January Poll

[homer]

my onboard SoundMax sound card died, their pieces of junk. also i had 2 maxtor harddrives die on me. one died within two weeks of using it, then its replacement died after about a month.

[quaxo]

My first drive was 40MB, that was a Maxtor. Added 80MB Maxtor. Replaced it with a 345MB Maxtor. Then a 1.2GB Seagate (which died). Seagate replaced it under warranty. Then a 4.6GB Seagate. Then 40GB Western Digital, 80GB WD, and 180GB WD.

I also have an external 250GB Maxtor.

That one Seagate is the only one that really died. The other ones were just too small over time or just got old. I've got a paper thin keychain flash drive that's bigger than most of those 

[Emiel]

My first hardware failure was a floppy drive. It was an assignment from school; I had to remove a broken floppy drive and replace it. It took me 5 days to complete the assignment.  The floppy drive wasn't working, the cables weren't connected properly, and more of that crap. I thought: man if I'm EVER going to complete this assignment, I'll throw a party. 

[ultimatum]

Hahahah, jokes!!! I never had to remove any computer parts in my school no matter what computer course you take. Lucky you!

[Zylstra]

I think I am the only one taking care of the computers at my school now, which is kind of upsetting...
I keep thinking I need to ask the tech guy for that dang Windows XP pre-settings applied customized disc...

[Sid]

Now that I think about it... I have had an LCD Monitor stop working, it was the power inverter inside it... it burned out, and now, a dead monitor is sitting up in the closet at my dads

I got one on ebay, and it worked fine until one day it kinda cut off and on a bit, then never displayed video again...I off loaded it at a friends house

[Zylstra]

Now that I think about it... I have had an LCD Monitor stop working, it was the power inverter inside it... it burned out, and now, a dead monitor is sitting up in the closet at my dads

I got one on ebay, and it worked fine until one day it kinda cut off and on a bit, then never displayed video again...I off loaded it at a friends house

I guess you can repair them yourself, but you need to find an inverter board (eBay!)
I thought about it, but I wasnt about to have it quit on me again.

[lilies34]

i've experienced lots of hardware problems in the most critical times like when i have projects to pass the next day or something.  it's really frustrating.
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CRM software

[Kando]

I have had hard drives fail, just did a complete reinstall of my daughter's computer this past weekend. CD-roms have decided not to read or spin, floppy drives refuse to see that the floppy in them is already formated. LCD's have had their backlight burn out, had pixels die, CRTs that went all shades of only one color. Mice and keyboards untold have given up the ghost at the worst possible moments. Adapter plugs on laptops have had better things to do than move the charge from the plug to the battery. Motherboards, laptop and desktop, have blown in one way or another and are taking up space on my rack. Raid cards, video cards, modems, usb and firewire cards have stopped working.

I think that about covers my tales of woe.

[neljan]

I built my PC myself (with my bear hands haha) about a year ago now & after about 2 months my Seagate HD died. I lost everything, kids photo's the lot

I had the choice of returning it to either Seagate directly or the retailer, so I chose Seagate, but gave up halfway through the online process when I saw how I was requested to package it (joke). Anyway, I decide instead to return it to the retailer & about a week later I get my replacement. Then, about another week later, I got another one... from Seagate! RESULT!

Could say it's an advance on my next HD death...

[neljan]

I have had hard drives fail, just did a complete reinstall of my daughter's computer this past weekend. CD-roms have decided not to read or spin, floppy drives refuse to see that the floppy in them is already formated. LCD's have had their backlight burn out, had pixels die, CRTs that went all shades of only one color. Mice and keyboards untold have given up the ghost at the worst possible moments. Adapter plugs on laptops have had better things to do than move the charge from the plug to the battery. Motherboards, laptop and desktop, have blown in one way or another and are taking up space on my rack. Raid cards, video cards, modems, usb and firewire cards have stopped working.

I think that about covers my tales of woe.

I feel for you buddy...

[Sid]

5 days

 !!!

What else did you have to do?!

[DDRAMbo]

we have two pc's networked, with a large hdd in each. I use a sychronizer app (visa-versa pro, awesome) to make sure that important files are duped on both, and backup regularly. I've also partitioned the drives, and I make sure the important data, pictures, bookmarks, etc. is stored on a seperate partition from the OS. that's the only way to go because sometime, somehow, when you least expect it, you're GOING to have some kind of hardware meltdown. but the data on your hdd is the most important thing to be concerned about. I've always used Maxtor; only one failed after 3+ years of very heavy use. I don't consider that a true 'failure' though, but expected failure. a true failure would be after less than a year of use. I've heard so many horror stories from people with other brands that I don't think I would trust another brand. and why should I? 

[neljan]

I've also partitioned the drives, and I make sure the important data, pictures, bookmarks, etc. is stored on a seperate partition from the OS.

Great idea, I'm gonna look into doing this myself. I have 2 HD's so I might just see if there's a way of automatically copying certain files from HD (with the OS installed) to the other.

Thanks

[homer]

I built my PC myself (with my bear hands haha)

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