Hi all,
I myself have a few desktop computer issues with freezing and lagging lately. Replaced the SSD, no fix with a fresh Windows 11 install. Starting to think it is the RAM.
So it got me thinking, what have you had fail in your desktop? In the past never I have had an issue with the odd Power Supply and Hard Drive, but that's been it.
Be interested to hear what others have had.
Yeah, never had an issue with a CPU in twenty five odd years. Virtually failproof. Weird considering that that is the most bleeding edge part of the whole machine. Whereas RAM fails all the time.
ESD kills RAM from people handling it which is why it seems to fail more than anything else. The issues can take a long time to manifest, and it might not fail completely.
People that say that ESD is not a real problem, and that they have been doing PC tech work for x years with no problem, are probably responsible for large amounts of failed components and aren't even aware of it.
Disagree with ESD now days, apart from if you repair CMOS devices.
Yeah, I cringe when I watch Linus from LTT touching connectors.
Cosmic rays kill RAM too. It's a pity Intel has limited the ECC RAM market to server models.
HDDs and PSUs die the most without question.
Yep, and PSUs is only so high because so many people buy poor quality no-name ones.
If you do what PC builders recommend and buy a high efficiency, highly rated, brand name PSU with more wattage than you need, it's very rare for it to fail in the first decade or so of use.
But hard drives all fail eventually. It's not 'if', it's 'when'.
You just need to always make sure what's on it is backed up (or something you can afford to lose).
Like, 1 SSD that had years of use in the last few years and a gForce card I had to RMA in 2003.
Should be able to vote for more than one. I've had lots of things fail over the years.
Sadly not an option. But I thought it would be the case where some would have multiple failures.
PC1: PSU *2
PC2: PSU
As others have said, it can be hard after years of using one to say just one thing that consistently fails. I've had 2 mobo's go on me though, and one SSD.
Only ever had one piece of hardware fail - a hard drive - luckily it was only excess storage such as shows and movies but that was a pain in the late 2000s.
Guess I've been lucky. A friend blew up his PSU by switching it from 220v to 110v out of interest.
A friend blew up his PSU by switching it from 220v to 110v out of interest.
hey it's me ur friend. I've done exactly that :(
I, too have done this. To a friends computer. And it, too, was out of interest. We're not friends anymore, but I don't think my blowing up his PSU was the reason.
I bet he thinks it is the reason :)
Nothing beyond mechanical HDDs a decade ago. I keep desktop & microserver on 24/7 and connected to a properly rated surge protector.
The switching off and on is more likely to cause failures.
I've read about this. How much power would a PC use idling 24/7 (standard light gaming/video/browser PC)? I've always shutdown every night and powered on every day.
my PC NAS uses under 20w at idle and its an old G3258 system
roughly $40-$50 per year.
When I was looking around for a pre-built PC it was unexpected but I think PC power consumption is more than you think.
When I looked the PSU wattage for the specs I wanted they were around minimum 500w and some were up to 800w. When does a PC need to use 800w?? I don't know enough to say. But I know that is not always running at max, but still I wanted to get a PC with a low wattage PSU to make sure it didn't consume so much electricity. I found some all in one systems which run off a laptop brick which I think are normally around 90w, but I already have a monitor so I didn't want an all in one PC.
Your PC components will only use as much power as they need.
I have a power meter on my PC and it uses about 260W on my 400 watt (platinum) power supply when playing a recent-ish 3D game. Ryzen 3600 and RX570
@WhyAmICommenting: Alright thanks. That does give me an idea of an average. I assume you have a graphics card running the 3D game so that would probably consume quite a bit of the 260w. Maybe for non game use it would be under 200w.
Size of PSU does not impact how much power you use. If your computer draws 200w, it will pull (roughly) 220W on a 400W PSU or a 800W PSU.
Higher quality PSUs will generally waste less electricity in heat and be more efficient, but that has nothing to do with how many watts it supports.
@Kill Joy: Yeah I know as I said in my comment above I know it's not going to using maximum watts at all times. But when the maximum is there is kind of worrying maybe you left something running by mistake and adjusted the Sleep timer to "never" for whatever reason. And over an entire day that could consume quite a bit. I guess what I'm saying is it would give me peace of mind if I did that and the PSU's max consumption was lower.
