The Laptop Conspiracy - Are You a victim?

minusinfinity


Ha ha.

You're old.

That sux 4 u.

OP, the conspiracy is that you are willing to buy a laptop for a few hundred dollars, expect it to be half an inch thick and expect it to last forever. We're not doing too bad considering not too long ago we started out with caves, rocks and dirt. You also allow manufactures to continue selling you things they know will fall apart quickly. You also allow them to install an OS which is unnecessarily resource heavy, requiring your computer to run full tilt all the time while accomplishing less in the same amount of time than computers did 15 years ago.

I'm involved in the same conspiracy. Last week I allowed my friend to buy a laptop where the standard warranty covered only 40% worth of parts and the sales rep warned that the laptop probably wouldn't last through the warranty period.

Laptop heat is a major problem.

Laptop heat can also be solved very easily, if not cheaply. It does cost a buck or two.

Change that heater...err....hard drive for an SSD drive and spend the hour or so it'll take to get them swapped.

After changing mine both over (and they go back and forth for my needs on those pricey solid state drives) I can use my laptop on blankets with no problem. Exhaust only becomes an issue when the fan kicks and the only element left, as I found to be true, is the CPU. MOST things we do on a laptop (and they'll be a gamer come along to say otherwise...the exception to prove a rule) won't tax a CPU and my laptop fan rarely engages at all with the SSD in it.

If the regular magnetic drive is in it? Well...The bottom of the laptop keeps my legs warm, no doubt ...and just setting it down on my bed's fluffy blankets it begging for a thermal shutdown before one can say Boo.

Try it....you'll find you not only get boot from power button to desktop with all loading done in 10-15 seconds max....but no more hot spots or heater exhaust from a laptop.

* Oh... My battery life more than doubled immediately too...as a side benefit

reply to post by minusinfinity


And manufacturer's know that you don't have the money to purchase high quality devices, so they make low cost, low quality devices.

It's just the way the market is. That and greed.

An Iphone 5S costs 250$ to manufacture, the retail sales cost is 900$. What's the extra for?

Branding.

~Tenth

reply to post by tothetenthpower


You're correct but if people refused to pay astronomical amounts of $$$$ then the manufacturer would eventually lower the price.

In your first reply I thought you suggested people pay $4000 plus in order to obtain a quality computer. (I may be mistaken.)

Most people cannot afford to pay such an amount for a home computer.

reply to post by minusinfinity


I suggested that if you wanted to have a piece of hardware that lasted outside the standard 18 to 36 months, that you will need to spend that much.

Technically speaking, if you spend 600$ every 2nd year on a PC, a 4000$ investment would save you money in the long run.

~Tenth

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


I built a desktop computer in middle school that still runs great.. What was that 13-15 years ago? That Overclocked AMD Duron runs like a champ with my geforce FX 5600. I added that card in later, but originally it was a Voodoo 5. 256MB SDRAM... 20 GB HD..

Since then I have gone through about 1 laptop per year, mostly due to my gf dropping them.. But a couple of them I have had to go in and repair and clean and it's not easy to do. My current one is overheating so I had to underclock it. It's already very slow and shouldn't be making so much heat, but it sits almost directly on the ground, and has a weak fan.

The only way to get dust out is to take everything apart. There isn't another way. I used to "speed up people's computers." This meant that I would work on the registry/viruses/malware, de frag the HD, upgrade ram, dust out the comp, overclock if it was available. They thought it was magic.

I'm going back to desktops for my next computer, and it will be built by me so I know it won't die.
Besides its fun picking out sound and video cards, motherboards, processors... I mean the last time I looked at buying parts processors were single core, and SLI didn't exist. I'll get to be a noob all over again.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Well dont forget that with desktops, you can upgrade a system for not very much money to keep up with the tech and falling prices, then when you hit a generational bump, aka new chip/memory/PCI/mobo standards you can then save up for a leap to the new standard, usually a new chip mobo and memory, pci-x is thankfully quite stable atm.

I paid about 2k for all the parts of my desktop then just assembled it myself.
Believe it or not, there are people that use high end computers for more than just games.
Software editing
video editing
music editing
EDITING
etc.

Plus the OEM copy of Windows doesn't come with any free trials or a bunch of lame games and programs on it. It's just Windows.

Thanks for the info, although i have ever blown stuff inside.

My method, turn the laptop upside down, give it a bang to get the bits out...then hoover the keyboard whilst it's upside down, then hoover the fans and thats it. Always runs beautifully silent afterwards.

Not sure i do it any good, but it works for me.

CX.

reply to post by CX


get some of the air duster stuff.

it is expensive for just air in a can, dont get me started on that, but it is awesome for getting the crap out of laptop fans.

reply to post by Biigs


problem is most labtops aren't readily upgradable.

Desktops are a whole other story.

~Tenth

tothetenthpower
reply to post by Biigs

 

problem is most labtops aren't readily upgradable.

