Maker Pro
Maker Pro

Planned Obselescence....A Good Thing?

C

clare at snyder.on.ca

Just sit back and watch the screams when HD is phased into the USA in a
couple of years...and hundreds of millions of televisions go obselete
at once.

FYI....plasma televisions have a dismal repair record.....throwaway
electronics at several thousand dollars a toss.
Yup - some major brands have over 50% failure rate within 5 years.
 
T

Too_Many_Tools

Let's imagine that conversation...

BeanCounter: "Make the product cheaper"
Engineer: "Sure, what do you suggest?"
BeanCounter: "I have no idea. I'm an accountant, not an engineer!"
(at this point everyone at the meeting stops paying attention to the
BeanCounter)

Okay....now let's do it the way it really happens....

CEO: I need a BIGGER bonus...how do we do that?
BeanCounter: "Make the product cheaper?"
Engineer: "Sure, what do you suggest?"
BeanCounter: "I have no idea. I'm an accountant, not an engineer!"
Engineer: "Well based on your cost point we can't do it."
BeanCounter: "How about cheaper labor?"
CEO: Sounds good to me...fire the engineers and outsource it."

The CEO gets his bonus, the Beancounter gets a promotion and the
Engineer is aaking "Do you want fries with that?"

It has happened thousands of times and will happen thousands of times
more.

TMT
 
L

lsmartino

clare ha escrito:
No, there are different "lithium" chemistries, and the Energizer E2
Lithium is a native 1.7 or 1.8 volt cell. AA cells are roughly 3 ah
each, and loose less than 1% per year to self discharge.

Here's a bit of info on 1.5 volt nominal lithium chemistry. From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_battery

Li-CuO Copper oxide 1.5 V 2.4 V
Can operate up to 150 °C. Developed as a replacement of zinc-carbon
and alkaline batteries. "Voltage up" problem, high difference between
open-circuit and nominal voltage. Produced until mid-1990s, replaced
by lithium-iron sulfide. Current use limited.
Li-Cu4O(PO4)2 Copper oxyphosphate
See Li-CuO
Li-CuS Copper sulfide 1.5 V
Li-PbCuS Lead sulfide and copper sulfide 1.5 V 2.2 V
Li-FeS Iron sulfide Propylene carbonate, dioxolane, dimethoxyethane
1.5-1.2 V
"Lithium-iron", "Li/Fe". used as a replacement for alkaline batteries.
See lithium - iron disulfide.
Li-FeS2 Iron disulfide Propylene carbonate, dioxolane, dimethoxyethane
1.6-1.4 V 1.8 V
"Lithium-iron", "Li/Fe". Used in eg. Energizer lithium cells as a
replacement for alkaline zinc-manganese chemistry. Called
"voltage-compatible" lithiums. 2.5 times higher lifetime for high
current discharge regime than alkaline batteries, no advantage for
low-current applications. Low self-discharge, 10 years storage time.
FeS2 is cheap. Some types rechargeable. Cathode often designed as a
paste of iron sulfide powder mixed with powdered graphite. Variant is
Li-CuFeS2.
Li-Bi2Pb2O5 Lead bismuthate 1.5 V 1.8 V
Replacement of silver-oxide batteries, with higher energy density,
lower tendency to leak, and better performance at higher temperatures.
Li-Bi2O3 Bismuth trioxide 1.5 V 2.04 V

The E2 is Lithium Iron DiSulphide.

They have a self protection circuit built in - a self resetting
poly-fuse type apparatus callet a PTC (Positive Temperature
Co-efficient) This also makes it almost impossible to detonate the
battery by attempting to recharge it. The battery is limitted to 2
amps continuous, but can handle short duration higher peaks
significantly higher.
They CAN BE SHIPPED BY NORMAL METHODS INCLUDING MAIL.


You need to learn to do your research before you make statements you
cannot support. You've proven yourself to be a blowhard.

I was mistaken and I admit it, but that doesn´t make me a "blowhard".
Show me in which part of my posts I presented myself as an specialist
in anything. Your post was accurate, but this part was completely
unnecessary.
 
T

Too_Many_Tools

Most companies data isn't worth anything after only a handful of years.

Engineering data is the heart of a business.

Management often forgets that.

Then a competitor eats them alive.

