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Why such high failure rates?

ESD IS a problem

why on earth anyone wouldn't wear a £2 strap when building a £1,000 PC is beyond me. Even if they don't believe in the risks, why take the chance?
 
I have had a WD 500 Gb Caviar Blue die on me, but the RMA was so pleasant, I had a new HD and then I send off my defective drive.

I think it's worth checking out RMA and warranty policies before buying any component to be honest.
 
lurkio said:
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 ...
Click to expand...

Yup, this guy knows what he's talking about. When you "zap" a component, you don't see sparks, you don't see fizzing, you don't feel anything, but the damage is done.

Static can "build up" virtually instantly.... just from moving your arm or putting down a screwdriver, so touching the case occasionally really isn't good enough.

To answer the original question: you've pretty much already answered it. A graphics card is like a miniture computer all on it's own, there are so many more things that can go wrong compared to a cpu or a stick of ram.
 
Had a few failures.

8400GS died after a year (probably fixable with oven trick)
ATI 1950 Pro, not dead but definatly on the way out
2 sets of OCZ DDR3 Platinums failed, each within 6 months
OCZ Modstream powersupply completly stopped working in 4 months, no smoke etc.
A Phillips optical drive also died about a year into it's life :)

Because PC's nowday's have so many components, I am sure most people on here have had at least one failure.
 
Had a PC since 97 and have upgraded numerous times so as to stay with a pretty high end comp.

Antec Truepower 500W power supply
BFG 8800GTXOC2

And that's it so can't really complain. The power supply earned it's living so no complaints about that dying. The graphics card went after about 3 years so shouldn't really complain but it cost a packet at the time so i was a bit peeved about it i suppose.
I have actually stripped it down and am going to try the oven trick but am going to wait till the mrs is out for the day so i can avoid an ear bending for stinking the place out.
:D
 
lurkio said:
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 ...
Click to expand...

Firstly, I'm not saying you, but plenty of people work in industrys others don't, and yet still know smeg all about said industry.

Secondly, yes, millions of companies waste money on things they don't need, and thirdly the often used ESD really is a problem, it won't kill anything straight away but when something dies years later it COULD have been ESD.

Its a weak weak weak argument, essentially anything that dies could die for any reason, most of the time you won't know exactly which transistor fails, or which copper trace burnt, or was mislaid to thin in one area and eventually fails, or a capacitor stops working.... whatever.

By your method of diagnosing ESD< any component that ever dies could die due to ESD.

Thats life, and yes, ESD has been built into a myth, true or not, I've yet to see a single component be confirmed after RMA as dying from ESD, though Asus/most other companies don't bother testing most stuff they get back, it doesn't work, it goes in the bin.

Its cheaper to send out thousands of boards than to employ thousands of people to test every broken mobo extensively in most cases.

But the fact I never, ever see a statistic in ESD arguments, its ALWAYS the line of "it could die days, weeks, months later and you won't even know it was the ESD that killed it", is so so generic, and weak that I simply won't accept that as an argument.

Come at me with a stat, and explanation, a testing and proving of parts dying from ESD and thats fine, a generic line that proves entirely nothing, nope.

Considering how FEW things die and how 99% of "enthusiasts" put next to zero effort into electrostatic protection, you can pretty much discount it as a problem.

I've seen MANY people who put pictures of their kit on the net, lay it all out on carpets, walk around on carpets, put their comps together and have no issues.
 
ESD has always been a concern of mine. And while I don't use the 'proper' precautions I think I'm good. I always wear a pair of rubber gloves and always make sure I'm grounded by touching the case at all times. Keeping contact with the case has become a habit over the years.

At this time of year here, conditions are prime for ESD. Furnace on, etc. I can literally just twist my foot and get a charge that iritates my finger tip on discharge. The metal scroll wheel on my G9 mouse just loves to act as conduit to ground, usually sending the charge to my MB where I get the USB disconnect and the reconnect sound.

As conditions are prime now, as I have done in the past, I put on my gloves, run around tring to get a charge and then touch something trying to get a discharge. Nothing, that I can feel or hear anyway. Still though when working on a PC I keep myself grounded.

