OT: What is a reasonable life for a laptop regarding the SOGA?

[dennis]

OT: What is a reasonable life for a laptop regarding the SOGA?

[Peter Parry]

One to three years. Batteries one year. Because of the likelihood of user damage proving (as you have to) that anything which happens after the first 6 months is due to a latent defect present at the time of sale is likely to be difficult.

[js.b1]

Actually, it might not be depending on the problem.

nVidia GPU faults affect most laptops fitted with them at 1-2yr old. This ranges from say cheap Inspiron to top Latitude & Precision, there is no real fix & repairs are noted for being quite short lived. Dell recently extended warranty on the GPU by 12 months IIRC.

ATI GPU faults affect Thinkpad, and a few others, in this instance it is more difficult to pin down as a GPU, lead-free solder-ball, solder pad or flow wave process problem. Whatever, as you go from about R40 thro T41 T42 T43 the flexion-failure of the GPU (requiring a sheet of paper between keyboard & GPU) becomes less but does eventually occur. Repairs even from the manufacturer do fail some time later. Intel GPU supposedly do not suffer the same failure mode (but are not totally problem free).

I guess it comes down to what the failure is, other faults can be bad DIMM soldering, component failures re metallurgy. If it is Toshiba, Siemens, HP, they have their own quirks too - and nVidia applies re HP etc. I recall nVidia agreed 0.2B$ payment re faults, but what people do not realise is repairs are not corrective instead merely "turning the clock back to repeat failure".

Currently got a dud "warranty repaired" laptop that is DOA from Dabs (internal LCD "Whiteout" after a few mins, external image remains fine,

Lenovo state repair labels are not theirs which is illogical since their warranty is by Type & Serial number and not the person (unlike most), unauthorised repair invalidates their warranty so this could become a dogs dinner. Dabs pre-sale enquiry re 7-day return on used items in case of lemon received the reply "As such, anything you purchase from us can be returned within 7 working days.". OFT intervention in May

2007 required the deletion of T&C 5 18(f) excluding used stock from DSD. Their website returns process of course works to the *old* T&C and refuses to provide an RMA. No reply to RMA or emails, registered letter not signed for yet.

So laptops are a PITA, and the moral is to buy with 3yr warranty. September is a good time re IT cycle & pricing.

[The Medway Handyman]

I'd be pissed off of a brand name laptop didn't last 5 years personally.

[pete]

Yup, me too. My three are vintage 1996, 1999 and 2003 - all different makes and all still working except for the batteries which give up the ghost after

2 or 3 years of daily business usage. The next thing to go seem to be the lid hinges - though I did drop one and the catch that holds the lid closed, broke.

[Neil Williams]

And not to buy from an organisation that is well known as the Ryanair of the IT supply industry.

It *is* worth paying more to purchase from a company that gives a stuff about after-sales service.

Neil

[Andrew Gabriel]

Having had a sideline supplying/repairing laptops in previous employer, I would say the number 1 factor is the user, and that overrides all other considerations by an enormous amount. Some staff could keep a laptop working for years, and others never got more than 6 months out of their laptop, and it had nothing to do with the amount they used them either.

Also, I far too often see a laptop being bought which then spends its whole life in a docking bay on the desktop, when a desktop system should have been bought.

Looking over all the employers I've had, I would say that a fixed amount should be allocated per person per year. Those who break their laptops frequently would have to buy cheap replacements, or switch to desktops, or even use others' cast-offs. Those who keep laptops working for a long time could benefit from buying a more expensive one from time to time, and those who don't need portability could buy a much better spec desktop.

[Andy Burns]

Agreed.

My previous one lasted 8 years, perhaps that was eeking it out a little too long, by then it was a bit like the proverbial grandfather's hammer, but I was waiting for a specific model to be released to replace it.

There are plenty among the self employed who feel able to justify more than one a year to retain membership of the trendy gadget brigade.

Agreed, see also the government backed "laptops for teachers" scheme.

That wouldn't be a bad way of handling it.

[The Medway Handyman]

What did it have to do with? Amount of use, misuse, physical abuse?

[Peter Parry]

How long one can last and how long it is reasonable from the Sale of Goods Act viewpoint are somewhat different and it was the latter question which was being asked.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I have had three old laptops through my hands recently, in an attempt to get something cheap to run Linux.

All suffered in one way or another.