TMT
 
J

James Sweet

And I want to add something about "planned obsolescence" because it
is often misused. If people are choosing to buy cheap, it's hardly
that the manufacturers are making things so they will break. The
consumer often wants that cheaper tv set or VCR.


Rather than planned obsolescence, it's normally more a case of how many
cost reducing corners can they cut and still have it last "long enough".
It's hard to blame the manufactures, they're supplying what the average
consumer is demanding.

If my computer from 1979 had been intended to last forever, it would
have been way out of range in terms of price. Because they'd have to
anticipate how much things would change, and build in enough so upgrading
would be doable. So you'd spend money on potential, rather than spending
money later on a new computer that would beat out what they could
imagine in 1979. And in recent years, it is the consumer who is deciding
to buy a new computer every few years (whether a deliberate decision or
they simply let the manufacturer lead, must vary from person to person.)


There's been various attempts over the years at marketing easily
upgradeable computers, but invariably by the time you were ready to
upgrade, the cost of a new CPU module was a sizable portion of the cost
of a whole new PC, as well as the rest of the major components were
showing their age.
 
C

clare at snyder.on.ca

Not in a domestic environment it aint, because
the ambient temperature varys so much.

I got a bit of a start relatively recently when someone was having
overheating problems with their PC to discover that they were one
of the few in this area who were silly enough to have no form of
cooling whatever, not even a swamp cooler, in an area which can
see 10 days over 40C some summers. We had one just last week
and it got to 44C, and it was like walking into a furnace walking
outside my airconditioned house.


There is no finite number of hours, because the
ambient temp varys so much in domestic situations.

Those who dont have any cooling at all in an area which
can see a week over 40C wont survive the warranty
period and those who have decent air conditioning will
find that the TV lasts long past the warranty period.


In practice that isnt a significant problem with domestic appliances.
Essentially because you dont see many electros in that situation with them.


No they dont on that silly claim about surviving the
warranty fine, but failing immediately after that expires.


Have fun explaining how come not a single electronic device
I have ever owned has died just after the warranty has run out.

And that includes my latest gigantic widescreen TV too.


Pity about the TVs that get left on all the time.

The claim is completely fanciful and those making that sort of
claim have obviously never actually designed a damned thing.

And only the stupidest manufacturer would deliberatly design
their product to die as soon as the warranty has expired
anyway, because the bulk of those who had bought such
a dud wouldnt be buying another from that manufacturer.



Pity the claim was about TESTING, which doesnt happen, like I said.


Like hell it is. Have you actually tried converting
the MTBF of a current hard drive to years ?

The average quality EIDE drive has a published MTBF of 400,000 hours.
That wouild be 45 years on my computer. I've had LOTS that never made
3 years. If they test 1000 drives for 400 hours and get one failure,
they have their MTBF of 400,000 hours - 1 failure in 400,000 hours of
running. They will actually do a larger test sample over a larger time
span Likely 2500 for 500 hours. That gives them 125,000,000 running
hours and if they have 3.125 failures they have a 400,000 hour MTBF.-
but that's how the numbers are arrived at if they are not just using
statistical analysis methods.(predictive failure). Today's hard drives
with S.M.A.R.T. technology can predict their failure date quite
accurately. (using third party software).I just pulled 2 drives from
service because they predicted their own death in less than 60 days.
One was made on the 123rd day of 2003 (seagate), the other the last
day of January 2004 (wd).
Being a WD Caviar retail drive it has a 1 year warranty. If it was a
"distribution" drive, it would have a 3 year warranty. Might have
lasted 2 years - but I don't take a chance on my data.
The Seagate has a 1 year warranty, and was in a computer that only
runs a few hours a week - and lasted less than 3 years.
I used to work for the (then) largest hard drive distributor in
Canada.
 
J

James Sweet

But it's the same reason that I continue to accept and use old
appliances that I can repair myself.
For example I refuse to buy a stove that incorporates a digital
timer/clock; they are virtually unrepairable! Eventually can see
myself, however, ending up with one of those and deliberately
disconnecting the digital timer clock or modifying the stove to use one
my older (saved) clock/timers or just dong away with the timer
altogether.