Another benefit of the gloves are no fingerprints. I despise fingerprints and tarnish in the form of fingerprints on my components. I will not touch any component with a bare hand.

But yes, I am shocked by the number of enthsuiast who handle their components like a loaf of bread and don't seem to have issues, at least right off. I do beleive though that there is damage done and will always take my usual precautions.
 
Dead stuff for me? Graphics cards first, had a good half dozen die on me.

Also memory likes to kill itself in my presence, normally a single stick refuses to work suddenly.

I've also lost a couple of PSUs, three or four motherboards, and a few hard drives.
 
Worst for me are the recent influx of portable hard drives. I've had two fail on me, with little or no use and know loads of people who've had problems with them.

With graphics cards I've had no problems at all, apart from a Geforce 4 Ti and Geforce 4 MX card that failed, but that was ages ago.

Considering the huge size, complexity, power usage and heat production in modern GPUs, I'm suprised they are as reliable as they are.
 
drunkenmaster said:
Firstly, I'm not saying you, but plenty of people work in industrys others don't, and yet still know smeg all about said industry.

Secondly, yes, millions of companies waste money on things they don't need, and thirdly the often used ESD really is a problem, it won't kill anything straight away but when something dies years later it COULD have been ESD.

Its a weak weak weak argument, essentially anything that dies could die for any reason, most of the time you won't know exactly which transistor fails, or which copper trace burnt, or was mislaid to thin in one area and eventually fails, or a capacitor stops working.... whatever.

By your method of diagnosing ESD< any component that ever dies could die due to ESD.

Thats life, and yes, ESD has been built into a myth, true or not, I've yet to see a single component be confirmed after RMA as dying from ESD, though Asus/most other companies don't bother testing most stuff they get back, it doesn't work, it goes in the bin.

Its cheaper to send out thousands of boards than to employ thousands of people to test every broken mobo extensively in most cases.

But the fact I never, ever see a statistic in ESD arguments, its ALWAYS the line of "it could die days, weeks, months later and you won't even know it was the ESD that killed it", is so so generic, and weak that I simply won't accept that as an argument.

Come at me with a stat, and explanation, a testing and proving of parts dying from ESD and thats fine, a generic line that proves entirely nothing, nope.

Considering how FEW things die and how 99% of "enthusiasts" put next to zero effort into electrostatic protection, you can pretty much discount it as a problem.

I've seen MANY people who put pictures of their kit on the net, lay it all out on carpets, walk around on carpets, put their comps together and have no issues.
Click to expand...

I never stated every failure was ESD related just saying it could be a cause in some

Personally I would not risk a £400 GFX card on chance , I try to mimise the risks , so I handle with care

I take it you have studied electronics at some point?

I cannot be bothered trying to explain stuff such as how companies cut chips apart and stick them under microscopes to examine the innards to deduce what went wrong. (its called failure analysis)

There is plenty of stuff you can read on the net to understand why it is important it is to observe ESD precautions when handling ESD sensitive devices. No point me trying to spell it out here

basic understanding
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/protecting-electronic-components-from-dreaded-stat.html

http://www.electronics-radio.com/ar...iques/electro-static-discharge/esd-basics.php
 
Last edited:
only thing thats died on me in 10 years was my OCZ Vertex LE 100GB, RMA'd it via OCuK for a nice and fast 1 month + 4 days turn around :(
 
lurkio said:
I never stated every failure was ESD related just saying it could be a cause in some

Personally I would not risk a £400 GFX card on chance , I try to mimise the risks , so I handle with care

I take it you have studied electronics at some point?

I cannot be bothered trying to explain stuff such as how companies cut chips apart and stick them under microscopes to examine the innards to deduce what went wrong. (its called failure analysis)

There is plenty of stuff you can read on the net to understand why it is important it is to observe ESD precautions when handling ESD sensitive devices. No point me trying to spell it out here

basic understanding
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/protecting-electronic-components-from-dreaded-stat.html

http://www.electronics-radio.com/ar...iques/electro-static-discharge/esd-basics.php
Click to expand...

Again both warn against the potential danger, without stating how often components do die from ESD, with the general mythical knowledge, the literally potential reasons ESD could cause damage, but entirely no proof it actually does cause damage, at all, anywhere.

