hardware in general - reliability and your view on it

[isochar]

I started a Automobile reliability topic in the soap box for those of you interested

[Gurm]

On reliability, I'll reiterate:

Mobo: ASUS, ASUS, ASUS. ABIT is a nice board, I'm currently using one. But they have a high failure rate. ASUS doesn't. Not as flashy, not as many features, but they NEVER fail.

CD/CDR/CDRW: Plextor, Plextor, Plextor. They NEVER fail. They're godlike in their goodness and wonderfulness.

HDD: IBM is now the only choice (well, Western Digital but they use IBM stuff) for desktops. Seagate is an option on the high end (as well as WD, since they have their own components for high end).

Sound: Do we have an option? The Live! is a perfectly "reliable" card. The fact that it SUCKS is rather secondary to the fact that there are no other options at the moment.

NIC: 3Com. Other cards will leave you hanging in certain circumstances.

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Lawlaw]

Here's my list (based on reliability):

MB: Asus

HD: Quantum

RAM: Generic PC133 with good chips like Infineon or Micron

DVD: Panasonic or Hitachi

CDRW: Yamaha or Plextor

Scanner: Epson

Printer: Epson

Case/Power Supply: Antec or Enermax

Monitor: Samsung or Mitsubishi, Viewsonic PF795 and PF815 are also good.

NIC: 3Com

Video: 3D Labs

Sound: SB Live...not much choice here

Mouse: Ok...someone mentioned they prefer the mechanical mouse over the MS optical...but I have the MS Intellimouse w/ intelli-eye (I think it came out before the explorer), basically the original ergo mouse fitted with the optical stuff. Much better construction than shit they are selling now.

[Gurm]

I'm waiting for an Intellimouse Pro with Intellieye. The shape of the Pro is the best mouse shape for me thus far.

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[DentyCracker]

I will totally NOT recommend Quantum IDE drives, I have seen too many of these fail, I may be making a faulty causal generalization but so be it. With all the sh*t that has been said about Maxtor they have been in *my* experience the most reliable that I have had to use (with the possible exception of the 200 MB SCSIs they used to have back in 1992)

Plextors totally OWN period.
3Coms rock
Hey Himself I have an artec, pretty nice to use but cord too short.
_must_get_optical_dammit. No more cleaning_the_fricking_mouse_every_bloody_minute

[Himself]

Maxtor has a great return policy, a friend bought a 15GB 7200rpm drive, it was noisy as hell, he sent it to maxtor, got a 30GB 5400rpm drive as a replacement, same problem, sent it back, and now he has a 60GB, ATA 100 drive which he is selling for $400 CDN to buy another 15GB drive, probably Maxtor with the deals they have been giving him. Can't beat free upgrades.

I wouldn't buy a Maxtor drive, ever, well, not unless it was a rebadged Quantum. They were very unreliable for me years ago, later versions I've seen are just poor performers, and not so great with an overclocked system, very picky about going over 33MHz, lots of errors. Never, ever had a problem with a Quantum, or an IBM for that matter. Western Digital, not so hot, er actually, very hot and noisy, other drives like ones from Samsung etc, I haven't been near in years, so no idea on those lately, not so great in the past. Never tried a fujitsu drive, they have good prices, I am wary of the unknown factor.

[swr]

<BLOCKQUOTE>
I will totally NOT recommend Quantum IDE drives, I have seen too many of these fail, I may be making a faulty causal generalization but so be it.
</BLOCKQUOTE></P>

Quantum "Fireball". Think about that name for a minute. </P>

[DentyCracker]

Now that I've thought about it, I'll probably start buying IBM drives now that Maxtor has bought Quantum, I'm really scared of Quantum Fireball drives. I don't know if it's rough handling on the way to Jamaica but they have been problematic for me. The one Maxtor that has gone bad for me has been repaired sent back and has been working for over a year since. I don't overclock my FSB, never liked doing that so that wasn't a concern. Btw WinMe (pos) is off my machine, as are those awful ATI beta drivers for the TV Wonder, (no wonder they didn't release them earlier, can't write a driver to save their lives I tell ya).
I suppose that my recommendation on HDs is try what you may and whatever works for you, well - - works for you.
I think it may well depend on your other hardware too.

[fds]

case: Supermicro

motherboard: used to be ASUS, jumped ship to Supermicro when ASUS didn't have an i840-based solution and I'm rather impressed with it

power supply: the one you get with the case

hard drive: Quantum's Atlas series are my favorites

memory: no preference

monitor: Sony if only their high-end
monitors weren't so damn expensive

video card: G400 MAX or G450

network card: doesn't really matter.. It's convenient to get a motherboard with a network adapter onboard - the Intel on my Supermicro works well

other: Pioneer SCSI DVD, SB Live! Platinum 5.1 (still bad in W2k SMP though, but you are going to enjoy the Live! Drive), Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer (nice big mouse, very comfy if a bit sticky)

Helvetia,

I just got rid of my ViewSonic PT775 17" montior that I had for 32 years and no problems with it.

Holy shit! 32 YEARS? Now that's impressive.

[Himself]

Obviously a typo.

[isochar]

Or...

Helvetia is a time-travelling bandit set on screwing up our timeline by bringing technology from the future to the past

[dZeus]

yes.. Please tell us about the "Matrox Millennia" card, that will destroy all the competition in 2058!!!!

Will it have cheese creation capabilities? and what about 8x jam sandwich toasting capabalities? I want those!

[labrador]

Hard drive quality and experience seems to be a floating issue that changes over time.

Western Digital have had their major recalls. The software shop I worked in a few years ago had dozens of caviar drives fail in Gateway machines.

My wife's machine with a 1997 Quantum had sector erosion and is now dead, but two newer Quantums we have owned are reliable so far. I have a friend who does system administration for a large software house in Toronto, and he claims Quantum (as of a few months ago) made the most reliable IDE drives. I'm not sure if he ever sampled IBM drives.

My worst luck with IDE drives is with Fujitsu. I've had bad firmware on delivery, disks that mysteriously stuck in DOS compatibility mode, and a couple of deaths. You can also get some strange formatting and identity problems if you read the jumper advice upside down. Unlike most other makes, you can still use the drive, although in a corrupt way, with bad jumper settings. Fortunately the Fujitsu building was near Toronto airport and I could exchange drives on the way to work. However the exchanges were refurbished units and seemed a little noisy compared to same model dropped off.

One place called "Factory Direct" in Toronto used to advertise refurbs from Fujitsu. They were priced according to number of bad sectors. Less than 10 was the best you could get, and then there was 10 to 100 I believe, and then greater than 100, which was very cheap - about $10. I was waiting to see if the quantities went so high that they might introduce a new way to buy them - perhaps you could bring your own bag and shovel and fill it with hard drives like one would buy gravel.

It looks like some of the past favorites and horrors are changing, and two companies merge, and we might not be able to apply the experiences of a few years ago to now.