Why are they virtually unrepairable? The timer/clock modules have only a
handful of parts, and most of them are pretty standard. On top of that,
it's very rare in my experience for them to fail. The one microwave I've
fixed that had a problem with the timer board, it was a cracked solder
joint at a relay and was easy to fix. I've never seen a bad custom IC on
one, not saying it can't happen but it's certainly rare.

I have however seen quite a few of the synchronous motors that used to
drive the mechanical clock/timer assemblies fail.
 
R

Rod Speed

clare at snyder.on.ca wrote
Nokia has used several different battery standards. The 5100-6100
series uses the same battery, in Nicad, NiMh and Lithium flavours.
Other series of phones use different battery configurations.

Yes, primarily as a result of a change to the size and shape of the
phone that meant that the physical format and size of the battery
used with the 5***-6*** series was no longer suitable.
Much more sensible in this regard than Motorola and all the other manufacturers.

That last is going too far.
Something about a northern european mentality - they actually THINK.

Nope. That came about for other reasons.

And some panasonic cordless phones use standard
AA NiMH or NiCad batterys, so it cant have a damned
thing to do with any northern european mentality.

Some cellphone companys actually allow the end user to
update the firmware in the phone. Nokia generally doesnt.
There is no need to charge them outside the ipod if
all you want to do is make the ipod last longer than
the 2 year life of the current non-replaceable battery

Correct. But its quite feasible to replace the battery when it no longer
has an adequate charge retention, you dont have to throw the ipod away.
No problem - they are designed with EXCHANGEABLE
batteries so you can go weeks between charging.

Doesnt explain the fact that you can dismantle the phone fine.

It would have been considerably cheaper to glue the phone
together and still have a removeable back that contains the battery.
Ever try to charge a cellphone battery out in the bush in West Africa?
- where you DO see cell phones miles and miles from any electrical power?

They werent designed for that unusual situation.
The batteries get swapped out in town and recharged there.
You get two with your phone and "bob's your uncle" Just drop
off dead ones and pick up charged ones - pay a small fee.

And you can also replace just the battery and not the entire
phone when the battery no longer holds the charge adequately.

So much for the claim that the manufacturers deliberately force
you to replace the phone when you can just replace the battery.
Also, cell phones are a "vanity item" so there is a large aftermarket
in customized cases for some brands. There are also MANY that
can not be readilly dissassembled beyond removing the battery.

Hardly any dont allow you to replace the battery when that is necessary.
It came VERY close to happening to Aapple.

Not for that reason. Different reason entirely, the same one that sank Commodore.
Just about got Gateway too.

Again, not for that reason.
Might still get HP/Compaq if they don't get their corporate
head out of (A) the sand or (B) their backsides.

Bet it wont.
What happened to half the computer companies
that were in the market as little as 10 years ago?
The majority were micromanaged to death.

Nope, they died for other reasons. In the case of Commodore,
they were never going to survive once the bulk of their market
had moved off to dedicated games consoles.

In the case of DEC, they were never going to survive
once the bulk of the market had moved to PCs.

In the case of IBM, they were never going to survive in the
personal PC market once the vast bulk of the market no
longer needed the security blanket of the IBM logo and
they never had a hope in hell of competing with Taiwan.

 
J

James Sweet

A friend bought a brand new Neptune washer that didn't last a month.
The dealer had to replace it TWICE before he had one that lasted over a
month.


I got one of those for free because the motor controller had failed and
the repair was supposed to cost $400. I got lucky and touching up a few
cracked solder joints fixed it. Another I got I wasn't quite so lucky
with and some of the mosfets had shorted which in turn took out just
about every semi on the board including the big custom chip. They used
underrated triacs on the upper control board as well and I've fixed a
number of those which were burned out by out of spec door lock motors.
 
R

Rod Speed

clare at snyder.on.ca wrote
Because even the way they are built today they are "low cost".

Pity thats true in spades of the device itself.
And I'm talking things like 2000 dollar large screen TVs like the Sony
mentioned thad had the drivers in the non-replaceable cable to the screen.

Thats just bad design.
The circuit in question likely costs Sony less than $3 to install where it is.
Add $10 to make it readilly replaceable, and you increase the cost by 0.5%

Sure, but its just another example of bad design.
The failure rate is plenty high enough - even if you limit it to "infant mortality"

Nope, the modern reality is that is a hell of a lot cheaper overall to
just toss those in the bin and stamp out another in the asian factory.