One had been dropped and the case split a bit, but a mate had done a good job with epoxy..

Another one had been smashed, re-screened, but the keyboard was falling apart. Fast, but would not run linux on its own screen. Screen wouldn't synch.

Third one was dying the death. Took 15 minutes to boot XP and the battery was shafted. Now boots Linux double quick.

All were > 3 years old, none seemed to offer much less than the latest range of laptops screenwise.

All were 30% as good as an equivalent costing desktop.

- less RAM

- less screen

- less disk

All needed a separate mouse to really operate effectively. And the keyboards were irritating and expensive to replace.

I used to have a laptop years ago that got nicked: Its spent it's life being a serial terminal setting up routers.

The one I kept looks useful for setting up broadband routers. and, if hooked up, being a portable TV in a caravan..;-)

Apart from that, more or less a waste of space..

So what goes?

Mainly the screen, keyboard case and battery.The hard disks seem to survive, along with the motherboards..

[js.b1]

RMA received this morning, so progress.

Very much so - laptops are a tricky item in terms of most likely to need service and whose parts can approach the cost of the laptop.

Indeed laptop life is a function of how they are used - a case of "desk queen" vs "used to knock nails in & drop tested". Heavy use will polish palmrests, never mind keyboards, but the stiffer the laptop the better. Interesting to see how the magnesium 600X, Dell 420 620 820 last (subject to design faults) compared to the most budget models.

Re SoGA, the last time I spoke to T/S about a laptop (Inspiron 7000) they said 3yrs is "a reasonable expectation", one issue is where a manufacturer does specific "consumer with 1yr" and "business with 3yr" warranty so you might battle to argue 3yrs on the cheapest budget model. I would say 2yrs minimum, and if the laptop has a known design fault "no question" (nVidia, ATI).

Batteries can be "9 months" or "several years" depending on quality re generic vs branded, perhaps some charger designs are better than others and software can be used to improve matters too.

[The Medway Handyman]

I'd love to know how hardware & software companies get away with peddling stuff that hardly ever works properly. If I bought a power tool that was as reliable as a PC it would be sent back. They get away with bloody murder IMO.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its a simple equation. The percentage of units that work satisfactorily, plus the percentage of units you can simply fob off that don't, minus the irreducible residue that bitch enough to get a refund, compared with the cost of doing the job properly.

Basically these things are toys: Fashion accessories. They don't have to WORK. Otherwise they wouldn't come loaded with Windows, would they?

>

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Heh heh, this machine is 12 years old - although updated in many ways - but my first PC - home assembled had a PS and motherboard failure within

18 months...

[BigWallop]

The wife tells her 92 year old husband that another of his friends has died.

"When and how" he asks.

"Yesterday afternoon and they say it was just old age" replies the wife.

"Yep, that old age thing will get ya' everytime" says the hubby, drawing on his cigarette and taking another swig from his glass of whiskey.

It's not the item that grows old and dies or wears out, it's the use and abuse it gets when in service that determines its life expectancy. If any machine is treated well, including the human machine, it seems to keep them going for much longer than everyone would expect. A little maintenance and TLC every so often, and you keep the thing going until old age gets you. :-)

Cordless goods need replacement batteries at least every four to five years, because the cells do become burnt with even the slightest use. A whirring, screaming hard drive that goes on and on every day, all day, will also have a life expectancy of about five to six at most. Where a hard drive that gets used hard for only an hour every day may last fifty to sixty years.

Modern electronics are much more reliable than goods bought just ten years ago, so the innards, the not moving or solid state parts, should go and go and go in normal use. Even if they are run hard 24 / 7 / 365. They shouldn't loose their quality at all, unless bashed about.

So. How long is a piece of string? The batteries, disks and hard drives are the only things that should be looked at changing on a fairly regular basis, but everything else should keep going for a whole lot longer.

Look after yourself. :-)

[Man at B&Q]

What a load of Wallops.

Read up on lead free solder and tin whiskers before posting about reliability of modern electronics.

Then learn about endurance of consumer grade FLASH memory.

MBQ

[The Natural Philosopher]

Those are not inherent problems..

Which is fine as long as its not written to often. So fine for storing system params: Less so as hard drive replacements.

[Man at B&Q]

No but they have caused quite serious reliability problems.

Nor in some MP3 players.

I could also mention the Xbox debacle.

MBQ

[The Medway Handyman]

What the kinell are 'uptimes'?