what has been the most unreliable h/w and s/w component in your systems?

[Mungla]

Unreliable hardware: Kenwood 52x CD-ROM - POS refuses to play CDRW and sometimes CDR. Now the loading tray is very touchy, 90% of the time when you open it it will go back in. Thank god for DVD drives!!

Unreliable software: Windows 98, FE and SE. Talk about crash city. I love watching someone using their own PC with Win98 on it, and then they get a BSOD. I'm like, yeap, that'll never happen if you had Win2k.

Reliable hardware: Unlike everyone else, my IBM 75GXP 30GB & 75GB HD's have been great. If you got one of these drives when they first came out (I bought my 75GB at Christmas of 00'), they are awesome! I've been using my 30GB ever since this series of HD have been available, and I've never had corrupted software that was its fault.

Reliable software: Has got to be any Unix/Linux OS, and Win2k OS.

 

[Toro 45]

My S/B Live card,never seems to like it when I upgrade my video cards.
Toro

 

[benjamit]

bozz

i think you're in the lead thus far

 

[FordLorider]

My fricken POS EasyPhoto Scanner, only have it because I use it like once a month for evergency issues. It jacks up my Word and Printer...sucks.

 

[userpete]

Techies, forums trials and error's and folks like us try this and that with all sorts of results both good and bad because I doubt anyone here has exactly the same stuff or if so, doesn't run the same proggies.

I just wish All MoBo mfg's had to test all this s*** and have a compatibility listing for Stable stuff and a list for leading edge OC stuff....so we could save $$$$$$$$ and not have to try out everything is the dam universe.

AMD almost has it right but is far from complete, and have to say MS has tried with the w2k site but also falls short.

Agree or dis-agree??

Thats my option.

Pete

 

[milehigh]

CD-Roms in general (Acer, Creative..have been bad luck for me. The only one I'll buy now is the Asus 50X and for $38 at Egghead they are worth every penny!!!

 

[skace]

The most unreliable component in my system currently is a problem between my motherboard, k7v, and my GeForce1. The problem has to do with a feature in the bios called "Fastwrite". When I first got the GeForce1 it took me a few days to find this feature in the bios which had been enabled by default. After I disabled it I was completely stable, but everytime I update my nVidia drivers the setting gets enabled again and it takes me a few days to remember to disable it. When Fastwrite is enabled my GeForce/MoBo deffinitely take the cake for most unreliable.

Asking what S/W is most unreliable is a hard question to answer. Most of the S/W I don't like is due to the way it looks, versatility, and how bloated it is. Since neither of those things truly make it unreliable I can't recall the last time an application crashed on my home PC (aside from Anarchy Online beta). I think Win2k does a pretty good job of making almost all my apps seem reliable one way or another. Bloatware is another story though... realplayer, icq, ugh the list goes on.

 

[Keego]

Worst Hardware: Gigabyte 7IXE4 is HORRIBLE!!!

Software: Atlas (oracle/sql database program) crashes like a mofo right in the middle of a tech call

 

[kehi]

Western Digital HDD= unreliable

 

[ProviaFan]

The most unreliable hardware part I have used (N.B. the past tense) was a PCCrap motherboard.
For software, that would have to be Windows 98, although Corel Wordperfect 8 could sometimes beat it in a contest of who can lock things up the most times per day.

 

[benjamit]

userpete

i agree

 

[Schlocemus]

The Software award HAS to go to Windows. Although Windows 2000 was a huge increase in stability, as soon as you started to load drivers ...

Now I'm using Unix and I'm pefectly happy

For Hardware, I think that I would say WinModems ...

Now I'm on cable and I'm perfectly happy

 

[Keego]

OK I take my previous vote back.. pcchips mobos are the worst thing ever invented on this earth!!