One thing I found out after researching was the phantom power draw is quite high on all the "PC build" PSU's I looked at. When measured they drew anywhere from 5 to 10w when the PC was OFF. I guess this can kind of depend on what USB devices you have plugged in etc. But someone tested the Dell proprietary PSU that comes in their PC's and it consumed less than 0.5w of phantom power when the PC is powered off.
But when the maximum is there is kind of worrying maybe you left something running by mistake and adjusted the Sleep timer to "never" for whatever reason
It's not worrying at all, and you're thinking about this all wrong. The computer uses as much as it needs based on the task - and whether its a 400W psu or 800W, if your PC is not asleep it'll use the same amount of power. If your trying to use a PSU's wattage to limit how much power you pull (e.g. for some reason, your PC wants to use 500W but you only have 400w PSU) 3 things will happen
you're better off having an 800W and monitoring usage instead of undersizing your PSU and causing all the above issues, more cost, and more power draw for the same amount of work. PSU wattage should never be used to limit power draw.
@Kill Joy: I am not trying to limit the power consumption of the PC by using a lower watt PSU so no worries there. Yeah with all else being equal the power consumption of a 400w PSU and 800w PSU should be similar I get that.
I should be more clear with what I was trying to say.
I'm looking at prebuilt systems and most of them being prebuilt I assume choose the PSU wattage based on the total power consumption of other components used inside. For example one difference was the 300 or 400w system doesn't have a graphics card, but a 800w system does have one and from others I have heard they can get pretty hot so I think they consume a big chunk of power. And there might be other parts that add to the power consumption. I don't know enough about building PC's but when putting together a prebuilt PC with 800w PSU I assume they might change a few parts to better ones because the PSU allows for it.
@harshbdmmaster718: Ah I see what your saying. In that case, what you really want is to choose lower-wattage PC parts - and you are concerned that if a prebuilt has a 800W PSU then the parts chosen are higher wattage.
Higher wattage almost always means higher performance and thus higher price. In which case, yes buy the cheaper computer with less demanding parts, and as a result a smaller PSU.
Typically 700W or higher PSUs are reserved for PCc with dedicated graphics card which chew additional power. If you don't game heavily, get a PC with a graphics card, and it'll likely come with a smaller 400-500W PSU. Though even if it came with a 800W (maybe because the supplier orders 800W in bulk and they are cheaper?) I would still get it since the PC still wont use the extra power.
@Kill Joy: "Though even if it came with a 800W (maybe because the supplier orders 800W in bulk and they are cheaper?) I would still get it since the PC still wont use the extra power."
Gotcha thanks. Yeah I never got into games like everyone else did.
@harshbdmmaster718: Just FYI, sometimes you have to go higher wattage PSU's not for the total power potential but for the 'rails' or multi-volt rails, or even having certain connectors.
I have an MSI 850w gold rated psu, I use a smart power plug and my pc under load is lucky to draw 250+watts and that includes the speakers and monitor.
I'm just running an amd 2600x and a gigabyte 6600XT dedicated graphics card.
Previous to this I was using a Corsair 550w Bronze psu which powered the same 2600x but an older, more power-hungry gigabyte 7890 3gb. I had to use adapters to power the gpu.
@A-mak: "Just FYI, sometimes you have to go higher wattage PSU's not for the total power potential but for the 'rails' or multi-volt rails, or even having certain connectors."
Alright but those extra rails or connectors are only really required for high power graphics cards or if you need to power multiple drives right? I think I saw a video once where they mentioned the graphics card needing double the power connectors of a normal graphics card. I will not be needing a graphics card and the PC only really needs the bare minimum.
Also I guess by going prebuilt I can avoid any of these compatibility issues all together since the system should be built with compatible parts.
@harshbdmmaster718: Yeah that's it mate, only if you are putting bank into your gpu.
Nothing wrong with prebuilt but I would suggest looking into the warranty period and individual component warranty.
If you are really looking for just something to browse the web, stream, word etc. Have you thought about a thinclient (or nuc)? I use a dell wyse as a home server, thing doesn't even have a fan; runs great. There is an ozbargain post of refurbished thinclients. My thinclient has it's own power-brick just like a laptop, so if that fails I can just order that part without even opening it up. They're also very efficient on power.