Thats been the case for decades now with the cheapest domestic
appliances like toasters and the point at which it makes not sense to
increase the cost of the design so you can replace modules continues
to move up from the cheapest products to the more expensive ones.
Failure within the lifespan of the display panel is likely well over 5%.

Depends entirely on how you define the lifetime, and those are
mostly repairable by module swapping with laptops, notebooks,
TVs etc, tho its often quite a marginal proposition to do that
now with the cheapest laptops and notebooks that may well
need a new battery as well before its discarded etc.
On some brands of laptop computers it's a whole lot higher than that.

Sure, but thats the inevitable consequence of maintaining
stocks of spares and using expensive first world skilled
labor to swap the failed component.

PCs are still very modular indeed with the exception of the
motherboard and they still mostly have the cpu socketed,
even tho hardly anyone ever sees a cpu failure or a need
to upgrade the cpu either.
There are ways of doing things that add functionality without adding cost.

Nope, not over just one component.

Which is why you cant generally open plugpacks to repair
them anymore and why its been like that for decades now.
 
C

clare at snyder.on.ca

Rod Speed ha escrito:
They can do the estimate considering an ambient temperature of 20ºC -
25ºC. Check the datasheet of any semiconductor and learn something
before you write. Any rise in the temperature will shorten the lifespan
of the product. To me, that´s a quite profitable scenario.



Are you crazy? Have you ever seen a modern SMPS? Try to tell all us
that a SMPS (Switched Mode Power Supply, in case you don´t know what a
SMPS is) don´t HAVE electrolytics caps, and that those caps doesn´t
have a finite lifespan. Even electrolytics are classified based on
their MBTF at certain temperatures. Again, try to find the datasheet of
some electrolitycs caps, and educate yourself.

And just about anything electronic today is using SMPSs
I replace enought ATX computer SMPSs before they hit 3 years - many
within 2, and too many within one. And they are running, in many
cases, on protected power supplies.
No one is telling that the product will explode right after the
warranty expires, but that it can be designed to fail within a short
life span, especially with cheap products.


A TV, or a computer monitor left on all the time will last less time of
course. A CRT has a definite lifespan, and if the monitor or the TV set
is a LCD based one, the CFL bulbs used to light up the screen have a
definite lifespan. Did you knew that, Mr. Know Nothing ?
And certain parts ONLY fail on start-up because of power surges. Some
devices would run litterally forever if never shut off - others are
robust enough to handle starting and stopping but have finite life
devices. My experience with computer monitors (over 17 years) has been
those left on 24/7 generally outlast those that are started and
stopped several times a day. Phosphor burn used to be the major
problem with 24/7 operation. Today it is SMPS failure. I can't
remember the last monitor I had to replace due to CRT failure. My own
newest monitor is well over 5 years old now. It is generally never
turned off (just powers itself down when I leave)
How many people who owned Chevy Vegas bought a second one? THOUSANDS.
And how many who bought Vega bought another Chevy? Thousands and
thousands and tens of thousands. And the average Vega did NOT make it
through warranty. How many people who had their Cadillacs in the shop
more than in their driveway bought another Cadillac? Thousands. And a
few, after the second or third, got smart and bought a Lexus. It took
a friend 7 or 8 Caddies over 3 years to finally make the change. He
figured it had to just be his luck untill he talked to enough other
owners to be convinced it was the CAR, not him.
Tell that to the manufacturer of Coby products, for instance. They have
quite a long time selling trash that fails quite quickly.
Educated guesses. Finite Element Analysis. Pretty accurate predictive
methodology.
It can be something like 15 years or more of constant use, without a
stop. And I have seen hard drives surviving at least more than 10 years
of hard work.


You are wrong again. When the platters stops, the heads contact the
platters. While the platters are spinning at full speed, the heads are
separated from them by a small air cushion formed by the rotational
speed of the platter. As soon the HDD is turned off, the platters loses
speed, and eventually the air cushion dissapear, thus the heads make
contact with the platters. The same happens in reverse sequence when
the HDD starts. That´s why start / stop cicles have a definite impact
in any HDD. Have you ever wondered why a HDD last less in a home
environment than in a office environment?

