Design Weaknesses - by Brand

[nucleus]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

Many MSI models have bad hinges that breaks, and fan gets noisy when dust came in.

Every HP/Compaq I can remember gets hot very quickly

[image079]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

HP Pavillion dv6000, dv67000. To try to make the laptop thin, they made the plastic cover of the lcd screen very thin also. There is too much flex in the screen.
Also, the plastic bezel on the front of the screen is very poorly designed. The top edge of it sits right on the lcd ribbon tapes. Just a small bump, and you start to get the dreaded, coloured vertical lines.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

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.

Sounds more like something I expect with Soyo.

Maybe this is also why Soyo went under. My Soyo SY-K7VTA-B motherboard required a BIOS flash just to work right!

The Soyo had these problems until I flashed the BIOS:

1. Freezes at idle. (This made me furious, I almost sent the motherboard and Athlon 900 Mhz socket 462 processor back!)

2. If I change the multiplier, the board's female voice will bitch at me about the processor not being seated properly.
----------------

At least the Soyo SY-K7VTA-B didn't have GSC, Sacon, Chhsi or Lelon caps.
The Wendells lasted for at least about 6 years before I saw a minor bulge on one next to the ATX power connector.

Also sounds like it could be the BIOS undervolting the VDIMM.

And...

I forgot about the Deer DR-250ATX PSU that I also had with it.


The board didn't like low temps, during a morning with the room temp at around 35 F, as soon as I turned it on, I get a lady's voice bitching about the video card not being seated properly.

I think the culprit was more related to the Deer PSU than the board caps, because when I opened up the Deer PSU after it was sitting for a while, it looked in bad shape, had dark spots on the PCB!

[razor_amd]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

DELL M5030, M5010, M5110, M5040...

Most of them have a problem with Northbridge which is usually an AMD 216-0752001 chip.
I have reballed and reflowed a ton of these laptops.
I am a computer salesman also, and almost 90% of sold DELL M5030 models came back to RMA after 1,5 years from sale date. Warranty for DELL laptops here is standard 3 years and every single repair cannot be charged to a customer until 3 year passes. DELL is sending faulty refurbished boards for exchange, and not one last more than a month.

And almost every other laptop with the AMD chips 216-0752001, 216-0674026,... has the same problem - blank screen after power on. The chips need to be reballed, reflowed or exchanged in order to fix a laptop.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

Compaq-
Very hot undersides.

HP/Compaqs seem to often overheat, even under light loads! Looks like you can forget about games and Linpack!
The sucker overheated even when just running the Windows 7 setup routine! (At least without an external cooler.)

[ben7]

Re: Design Weaknesses - by Brand

HP/Compaqs seem to often overheat, even under light loads! Looks like you can forget about games and Linpack!
The sucker overheated even when just running the Windows 7 setup routine! (At least without an external cooler.)

I have a newer HP DV6 with quad core AMD CPU. When idling, the air coming out of the fan vent is barely warm. When stress testing, it gets warm, but nowhere near burning hot - seems like it has better cooling than its predecessor, the DV6000.

I agree with the compaqs though :P