Design Weaknesses - by Brand

[golemmaster]

A few that come to mind....

Brand weaknesses:
Gateway - hinges and attachment to body. Thin cast aluminum that cracks and breaks. Entire lower body is one piece - too thin/no room to JBweld .
HP/Compaq - older models: DC jack flimsy. newer: overheat/under-cooled and death, or other sudden unexplained death. See also recent HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement .
Dell - annoying proprietary DC jack. some older models: screen/lid body weak at hinges, lid cracks.

Clevo /whitebox OEM for many brands like Alienware - under-cooled video cards that cook themselves. Hard to find and expensive to replace.

[NxB]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

HP/Compaq - DV6000 and up. Anything with a Turion and a glossy screen. - Bad BGA issues. Reflow the GPU and/or chipset under the wifi. That is what the "service" enhancement is all about. Many people run their laptops on blankets or let dust accumulate and the laptops overheat to the point of BGA failure, Failures on the older square ones are too numerous to list.

Thinkpads - Track point failure. Chipset failures, especially in T42 series. Loose SMD coils in the VRM causing the laptop to "huff" and "puff" as it tries to power on. Cold solder on memory slots causing ram to error or not detect at all.

Toshiba - DC Jack in the worst possible spot, always breaks.

Sony - Difficult disassembly, expensive parts. Dual bulb LCDs.

[ratdude747]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

asus eee-pc:

iffy quality in general- my 1000h died of a dead card reader, the 1000he got rma'd (but sent back un-fixed) becuse the plastic piece fell out of a usb port. fixed by bending down the contacts.

edit- both died within a few months

question: why do eee-pcs at best buy have specs that are incorrect? see it this way

1000h-
4400 mah battery- should be 6600
no bluetooth- should have bluetooth
160gb hd instead of stock 80

1000he-
6600 mah battery- should be 8800 (or something like that)
no bluetooth- should have bluetooth
n270 cpu- should have n280 cpu

did i get scammed??????

[NxB]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

Best buy lies on a lot of stuff, who knows. Just solder in a new USB port.

[mockingbird]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

Incorrect. They all share some nVidia MCP either 61xx or 71xx which have some kind of defect.

nVidia is footing the bill for this one.

You might be right though it could be the BGA soldering because I have seen people on eBay claiming to be able to fix nVidia MCP failures.

HP/Compaq - DV6000 and up. Anything with a Turion and a glossy screen. - Bad BGA issues. Reflow the GPU and/or chipset under the wifi. That is what the "service" enhancement is all about. Many people run their laptops on blankets or let dust accumulate and the laptops overheat to the point of BGA failure, Failures on the older square ones are too numerous to list.

Thinkpads - Track point failure. Chipset failures, especially in T42 series. Loose SMD coils in the VRM causing the laptop to "huff" and "puff" as it tries to power on. Cold solder on memory slots causing ram to error or not detect at all.

Toshiba - DC Jack in the worst possible spot, always breaks.

Sony - Difficult disassembly, expensive parts. Dual bulb LCDs.

[ratdude747]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

Best buy lies on a lot of stuff, who knows. Just solder in a new USB port.

will do when the warranty is out on it.

[NxB]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

nVidia is footing the bill for this one.

Not always. It seems to be happening to more laptops than they admit. There is a recall out though. Maybe not *CAUSED* by overheating but like with Xbox360s it seems to exacerbate the problem. Some come back forever, some come back for 2 weeks. We can't really tell what the customer does with it when they take it home.

[mockingbird]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

Not always. It seems to be happening to more laptops than they admit. There is a recall out though. Maybe not *CAUSED* by overheating but like with Xbox360s it seems to exacerbate the problem. Some come back forever, some come back for 2 weeks. We can't really tell what the customer does with it when they take it home.

Someone on the news last night said something like "Bankruptcy for the poor and bailouts for the rich".

I should have said nVidia is losing money by paying off MFGs for this but yea I totally agree, I'd be surprised if the savings were passed on even 25% of the time.

How they avoided a class action lawsuit on defective 6xxx 7xxx 8xxx and 9xxx is nothing short of a mystery.

My first card was a RivaTNT but ever since they lost their mind I stopped buying their brute-force non-elegant hardware.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

As I understand it's not a BGA problem but something mechanically similar.
It's a bonding issue between the layers than make up the substrate.
IOW the PCB layers the silicon chip is mounted in separate.

People that ending up with the bad parts in pre-built machines [mostly in laptops] are suing HP and Dell and so forth. When the bill is in they might seek damages from nVidia and if they do nVidia may not survive.
.

[NxB]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

I've bought ATI/AMD for a while now. Guess it was a good choice. Last card I had was a GF4 TI4600, it still works.
I never liked HP/Compaq laptop offerings either. Shiny shitboxes.

I really wonder how microsoft has not been sued for the Xbox360 issues. They still have not learned.

[hardwareguy]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

Clevo D500x series (a P4 desktop replacement that was sold by Sager and Alienware): Bad plastics in the screen housing.

HP DV9000 series: various issues, including bad BGAs, defective wireless modules with subsequent PCIe failure (Broadcom chipsets only) and of course, screen housing failure

[mockingbird]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

People that ending up with the bad parts in pre-built machines [mostly in laptops] are suing HP and Dell and so forth. When the bill is in they might seek damages from nVidia and if they do nVidia may not survive.

I think Dell mostly got away on this one because AFAIK they never sold laptops with nVidia MCPs. The farthest I've seen them stray from Intel was the AMD Vostros with the Turion/ATI MCPs but I've one and it was actually pretty good.

As a safe bet, stay away from ALL HP DV2000s and DV9000s based on nVidia MCPs. I'm always looking on eBay for deals and I pity those poor suckers that have bidding frenzies on seemingly bargain-basement nVidia MCP based lappies.

