Computer hardware failure

Recently a hard drive in my secondary system at home died. This got me thinking about all the hardware I've had fail over the years. Anyone who's worked with computers for a long time has probably experienced some sort of hardware failure. I've worked with computers since 1994 and I've seen more than my share of hardware failures in that time. What's interesting to me is to look at what components failed and to realize there seems to be a pattern. I'll start with the most reliable and go to the least reliable.

Motherboards: In all my years working with computers, I can't think of a single instance in which I had a motherboard failure. When I build computers I always use genuine Intel motherboards, but I've had plenty of work computers with other brand motherboards and never have I seen a motherboard fail.

CPU: As with motherboards I don't think I've ever seen a system in which the CPU failed. I have seen two systems which didn't have adequate cooling and the CPU would overheat and the system would shutdown to protect itself. But I don't consider this to be a fault of the CPU itself.

Cards (video, sound, network, modem, etc.): Again, I don't think I've ever seen a card fail. Admittedly nowadays most motherboards come with sound, network, and to a lesser degree video onboard so having add-in cards is less common. But back in the day you had discrete cards such as video, sound, network, modem, scsi, etc. My sister had a modem die on her, but they had a lightning strike a telephone pole in their neighborhood so I don't think it's the fault of the modem.

RAM: With I think one exception I've never found a bad stick of RAM. I had an old 486 which after several years started having bad memory errors.

Floppy Drives: Granted you never see floppy drives anymore, but from my experience these drives are (were) pretty robust. You would think for a device with physically moving parts susceptible to dust they would have failed frequently. I don't think I ever had one fail. Occasionally you had to open them up and blow the dirt out, but the drive always worked.

Power Supplies: Power supplies have proven to be a component with a higher failure rate. I've probably had to replace 4 or 5 of them over the years. What's interesting to note is all the power supplies that I've had fail were "cheap" power supplies. Nicer power supplies are rated as "80 Plus" meaning they are at least 80% efficient. To achieve this greater efficiency they have to use nicer components, which has the added benefit of making them more reliable.

Hard Drives: Hard drives have an alarming failure rate. I mean on the one hand they have are complex devices with incredibly tight tolerances, physically moving parts, and are expected to run 24/7 - so I can understand a high failure rate. But on the other hand people entrust vast amounts of data to them expecting it to be safe forever. I think most users do not backup their data. A hard drive death is often times quick, one day the hard drive works, the next it fails. But sometimes the drive dies slowly, the number of bad sectors increases over time. Something interesting I've noticed about failed hard drives, never once have I had a Seagate drive fail. I've had failures from IBM, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Quantum, and Western Digital - but never a Seagate.

Optical Drivers: I think the component with the highest failure rate has to be optical drives (CD and DVD drives). My experience is these drives seem to have an average life of about 3 years before they fail. A typical death is usually slow, the drive starts failing to read discs, usually starting with home burned discs. The failure rate increases until eventually it won't read anything.

Now obviously my experience is no guarantee of a pattern. Just because Seagate hard drives have never failed for me doesn't mean this will be true for everyone. But I think it does show a trend.

So what's the take-away from this post you ask? Well I'd say the next time you're building a computer, consider buying nicer components, especially when buying the power supply and hard drive. If you try and save money when buying the power supply and hard drive you may end up regretting it. If money is an issue, consider buying a smaller Seagate hard drive versus a large hard drive of another brand.