Check this out http://phorums.com.au/archive/index.php/t-42666.html It
might teach you a thing or two.
ANd Hard drives that are never shut off generally DO last
significantly longer than those that get powered down (which is why I
disable power management on my servers). I have a set of 10 year old
scsi drives in one of the servers that will likely go another 10 years
if I don't scrap the server. That server has not had a SINGLE FAILURE
over those 10 years. It cost about $10,000 new. The drives were likely
over $1000 each. They are 8gb?
The EIDE drive I just installed is 160gb and cost $79.00. Will it last
10 years? Not likely!
 
L

lsmartino

clare ha escrito:
I replace enought ATX computer SMPSs before they hit 3 years - many
within 2, and too many within one. And they are running, in many
cases, on protected power supplies.

Me too, and the problem doesn´t stops with the SMPS. I have seen
enough motherboard failures caused by defective capacitors. In fact,
there is even a website www.badcaps.net dedicated to motherboard
failures caused by bad capacitors.

And certain parts ONLY fail on start-up because of power surges. Some
devices would run litterally forever if never shut off - others are
robust enough to handle starting and stopping but have finite life
devices. My experience with computer monitors (over 17 years) has been
those left on 24/7 generally outlast those that are started and
stopped several times a day. Phosphor burn used to be the major
problem with 24/7 operation. Today it is SMPS failure. I can't
remember the last monitor I had to replace due to CRT failure. My own
newest monitor is well over 5 years old now. It is generally never
turned off (just powers itself down when I leave)

That´s interesting. In my experience I have found that computer CRT
monitors left 24/7 on, tend to present an overall decrease in
brightness and focus in less than 4 years, and in some cases they get
pretty unusable. The cheaper the monitor is, the worse is the effect.
Of course, turning it off/on constantly isn´t a good idea either.
Normally I set them to turn off automatically if the computer is left
unused for 1 hour.
Educated guesses. Finite Element Analysis. Pretty accurate predictive
methodology.
ANd Hard drives that are never shut off generally DO last
significantly longer than those that get powered down (which is why I
disable power management on my servers). I have a set of 10 year old
scsi drives in one of the servers that will likely go another 10 years
if I don't scrap the server. That server has not had a SINGLE FAILURE
over those 10 years. It cost about $10,000 new. The drives were likely
over $1000 each. They are 8gb?
The EIDE drive I just installed is 160gb and cost $79.00. Will it last
10 years? Not likely!

I agree with that. I too disable power management in my harddrives and
I haven´t had a single failure with them, and also I have found that
HDDs that are normally 24/7 ON lasts a lot longer, and when they fail,
is normally because a bearing failure, for instance. In the other hand,
I usually replace the HDD´s of my computer as soon as they get 5 years
old. There is no need to take unnecessary risks, specially when the
capacity of HDDs increases each year.
 
C

clare at snyder.on.ca

It works fine.


That is just plain wrong. They obviously dont accept the stuff
thats produced in someone's home if it hasnt been done properly.


Makes a lot more sense to test the product when its manufactured.
Yes, but if you don't own the plant, and you just buy a "chinese"
product and rebrand it you don't have that luxury.
Doesnt happen with ipods most obviously.
No, but they are made in a plant spec'd and built by Apple. It's just
a transplanted American plant with low wage non-union labour, and is
highly automated.It DOES happen with a very large number of products sold in Canada and
the USA. Perhaps not "down under" where you hang out.
Its perfectly possible to have decent quality control with chinese manufacture.
Yes, if YOU own and control the plant.
Nope, it only has one meaning. What the bulk of the market ends up with.


Or they realise that they have to offer at least as good a
warranty as their competitors do, and factor in the known
field failure rate to the price that gets charged for the drives.
Those that tried that are not in the business any more. I used to work
for the largest hard drive distriibutor (at the time) in Canada. Saw
more manufacturers come and go, driven into bankrupsy by warranty
costs. When micromanaged to death by a "harvard MBA type" the same
thing happened to that company.
Wrong. They obviously know what their return rate has been.
Nope. No history. See above.
They have a pretty good handle on their "prime" drives, but the "oem"
or "consumer" drives had such a wide range of quality/defects that
they didn't (and in many cases today, don't) have a clue.
And sometimes they **** that up very spectacularly indeed like
IBM with their 75 and 60 GXPs and they get an obscene failure
rate and end up deciding to get out of the hard drive business.