There are ENTIRE INDUSTRIES based on fear of things and buying some cheapo device to prevent it, and they are almost all based on hearsay, and statements like " anything you've ever had die for seemingly no reason COULD have been down to ESD".

Again, this is not proof, or even close to a good argument, neither did I suggest you did say things die of ESD. That was my ENTIRE point, you didn't say it did cause damage, you said essentially anything that dies, ever, COULD be ESD. You, without proof of any kind added the danger that every failing electronic component you've ever owned could have been down to ESD.

Did your gpu die because it overheated after the fan failed, maybe, maybe it was ESD, repeat for every single failure.

The way you've phrased it, and more importantly the way almost every single source about ESD phrases it is to put the idea in your mind, with not a single shred of evidence, that anything that ever died(and almost everyone in the western world, and most of the 3rd world these days has had multiple electronic devices fail) COULD be down to ESD.

THeres now an entire industry selling products to almost everyone to prevent deaths that no one has proven occurs.

Yes, people do failure analysis, as said, its rare to bother with most parts, and yet with all the failure analysis that goes on both articles you linked couldn't come up with a single statistic? THe world is statistics mad, every article for any other subject will throw statistics and numbers of failed parts for what reasons, yet ESD, no just the veiled threat that if you don't use ESD protection almost anything you've ever touched and has failed might have been due to ESD.

You linked to two more articles that said with a few more words, what you said "ESD could be the reason your mobo seemed DOA, to your memory failing after 15 years".
 
in over 15 years i'v never had a GFX card fail and normaly keep them 2 - 3 years

the only items i'v had fail's with are HDD's maxtor and WD

Plus Motherboard 1 - MSI - 2 ASUS with the msi board the thing shorted out totally and never worked again
The asus was the stiker extreme and the bio would **** up and i'v have to rma it cos you couldn't reset it was a common problem had it twice
 
drunkenmaster said:
Again both warn against the potential danger, without stating how often components do die from ESD, with the general mythical knowledge, the literally potential reasons ESD could cause damage, but entirely no proof it actually does cause damage, at all, anywhere.

There are ENTIRE INDUSTRIES based on fear of things and buying some cheapo device to prevent it, and they are almost all based on hearsay, and statements like " anything you've ever had die for seemingly no reason COULD have been down to ESD".

Again, this is not proof, or even close to a good argument, neither did I suggest you did say things die of ESD. That was my ENTIRE point, you didn't say it did cause damage, you said essentially anything that dies, ever, COULD be ESD. You, without proof of any kind added the danger that every failing electronic component you've ever owned could have been down to ESD.

Did your gpu die because it overheated after the fan failed, maybe, maybe it was ESD, repeat for every single failure.

The way you've phrased it, and more importantly the way almost every single source about ESD phrases it is to put the idea in your mind, with not a single shred of evidence, that anything that ever died(and almost everyone in the western world, and most of the 3rd world these days has had multiple electronic devices fail) COULD be down to ESD.

THeres now an entire industry selling products to almost everyone to prevent deaths that no one has proven occurs.

Yes, people do failure analysis, as said, its rare to bother with most parts, and yet with all the failure analysis that goes on both articles you linked couldn't come up with a single statistic? THe world is statistics mad, every article for any other subject will throw statistics and numbers of failed parts for what reasons, yet ESD, no just the veiled threat that if you don't use ESD protection almost anything you've ever touched and has failed might have been due to ESD.

You linked to two more articles that said with a few more words, what you said "ESD could be the reason your mobo seemed DOA, to your memory failing after 15 years".
Click to expand...

Ok you got me , I invented the whole thing , the fear of ESD was my creation , Iam behind it all and I have shares in ESD protection supply companies ,
If it wasn't for you pesky kids ....... grrr

Some people dont believe in Dinosaurs , you dont want to believe that ESD can damage electronic componts its your choice

No further troll feeding will occur
 
My feelings about why graphics cards fail is because they run hot which in itself is not easy on components but also the temperature difference between full load and idle can be +50c and the temp change can happen quite quickly so is not easy on things like solder joints which can crack. And also graphics cards when playing games they are running flat out which i'd imagine would also put strain on the components.
 
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