 

[nicowju]

For me...
Unreliable hardware would have to be the Highpoint controller on any mobo (that stuff is junk! COMPLETE JUNK)
Then right after that, Crappy Viewsonic P817's. Mine's been returned more than 5 times (all shipping paid by them , of course), and they finally gave me the new model the P225. Hopefully it fails and I get a new one again
Unreliable SW: WMP 7.1

Reliable HW? Hmmm... my Commodore 64? My IBM 16.8GB 5400RPM HD
Reliable SW? Ehhh... none

 

[benjamit]

Although Windows 2000 was a huge increase in stability, as soon as you started to load drivers ...

true

 

[timco]

The most unreliable component in my system is me, as I keep breaking things - installations of Linux, Windows, bending pins on floppy drives and so on. My processor got fried on Tuesday so I've just ordered another one of those... and a new motherboard.

Unreliable bits:

1. My Laserjet 5L printer - won't feed paper.
2. CD-Roms.
3. Cheapo IDE cables where the connectors fall off.
4. Mice.
5. Mag monitor lost the red tube so everything was a nice shade of cyan.
6. Abit KT7-RAID mobo. Crashed all the time.
7. My old G4 Mac. Slow and crash-prone.
8. Windows 98SE.

Reliable bits:

1. Speakers. 6 years old (that's good for me) - Labtec.
2. Keyboards.
3. Creative GF2 GTS video card.
4. SB Live sound card.
5. Mouse mat.
6. 4-way socket strip that everything gets plugged into.
7. Age of Empires 2. Never crashed once.

 

[StormRider]

My Iwill ATA66 card using the Highpoint 366 chip is the worst piece of hardware I've ever had the displeasure of buying. It just doesn't work with any of my CDROMs or hard drives that I've tried. When I had my CDROM attached to it, I kept getting CRC errors when installing games from the CDROM. On one motherboard, it would cause a blue screen before Windows could even boot.

 

[AaronP]

Worst ever, my AMD motherboard with skank ass VIA 133A chipset.

Some runners up for worst ever:
Leadtek TNT 2
ATI Radeon LE
SB Live
---

Best hardware ever:
Soundblaster AWE32 (had one in my system for like 4.5 years, that same sound card lasted like 3 system changes) in fact, it was in there so long, the big long board started to curve and warp as gravity started to take over, but it never stopped working)

Voodoo 2 (reliable as the rock of Gibralter)

 

[circut16]

First of all Ensonic sound cards-JUNK
CDROM's fail the most on me
good thing they stoppted making Conner HDD's

 

[circut16]

WD kicks ass

 

[Boobers]

Are you people stoned?
The biggest, corniest, largest, smelliest, nuttiest piece of crap to ever run off the production line is ANY PCI version of ANY Creative Labs Sound Blaster. Pure junk because they had no compitition in the sound card marketplace at the time.

For this, Creative Labs gets the "Why should we fix it, they'll buy it anyway!" Award, only bestoed on the worst product ever marketed for mass consumption.

Honorable mention has to go to the Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold Edition ($250), as it was a great ISA card, untill it's drivers caused the FIC PA-2011 MB (a POS in it's own right) to reboot whenever MIDI files were played (RMA'd the MB, AWE64, & PS, same problem).
F*** You Very Much, Creative! (BTW, a $9 Turtle Beach card, the Daytona PCI, fixed the problem). I still have these pieces of hardware, and when assembled they still have the same problem.

Which brings me to the most reliable product which seems to be anything sold by Turtle Beach, and in particular the Santa Cruz sound card. If you have a problem with a Turtle Beach, you need to have your head examined.

 

[slpaulson]

Defidently my sparq drive.
It died three times and I gave up.

 

[cbuchach]

I would say that the most unreliable/frustrating component in my system has to be the Via 686B Southbridge:|. I have luckily not experienced the SB Live issue, but the chip refuses to properly run my IDE Zip 100 drive in Win2k. I've tried everything, it's a shame Via couldn't properly support this very common piece of hardware.

 

[Boobers]

Oh, You reminded me of the Zip drive. What a piece of expensive garbage. How much does it cost per MB? And a CDR is 650MB, bootable, and costs 15 cents. Wait, I think I'll buy a $100 Zip!! No, instead I think I'll just throw my money in the toilet.