a 50-100W cpu, and 20-30W of memory and thats the biggest part if its job.

A GPU is, these days, up to 300W, in a hugely smaller area, with a much lower profile/smaller and with much less airflow heatsink than a cpu. a hugely dense pcb of traces in a very tight area.

A GPu is like a mobo, cpu, memory all compacted into 1/3rd the cooling capacity, 1/4 of the space and uses 2-3 times the amount of power.
 
strumpusplunket said:
Does anyone actually use ESD protection?

I try to remember to touch a radiator to ground myself before starting, but that's it, even if I'm rebuilding an entire rig over an hour or so.
Click to expand...

Yeah I do , but then again Iam an Electronic engineer and
have spent a few years fixing electronic devices and understand how they work
 
Bodom said:
Never had much luck with graphics cards either, in the last three and a half years I have had all of these cards and one motherboard die on me.

BFG 8800gtx, dead

Sparkle GTX275, dead

BFG GTX280 OC, dead

Assus Striker II motherboard, , So cool the guys on the Asus tech forums gave it it's own name S.S.D.S, Striker Sudden Death Syndrome.Allthough mine only had a mild attack only 2 of the dimm slots failed

BFG GTX280 OC2, Stiill works but randomly locks up, still useing it as my spare card)

Powercolor Eyefinity 6 5870 2gb, fualty fan curently waiting a replacment
Click to expand...

3 of those are BFG tho - as I've been saying for awhile for some strange reason their 8 series and higher cards have a hugely higher chance of failure than other makes - not sure why as they are all off the same production line and rebadged - unless conditions i.e. humidity at their storage/transit facilities somehow exacerbated the bga solder issues tho that seems rather a stretch.
 
lurkio said:
Yeah I do , but then again Iam an Electronic engineer and
have spent a few years fixing electronic devices and understand how they work
Click to expand...

So in your opinion, as an engineer, ESD is a genuine danger when building PCs? I've heard a lot of people say it's an over-hyped issue, but I'd be interested to get a more informed opinion.
 
Most failure prone part is actually motherboards, simply because so many things can go wrong. Then again, places that build systems count a motherboard as a failure if any single component fails where as most home users would simply work around a dead sata port for instance.
 
lol I am always worried about ESD that everytime I move slightly I touch the heater when working on the innards.

But failure wise Maxtor Hard Drives. 160GB's and Fujitsu 20 or 40gb the one fujisu got sued for.

gigabyte GA-EP35 1 DIMM slot failed.

ECS motherboard socket A
 
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I've had many* external HDDs fail on me and one gpu (ATI 9800 Pro).

*Well, 3 and one of those was actually a power problem so I ripped it out of the case and banged it in as a internal in my rig.
 
strumpusplunket said:
So in your opinion, as an engineer, ESD is a genuine danger when building PCs? I've heard a lot of people say it's an over-hyped issue, but I'd be interested to get a more informed opinion.
Click to expand...

Yes it is a danger when building any system that uses electronic components
that are sensitive to ESD

Now dont get me wrong , ESD damage can be subtle and it can take a while
to manifest itself , it is not like your PC will explode if you dont use protection ..

BUT if damage occurs it might take a second or could take days / months / years for a device to fail for no apparent reason.

For example the Electronics company I currently work for spend on average
about 50,000 per year on ESD related stuff , anyone know a company that would waste that much money on something not needed in these harsh economic times?

A guy got fired last week for failing to follow ESD precautions .. they take it that seriously

You could heed my advice or listen to others who don't work in Electronics
industry for a living ...
 
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