Fujitsu gave up their 3.5" drives with the utter fiasco the MPGs turned into.
Correct. Went from less than 2 failures in 5 years of selling Fujitsu
drives to 7 out of 8 in one order failing in less than 6 months.
Maxtor went bust when they fucked that up and sold out to Seagate.
And at least a dozen other companies have dissapeared over the last 10
years - there wasn't enough flesh on their bomes to even make them
worth buying out and picking over.
 
C

clare at snyder.on.ca

Better data retention? Think again.

Hard drive/tape/floppy (as in magnetic) storage have the best lifespan.
[/QUOTE]
Not necessarily true. Drop that high density floppy on a concrete
floor. Set it on top of your monitor and turn it on. How about hanging
your disc storage on the wall where a high-power mains cable runs up
the wall within 3 feet? Your data can be unreadable in from 1 second
to 2 years.I have a few of the first CD data disks ever sold in Canada back in
about 1985? That are still perfectly readable, and they have not been
stored in "archival" conditions.
Ach, so? I'll have to look farther into this. I'd heard some mumblings
about CD and DVD not being as lasting a storage method as they were
first thought to be.
And if tape is not refreshed it's good for something less than 10
years in proper storage.
Properly stored,pressed CD/DVD life is almost infinite. Die Sub based
rewritables have a more limited lifespan, but still better than 10
years if properly stored and reasonable quality media.
 
R

Rod Speed

lsmartino said:
Rod Speed wrote
Would you care to show us how many TV´s have you designed?

I wasnt the one making that stupid claim.
Answers like: "many more than you can buy in your entire lifetime",
"a lot before you where born" aren´t valid ones.

You get no say what so ever on what is or is not a valid answer.
Give us real models and brands if you want to have a little credibility.

You've completely blown whatever shred of credibility you might once
have had with your juvenile lines like the one still at the top of the quoting.
Probably you will not ba able to produce a valid answer

Just did thanks.
So no comments about how the finite lifespan of a capacitor
used in a SMPS will affect the overall lifespan of the product?

That wasnt the silly claim of yours I was commenting on there.

Concentrate on your use of the word HEAT. Pity its not relevant
to most SMPSs in the domestic appliances being discussed.
I say "it can be designed to have a short life span",

Pity it isnt practical to do that and not incur dramatically increased warranty costs.
not that "all electronic devices are made to fail".
I´m starting to think that you have trouble to understand written language.

We have all noticed that you couldnt bullshit your way out of a wet paper bag.

You were called a blowhard by someone else for a reason.
Since you don´t have a real argument, you proceed to personal disqualification.

Corse you never ever do anything like that yourself, eh ?

And when you try using big words, you might try checking what they
actually mean first too, you can look very silly indeed when you dont.
That´s says a lot about you.

Your juvenile stuff in spades.
Try to tell us that leaving a device turned on
always will not reduce it´s lifespan considerably.

Doesnt happen with PCs. Funny that.
In fact, following your ideas that no real lifespan
can be determinated for a given device,

I never ever said anything even remotely resembling anything like that either.
then the amount of use of that devices shouldn´t have any impact.

Completely off with the fairys now.
And they are the masters about producing disposable electronics.
Nope.

They are the vivid proof that a device can, and
sometimes is, designed to fail within a short time.

You havent established that thats done deliberately and isnt just lousy design.

No thanks. I know how MTBF is calculated thanks.

And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTBF is MUCH better on that.
It shows how MTBF is calculated.

Pity that blows a massive hole in your claims about how MTBF is determined.
Which you carefully deleted from the quoting and I have restored.
Check this other one:

Doesnt say a word about your pig ignorant claim that the heads land on the platter surface.
specially the part about START / STOP cycles,

Thats no news to me, its the same with most current desktop
drives and is substantially higher with most laptop drives.
and the design life of this particular HDD,

Irrelevant to what was being discussed. And that is NOT the time at which
it stops working, or anything even remotely resembling anything like it either.
which by the way, is in current production.
Duh.