Pre-built desktops I only suggest if you plan to upgrade the insides over the years or want to play games but have no motivation to build it yourself and I do not suggest any kind of "AIO" system (where the computer is inside the monitor) they are generally laptop parts poorly shoved in there.
@A-mak: "My thinclient has it's own power-brick just like a laptop, so if that fails I can just order that part without even opening it up."
That sounds great.
Yeah prebuilt just sounds good for a dumb consumer like me. And yeah I don't need an All in one system I already have a decent monitor so won't be going with AIO.
PSU, HDD, Graphics card, SSD ram, on different desktop PCs & an on/off switch on a monitor which I now never turn off. All this over about 25 years.
Have had everything on this list fail with the exception of CPU.
Power Supply
Had a 3.5" 4TB WD Red die recently, it's about 7 years old. Not sure what caused it to fail as it was not powered and just sitting in my drawer for the last 3 years.
Also have a dead AMD X570 motherboard that I need to send back this week.
Have experienced about 3 dead GPU's, a GTX 260, GT430 and a HD5850.
Not desktop related, but since I've also worked in tech support for a school we also had a particular batch of spinning rust drives start to fail very prematurely, students and staff members would often come in with laptops complaining of slow performance and thrashing hard drives. Roughly 6 out of 10 of those drives go bad and had to be RMA'd.
Not great when you're a HSC student and really need a laptop to do your homework. Good thing HDD's in laptops are now a thing of the past.
Sitting in the drawer might be the failure reason - mechanical hard drives like to be spun regularly.
Where's the "all of the above option"? I'm pretty sure that, over the last 23 odd years, I've had a failure with almost every piece of hardware at some point.
With the way computers perform nowadays, failures are pretty much the only catalyst to upgrade.
Joined the comments to ask…..Where's the "none of the above" option?
Between work and home, I used/built desktop PCs for almost 25 years (laptop-only for the last 5 years). I think keyboards, mice and printers have been the only failures I've every experienced. Hashtag good run? Hashtag blessed?
Still we rise.
Have been building my own PCs for ~20 years so have had lots fail in that time, although the 2 most recent failures have been monitors, one died completely and the other a few months later has developed some dead pixels as for the rest:
Cooling Fans (CPU Fan, Case Fan) - Yes
CPU - No
Graphics Card - Yes
Hard Drive - Yes many of them
Motherboard - I suspect this was the case once, however ended up replacing multiple components so cant be 100% sure
Power Supply - Yes
RAM - Yes although it was DoA so not sure if you count that or not…
None…
Lucky.
Power supply and SSD.
I had an M.2 SSD die recently. Can't say if that should count as 'hard drive' (so I didn't add a vote). I RMA'd a whiney PSU but I guess that wasn't a 'failure'. I've only built 1 PC and that was earlier this year, so fairly new to the game.
A broken chair.
low level PEBKAC issue
Hard drive (infamous Seagate 3TB)
PSU (old age)
Motherboard
CPU/GPU/RAM have been quite hardy. Tried them with no fan, poorly installed HSF, blocked blowers with dust, overvolts overclocking, still alive.
GPU (sapphire 7950) and SanDisk 240gb SSD. Also had the ram loosen on my bro's computer that just needed to be reclicked in.
I've only ever had 1 component fail in 12 years and it was a PSU, and I only buy second hand.
I'm a sysadmin and the only thing out of all of those that I don't see fail fairly regularly is CPU's. I've only ever seen one of those fail.
Haven't had much fail where I felt it was without cause.
Had a rarely used laptop that the audio circuit failed, but I think that's partly because I was using a program to boost the audio volume. In the same laptop the SSD died, but I had it 90% full for a long time and I read that you're not supposed to do that.
With Ram, I started to have much better luck when I began wiping the contacts gently with alcohol, and brushing the receptacles on the boards with a toothbrush.
What happens is dust and grease from your fingers ends up on the contacts, which makes for a bad connection. They're gold plated, but they're also small and very low voltage and can only take so much interference
Ram - this was after a blackout so power outage was probably the cause
Hdd - these were recycled from previous builds with plenty of warning before they failed( they were backed up due to warning signs)
Wow Motherboard and PSU being high on the list is pretty worrying since they are major parts and make up like 90% of the computer. Maybe they need to make them higher quality. Or maybe companies deliberately make them poorly.