I never liked HP/Compaq laptop offerings either.

HP/CPQ were always my favourite choices. I mean come on, their older stuff is built like tanks. A few weeks ago I found a "Notebook 100" (Similar to Armada 100) in the trash. Even their newer stuff is pretty impressive like Evo N600 (P3), N610 (P4), etc... They're a pleasure to take apart and put back together which is not surprising since they inherited Digital's engineers when they bought them out.

I've only used their new G60 series but have not tried to take it apart. It did not look flimsy at all. Perhaps a little flashy and cheap, but what do you expect.

Dell has always been my enemy since 1999 when I saw their dirty tricks. I'd been reading PC magazine since the 80s and they could never stop extolling the virtues of Dell, and then I started seeing dirty tricks like having MFGs OEM components for them with cheaper parts and then selling them at seemingly face value.

My brother bought an Inspiron 6400/E1525 and this laptop has a well-known problem with the fan subsystem not working correctly. This was wel documented on the communist Dell forums until Dell deleted every trace of that megathread. I posted about it and my posts were deleted with an accompanying email from a Dell moderator claiming that he did it because I used the word "crap" in my email.

Amazingly, somehow, miraculously, his 6400 now works perfectly. It must be a miracle because I know there's a problem, but there must had been something done in their latest bios that somehow castrated the prformance but at the same time prevents the BSOD related overheating.

Two weeks ago I found an old Dell "Dimension" tower with a Radeon 9700pro that someone threw away. It's a 9700Pro "TX" which again, like Is aid before, is an OEM specially made for Dell. The card is very similar to a regular 9700pro but with different placement of the caps. The caps are polys but three of them are bulging.

My father couldn't resist trying it and ran 3Dmark2001 on it with no problems whatsoever (I will still change the caps).

Which reminds me, what rule-of-thumb should you use when going back to electrolytics from polys (Yes, I know I'm a cheap bastard). If the card's caps are say 16v 680uF, should I put double that voltage and uF of a regular cap?

Thanks

[dood]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

mockingbird - Those caps aren't polys, they're electrolytic. Polys don't bulge, and don't have vents. You're just seeing bare can electrolytic caps. Replace with same voltage/uf

[NxB]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

Yea, they are trick caps. I know the evos were nice but besides them everything I've seen from CPQ/hp has been shiny but poorly built. Dell is a commodity laptop, made as cheap as possible. They seem to work OK but I wouldn't buy another one.

[kc8adu]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

mockingbird - Those caps aren't polys, they're electrolytic. Polys don't bulge, and don't have vents. You're just seeing bare can electrolytic caps. Replace with same voltage/uf

some polys have vents(fujitsu fpcap with the solid,hard bung)
but bulging polys are rare.bet those bulging caps say "fz" on them.

[bhvm]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

HP DV series (Dv6000 and up) Used more than 5 of these.


The problems look more like a chain reaction-

1>Insufficient cooling design
2>Nvidia GPUs failing.
3>An infamous 'Fix' by HP to force the fans 100% (BIOS Update) to Solve no.1 and 2.
4>Fan Bearings wear out giving a loud grinding sound Due to 'fix' No. 3.

5> The agitated user bashing up the laptop and buying a better brand >Due to all of above<

Other HP annoyances-
1>DVD writer gets shot (pops tray out suddenly on any movement) in 6 month
2>Battery heats and melts at the 13'th month.

Compaq-
Very hot undersides.

DELL-
1>Proprietary CMOS battery thats more costly than primary battery if buyed from DELL, Cheaper than dust if from ouside.
2> Palmrest heating up more untouchable (HDD under palmrest)

[etecnics]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

i accept that

[shovenose]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

Apple MacBook (the original white ones) - cracking in front edge of palmrest


IMO, HP/Compaq laptops SUCK!

[lti]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

Yes, HP/Compaq laptops suck. Toshiba and HP use the same hardware, so they have the same problems. Everyone hates Dell computers, but they are actually reliable.

My old HP Pavilion ze1210 had the worst cooling system I have ever seen. That computer ran hot enough that you could smell it burning itself up. The CPU fan doesn't start spinning until the CPU temperature reaches 80°C. The CPU and chipset ran so hot that the keyboard got warm. Along with the cooling issues, the BIOS that the computer came from the factory with would not allow Windows to load on a cold boot. Updating the BIOS fixed this problem. Also, HP claims that this computer will support 1GB of RAM, but it won't POST on a cold boot with more than 768MB of RAM. It will load Windows if you turn it on, let it sit for a few minutes, and restart it, just like it did with the buggy BIOS. Finally, there is no working driver for the graphics adapter. The drivers will not allow any program using 3D graphics to run. Depending on the driver version, you will either get a BSOD or a "runtime error at line 0" message.

All laptops that have a Synaptics touchpad have to have the touchpad replaced regularly. First, the buttons stop working. Shortly after the buttons stop working, the cursor starts jumping around the screen so mush that the touchpad is unusable. Even when they are new, the cursor jumps around the screen randomly. Also, the drivers suck. Their buggy drivers cause the mouse to suddenly decide that it is a touchscreen panel (the position of the cursor on the screen is related to the position of your finger on the touchpad) or that the movement and scrolling areas should be swapped. Eventually, the drivers crash, preventing you from scrolling and placing a 100% load on one CPU core.

My old Gateway Solo 2500 is made entirely of plastic, and that plastic keeps cracking. Soon, there will be more JB Weld than plastic. Also, the fan never stops running once the CPU gets hot enough for the fan to start.

[shovenose]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

Interesting, I have not had any issues with Synaptics touch pads. Personally I think most Dell stuff is pretty good.