Desktops are a whole other story.

~Tenth

Oh very true, laptops, things start to get tricky beyond anything more than a memory upgrade. CPU upgrades are possible as are graphics, but rarely worth it. Most of the time you are better off selling it on ebay and buying a new one with the "upgrade" money.

Desktops are obviously far more versatile when it comes to customization and upgrades.

I'm typing right now on a 6 year old dell inspiron. The cpu fan kicked the bucket about a year ago and I went and purchased one to replace it and then discovered I have to tear the darn thing apart to get at it. I bought me a three-fan cooling desk for six bucks on ebay and it works fantastic.

I've replaced the keyboard 4 times, the monitor once, the hard drive, replaced the ram and upgraded it and have had to purchase 2 batteries and 3 power cords in its life.

I think I have spent more on fixing the damn thing than it cost in the first place! not quite, but I think it's time for me to get a new one. I've never cleaned it out though, and never had an overheating issue until the fan died.

minusinfinity
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Of course most people can afford $4,000 or $5,000 on a new computer.

More like $400 or $500.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix



I do agree. Parts like Hard drives and CDroms have a tendency to go earlier than what you think they would because of the moving parts.
Although I'm mostly interested in the batteries myself. I do believe that its the heat that kills the efficency of the lithium-ion batteries that they come with. Also the manufacturers know this and thats why a lot of them only offer a 6 month warranty in some cases.

For over a year I've been building bedini style motors that I've been using the Radiant method of rejuvenating the batteries back up
to their best efficencies which has made a real difference but I would advise people if your using the laptops and just running off AC then remove your batteries and only plug them in when your planning on running of DC.

It's not just a conspiracy it's an almost accepted fact, it's a type of planned obsolescense. The common type is done by continually issuing slightly better forms of the same thing (I'm sure Gillette could have introduced the Mach 5 first if they wanted to but made far more money adding one more razor every year) each time in order to get people to pay for each upgraded version, I don't think there's anything wrong with that personally.

The bad type (something that Apple have become infamous for) is making products that break prematurely so people are required to buy a new one, or pay extortionate fees for repairs or upgrades. I remember stories of their early Ipods reliably malfunctioning after around a year of purchase. I'm sure laptops could last far longer than they should, although I think computer companies can rely on people's lack of care for their laptops rather than employing any dirty tricks. Some people still don't put any anti-virus software on their machines!

Back in the bulby old days, when you bought a tele, you had it for twenty plus years. It was also not something most could easily afford. If you want a tele now, you could almost get one for free on a milk carton coupon. It however wont last for decades, nor would you want it to.

Miniaturisation has it's prise.

Unfortunately we are not at the end of the breakdown. There is a big push for pb-free manufacturing of electronics. Now that would seem a good thing for the environment and all but it aint all that rosycosymoonshineyvalentiney when you look a bit closer.

The replacement for pb soldering paste or wire is not green, far from it. It is just poisonous in a different way. The biggest draw back however is the characteristics for the connections. It's more brittle and tends to crumble more quickly due to ageing. Another drawback is that boll-grid repairs are more difficult to do for the solder does tent to not auto correct misplacements or cracks when brought back into flued state. Manufacturers like to fit these kind of bga ic's with large bulky heatsinks that are bolted to the pcb, adding stress to connections beneath the ic causing it to break down even faster.

The ring of death, the worst nightmare to a 360 gamer, is caused mostly by this heatsinkbolgridsceme.

Manufacturers like to dwell on how green it all is but it's not. It is still poison, breaks down faster and it's less easy to repair, adding more to the pile off useless poison at an exponential rate.

Cramp all this into a creditcard like environment where heat cant properly dispose and you are toast. Why people want those crap boxes is beyond me. Why have this.

If you can.. with some years of proper upgrading, have this:
< boasting >< /boasting >

Yes, electronics are built to break. Better invest in something that you can replace broken or outdated parts into, rather than having to buy another one of those portable Fukushima's.

Yeah I hate them, kill me.

I have disassembled and reassembled more laptops than I can count. The inside of a laptop is an engineering nightmare. Heat is most certainly a big issue, and shortens the lifespan of the unit. But then, abuse is also a major issue. The laptop graveyard I have in my storage unit consists mostly of units that have died from heat and abuse.

Some of the older laptops had better fans, and heat sinks with more space between the fins. I have never seen one of those old units die from heat. There was enough space to keep lint and dirt from building up across the fins, and cutting off airflow. BUT, those old units were built like tanks. Nobody wanted to lug them around. Everybody wanted lighter and smaller. So sacrifices were made that didn't have to be, but they were good for profit margin. Hence, cheap and poorly designed laptops. As tenth said, Quality costs money. Rugged Laptops

tothetenthpower
reply to post by Biigs

 

problem is most labtops aren't readily upgradable.

And I'm sure said member resembling a similar name has been sent a memo,
advising that there are no further upgrades possible?