I can understand GPU being high because a lot of gamers and heat and also Hard drives since they are old technology.
Wow Motherboard and PSU being high on the list is pretty worrying since they are major parts
100%, very surprising. I haven't ever had a motherboard failure. Touch Wood that I don't!
PSUs can be a huge oversight when buying parts for a new PC. Often people would splurge on GPU, MB, CPU etc, and then the PSU is the boring part which goes unnoticed, so they'll just buy the cheapest to barely cover the power required, or go with a cheap/no-name brand
Yeah I am not really into building PC's and such. But I have heard from others that a failing PSU can damage or kill everything that is plugged into it. Sounds like a PSU failing is something you wouldn't want to happen.
I had HDDs fail in the past and a GPU - but can't select both in the poll :(
2x desktop HDD - the well known Seagate 3tb and shortly afterwards its replacement, Seagate 5tb.
Had my GPU fail (twice, thanks Asus), CPU partially gone, memory controller degraded. Probably some memory fail too, had it replaced under warranty which fixed some issues I had.
Had a monitor with some dark dot pixels and issues with display initialization from sleep/power off. Repaired by Asus under warranty. Mice failures, scroll wheel related.
J5Create dock failure, the powered USB 3.0 port made a pop and had that awful burnt electronics smell.
memory controller degraded. Probably some memory fail too, had it replaced under warranty which fixed some issues I had.
What were the signs of the memory controller degrading? And how did you diagnose it?
Anything above 2400Mhz would have some occasional noise abnormalities. Switched out the memory under warranty and CPU, issue only persisted after switching out the CPU.
1 x GPU, 1 x Hard Drive (old mechanical a while back).
Also, PSU died on my first computer back in the 90s.
Once had a satellite PCI card fail and catch on fire… That was back when I had IHUG satellite broadband….. Ah those were the days of Napster.
My PC is 4 years old and nothing has failed so far.
I've been pretty lucky - only a motherboard and power supply failed after a storm, but that was on a 3 or 4 year old computer. So we replaced those. That was the last computer to be upgraded. (7 or 8 years ago). Current computer is almost 6 years now and nothing has failed in this one.
I've had several DIY desktop PC's, which I have always put together myself from individual components such as Case, RAM cards, CPU, motherboard, keyboard, etc, over the years and have and have not had anything fail.
BTW, I notice you haven't provided an option for NO FAILURES in your poll.
Just lucky I guess …
Mostly HDD
But also SSD, PSU, GPU, mobo, fans, RAMs. Everything except CPU
"Mostly HDD
But also SSD, PSU, GPU, mobo, fans, RAMs. Everything except CPU"
WOW!
Maybe you should be more careful in handling delicate electronics components …-
Maybe you should be more careful in your conclusions.
FYI, I have been assembling PC's since the early 90's.
"I have been assembling PC's since the early 90's."
So have I … with no failures … your failure record is shocking.
Personally, HDD, PSU & GPU. @ Work everything but CPU.
I built my first PC when I was 10, so it's been a long history, but I take care of my stuff and upgrade when possible.
PSU, Video Card, HDD, SSD have all failed on me.
Either a Motherboard or CPU failed on some systems that were 8+ years old, but I couldn't tell you which because I didn't bother swapping them out to confirm.
Also had a RAM stick get shoved part-way into a slot backwards which caught fire as a result. That doesn't really count though.
I've had most of those die at some point. One CPU died a few days after I built a new PC. No errors were made during installation, it just stopped being a CPU. The CPU was replaced under warranty (tested and swapped at Umart). I had never known a CPU to up and die like that. Normally CPUs become obsolete because the motherboard dies can not be replaced.
I haven't had a fan die, they just keep spinnan and spinnan and spinnaann!
One motherboard died due to swollen caps (known issue for that board) and another due to lightning strike. The power surge came in from the modem, only taking out it's ADSL port then went into the PC. I think the only thing to die in the PC was the power supply and motherboard, not sure on the PSU as this was around 15 years ago.
"The power surge came in from the modem, only taking out it's ADSL port then went into the PC. I think the only thing to die in the PC was the power supply and motherboard,"
This is why I'm currently working on a dual conversion UPS, so that my PC runs on CLEAN 240V AC power ALL THE TIME.
