Alienware

[Snowreap]

I have a number of Optiplex GXa and GX1 systems that are all still working fine (these lines were introduced in 1998/1999 and are based on the rock-solid Intel 440BX chipset).

I finally had my first Optiplex failure. the power supply on one of my GX1 systems finally died. this was probably due to age (date codes on it indicate it was made in early 1999), but it might have been related to a furnace problem I was having at the time (the furnace was emitting a lot of smoke and soot into the basement, and a large amount of it got sucked into the power supply).

fortunately I have some spare GX1's and swapping out the PSU didn't take long (no tools required).

-ken

[OrsunVZ]

I have some very aging optiplexes here at the office - I've had to retire 4 over the last 18 months or so, all due to power supply (these things really are ancient). It strikes me though that these power supply are all failing at roughly the same time. Talk about built-in obsolescence.

[Diggles]

uh its not 'built-in'. Your company was aware of how long they would last when they were purchased. Power supplies and hard drives have MTBF (mean time before failure) ratings, just like Tires have a mileage rating.

[OrsunVZ]

Uh... MTFB pretty much = Built-in then, doesn't it.

[Diggles]

Uh... MTFB pretty much = Built-in then, doesn't it.

your use is implying like it was some sort of con by Dell that you didnt know about. You paid for shit, you got shit, end of story.

[Snowreap]

it's built-in, but "built-in obsolescense" is a bad way to describe it.

power supplies aren't designed to fail after x years, they're designed to last for x years. they usually last longer because if you want 95% of your power supplies to last x years, that means that 50% of your power supplies are probably going to last a lot longer than that.

also, it's very easy to have large numbers of them, all made the same way using the same parts, to all fail at the same time. what's hard is to predict exactly when that will be. so when you have multiple devices fail at once, it's not because they were designed to fail at that time, but rather because they were not designed with internal variations to spread out the failures.

this is why when you buy drives for a RAID array, you shouldn't buy all your drives at once -- you need to spread out your purchases to avoid the situation where multiple drives fail at once. I recently asked my wife to order 2 3TB drives for a new RAID array, and asked her to order one from NewEgg and the other from Amazon to avoid getting 2 drives from the same manufacturing batch (which can easily happen if you order both from the same vendor).

-ken

[OrsunVZ]

Uh... MTFB pretty much = Built-in then, doesn't it.

your use is implying like it was some sort of con by Dell that you didnt know about. You paid for shit, you got shit, end of story.

You read what I said that way, because you choose to see negativity and contention in everything. I actually was very happy with the lifespan I got out of my machines. For the very basic programs my staff use these machines for, and the warranties that Dell offers, and the instant tech help a the touch of a finger, I am actually extremely happy with my Dell experience from a business perspective.

I was merely struck by how the timing was so close together.