Now explain why the manufacturer provides a definite number of START /
STOPS cycles, if those cycles doesn´t cause any kind of damage to the drive

I never ever said it didnt. I JUST said that it ISNT DUE TO THE HEADS
LANDING ON THE PLATTERS, AND CERTAINLY ISNT A RESULT OF
SAMSUNG MEASURING HOW OFTEN YOU CAN START AND STOP
THE DRIVE WHEN ITS THE SAME NUMBER WITH VIRTUALLY ALL
HARD DRIVE MANUFACTURER'S DESKTOP HARD DRIVES.
Yep.

Please explain that in a credible way.

You're obviously too thick to be able to comprehend any explanation.

You cant even manage to comprehend that what was being
discussed was whether the manufacturers of domestic
appliances bother with life TESTING, or whether hard drive
manufacturers do either with mass market commodity drives.
Also, explain how the heads retract in such a way that
they never touches the platters as the HDD stops..

The heads arms are moved onto a ramp which physically retracts
the heads from the platter surface that they are flying over.
Answers like "I designed HDD´s before they were marketed" or
"I know that because I´m the master engineer of blah, blah, blah"
aren´t valid ones.

You get no say what so ever on what is or is not a valid answer.
Demonstrate what you say.

How odd that you have never ever done anything like that yourself.
If you checked that link, you would have found that it talks about YOU, not HDD´s.

Not interested in what silly little children get up to when they
have been done like a dinner, time after time after time.

Or the sort of juvenile ad hominem that is all you can manage yourself either.
Nope, because I´m not in a war.

You just did with that link just above. Pathetic, really.
You are the one who wants to feel like an old WW2 hero.

Just another of your pathetic little pig ignorant fantasys.
 
J

James Sweet

lsmartino said:
clare ha escrito:




Me too, and the problem doesn´t stops with the SMPS. I have seen
enough motherboard failures caused by defective capacitors. In fact,
there is even a website www.badcaps.net dedicated to motherboard
failures caused by bad capacitors.


That was not planned, an electrolyte manufacture stole an incomplete
formula and sold loads of defective electrolyte to capacitor makers.
 
C

clare at snyder.on.ca

clare ha escrito:


I was mistaken and I admit it, but that doesn´t make me a "blowhard".
Show me in which part of my posts I presented myself as an specialist
in anything. Your post was accurate, but this part was completely
unnecessary.
Wasn't responding to you with that comment (at least knowingly).
 
R

Rod Speed

clare at snyder.on.ca wrote
And just about anything electronic today is using SMPSs
I replace enought ATX computer SMPSs before they hit 3
years - many within 2, and too many within one. And they
are running, in many cases, on protected power supplies.

Irrelevant to the silly claim they are DESIGNED to fail just outside
the warranty so you will buy another from same manufacture.
And certain parts ONLY fail on start-up because of power surges.
Some devices would run litterally forever if never shut off - others
are robust enough to handle starting and stopping but have finite life
devices. My experience with computer monitors (over 17 years) has
been those left on 24/7 generally outlast those that are started and
stopped several times a day. Phosphor burn used to be the major
problem with 24/7 operation. Today it is SMPS failure. I can't
remember the last monitor I had to replace due to CRT failure.

Quite a few are uneconomic to repair due to an FBT failure, but again,
thats just bad design, not deliberately designing them to fail just outside
warranty so you will buy another from the same manufacturer.
My own newest monitor is well over 5 years old now. It is
generally never turned off (just powers itself down when I leave)

Yeah, I used to leave them on all the time and now turn them
off overnight, just because I now have a number of big 19"
monitors and the power consumption isnt trivial.

I dont turn the PCs off tho with the exception of the laptop.
How many people who owned Chevy Vegas
bought a second one? THOUSANDS.

Bugger all that had one blow up their face.
And how many who bought Vega bought another Chevy?
Thousands and thousands and tens of thousands.

Bugger all that had one blow up their face.
And the average Vega did NOT make it through warranty.

Irrelevant with cars where most expect to need to make warranty
claims before the Japs put a bomb under the US manufacturers.
How many people who had their Cadillacs in the shop
more than in their driveway bought another Cadillac? Thousands.

Sure, there are a few niche markets with buyers that stupid.

Jaguar in spades. Aston Martins, etc etc etc.
And a few, after the second or third, got smart and bought a Lexus.

Yep, clearly most buyers noticed how the Japs had
put a bomb under the US manufacturers and got a clue.