I'm also doing this because the current leftie/warmunist obsession with unreliable, expensive, ruinables and futile net-zero will cause our electricity grid to become more and more unstable, leadimg to frequent blackouts, brownouts and surges.
24 hour dual conversion … DIRTY, UNSTABLE 240V AC > 12 volt DC > CLEAN, STABLE 240V AC … will remedy this woke govt-mandated, self-inflicted situation.
Oh, and I forgot …
a telephone line conditioner is also on the agenda …
Also, during electrical storms, I disconnect the telephone line so that automatic 4G wireless mode kicks in on the Telstra modem.
I power off my PC, disconnect the NTD from the wall when a thunderstorm is about to hit. It's hardly elegant, but it does work.
The last time I didn't do this was when I was raiding MC in World of Warcraft. I will never do that again. It ain't worth the risk to me.
From anecdotal evidence, CPUs always seem to be one of those last things to die, but some people just get unlucky, I've had a friend who had 3 defective Samsung TVs on arrival.
Graphics Card
Hard Drive
Motherboard
Power Supply
RAM
HMMM …
Lots of unlucky people here who seem to be stalked by "MULTIPLE FAILURES"
Are electronic devices really so unreliable?????
Or is it something else …
The way I watch some people treat their electronics; it doesn't surprise me when things fail earlier than they're supposed to.
I've experienced failures in everything on the list. But I am considering all the PCs I have put together for myself and others over 20+ years.
The least reliable part is a spinning disc hdd, and the monitor. RAM is up there too. GPUs fail occasionally however they are complex hardware with many points of failure.
Motherboards are generally ok however dust buildup will eventually cause static damage, but only when you are working on them.
Never had a PSU I bought fail, however I do make an effort to buy good quality ones. Several failures with undersized PSUs in prebuilt pcs like the ex lease Dell PCs we see on sale often.
There's probably more, but that's what I remember.
Generally capacitors!
PSU's can be recapped. (Hardly worth it)
Mainboards sometimes give issues to cpu.
Pre SSD ages: sticky drives!
Who remembers the obligatory ram tests on the first XT series?
Where you could read the numbers going up?
AIO cooler
Suspecting a motherboard has also gone
Been building my own PC's for the last 25 years. I have only ever had mechanical HDD's fail on me. One internal one after about 5 years of use (was due for a replacement, I just got lazy) and one external one after 1 year. Otherwise everything I've had has been replaced before it failed. My work computers however are constantly chucking HDD's, power supplies and monitors.
I've lost 2 GPUs (AMD 380/480), got a third AMD 480 on RMA, but ended up replacing it with a 1080ti, which I'm still using (I think it's up to 5 plus years of service now). I've also lost multiple hard drives, when they seem to be dying, I swap them out ASAP, having said that, I've got a small collection of hard drives banked up as spares now.
When I worked in computer repair, I'd see alot of RAM sticks fail and need replacement, in hind sight, I haven't really had that many hardware failures when I think about it.
A Pico PSU failed and fried three HDD.
A GPU waterblock seal failed and dropped a bit of water into the case but luckily a PSU shroud saved the PSU and nothing else got wet.
A SSD failed under warranty years ago and was replaced.
I was building a new PC for a mate and flipped the switch on the PSU marked 220V while it was running wondering what it did. Well the other half of the switch says 110V and it makes the purple smoke come out.
I built 2 PC's back in 2014, and I haven't had anything fail. Still using both of them today.
Nothing has failed in years, ever since I started buying good psu's and having them have lots of excess capacity.
Many moons ago we were all lanning and my friend's PC blew up so hard everything was trashed including the keyboard. Riddle me that one
PSU short from line to load will do it.
Surprisingly I've not had hardware fail over time, although I have had to RMA RAM about a decade ago.
On saying that, I think my GPU is on its way out… I've had to underclock it to 80% for it to stop overheating. But it's still going strong
what could be the issue? some games work but most of them will just crash. its the dell pc posted here last year with 3070 graphics, updated with latest drivers.
RAM went - Caused weird crashes. Ran Memtest over it from a USB, found the dodgy stick, went from 16gb —> 8gb for a bit and it was good again.
Interestingly, that dodgy piece of RAM works just fine in my homelab system….
I have not had a CPU fail, but have had all of the others fail at one stage at home or at work.