Happened to Rolls Royce too.
It took a friend 7 or 8 Caddies over 3 years to finally make the
change. He figured it had to just be his luck untill he talked to
enough other owners to be convinced it was the CAR, not him.

Sure, there will always be some that stupid.

Doesnt happen much with domestic appliances tho.

Plenty have decided that Sony products are now steaming turds to be avoided.
Educated guesses. Finite Element Analysis.
Pretty accurate predictive methodology.

And NOT the claimed TESTING.
ANd Hard drives that are never shut off generally DO last
significantly longer than those that get powered down

They do indeed.
(which is why I disable power management on my servers).

I do on all systems except laptops where it does help time on battery.

And even MS has noticed and thats the default now with XP with desktops.
I have a set of 10 year old scsi drives in one of the servers that will likely
go another 10 years if I don't scrap the server. That server has not had
a SINGLE FAILURE over those 10 years. It cost about $10,000 new.
The drives were likely over $1000 each. They are 8gb?
The EIDE drive I just installed is 160gb and cost $79.00. Will it last
10 years? Not likely!

Bet it will or more strictly last till it gets discarded because its too small or too slow.

I've only ever had one PC hard drive failure, and thats with a hell of a lot of drives.

Not a shred of evidence that anyone is actually stupid enough
to deliberately attempt to design a drive which fails just outside
warranty to be replaced by another from the same manufacturer.

The spectacular duds the PC industry has seen, the IBM 75GXPs,
the 60GXPs, the Fujitsu MPGs etc have all been massive footshots
that were unintended, like most footshots are.
 
C

clare at snyder.on.ca

Yes, primarily as a result of a change to the size and shape of the
phone that meant that the physical format and size of the battery
used with the 5***-6*** series was no longer suitable.


That last is going too far.


Nope. That came about for other reasons.

And some panasonic cordless phones use standard
AA NiMH or NiCad batterys, so it cant have a damned
thing to do with any northern european mentality.

Not talking cordless here. Talking cellular.
Some cellphone companys actually allow the end user to
update the firmware in the phone. Nokia generally doesnt.
They do on their newer GSM phones.
Correct. But its quite feasible to replace the battery when it no longer
has an adequate charge retention, you dont have to throw the ipod away.
Cna't change tha battery on a Nano because you can't buy one. Not even
from Apple.
Doesnt explain the fact that you can dismantle the phone fine.

It would have been considerably cheaper to glue the phone
together and still have a removeable back that contains the battery.

see "vanity"
They werent designed for that unusual situation.
They sure were. Cell phones were designed to be used where it was
inpractical to run wires. Power or phone.
And you can also replace just the battery and not the entire
phone when the battery no longer holds the charge adequately.
That's a given. Cell phones are perhaps the best example, in some
ways, of how devices should be made. Particularly products from Nokia
and a few others. Motorola should have stuck to their power
semiconductor and sensor products, where they were the world standard
instead of concentrating on a field where they have proven to be
rather lackluster, quality wise.
So much for the claim that the manufacturers deliberately force
you to replace the phone when you can just replace the battery.
I've never said that about Phones - even tough the prices the
companies charge for cell phone batteries is nothing short of
criminal.
Hardly any dont allow you to replace the battery when that is necessary.

Not talking about the battery - talking about faces/cases/etc.
Not for that reason. Different reason entirely, the same one that sank Commodore.


Again, not for that reason.


Bet it wont.
We'll see. I give them mabee 5 years if they don't make some BIG
changes.
Nope, they died for other reasons. In the case of Commodore,
they were never going to survive once the bulk of their market
had moved off to dedicated games consoles.
Commodore built business and home computers too, not just game
computers. Commodore was a business machine company to start with.
Same goes for Sperry Rand/Unisys.
Atari, I'll agree with you - but they had a computer that was superior
to the IBM PC of it's time (as did Sanyo)
In the case of DEC, they were never going to survive
once the bulk of the market had moved to PCs.
In the case of IBM, they were never going to survive in the
personal PC market once the vast bulk of the market no
longer needed the security blanket of the IBM logo and
they never had a hope in hell of competing with Taiwan.

No reason they couldn't do like the rest and set up in taiwan. They
OWNED the PC market.
 
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