Dell's w/o OS - where?

[George N. White III]

On Sat, 3 Feb 2007, Jamie Bohr wrote:

> The Super Micro's we bought three years ago are dieing right and left.  We
> are now buying Dell and quite happy.  Dell system we bought 5 years ago are
> still running.

Which is not evidence that newer Dell's will last as long as the ones they 
sold 5 years ago.

Are those Super Micro's dying of leaking electrolytic capacitors?
I've seen too many leaky or bulging capacitors.  One P-III system 
refused to boot after a few capacitors showed signs of bulging tops.  I 
replaced the system board and set the old one aside.  I recently took 
another look -- after a year of sitting idle, all the electrolytics were 
bulging, which suggests an aging process with a finite lifespan.

The Optiplexes we bought 5 years ago are all still running, with a couple 
disk replacements.  Optiplex and PowerEdge bought 3 years ago are much 
less reliable, as are white box machines purchased at the same time.

Many components have 3-year warranties.  It is hardly surprising that 
moving parts are optimized for a 3-year working life, and there is no 
reason for vendors to avoid components that tend to die shortly after 3 
years.  Some organizations are starting to ask for 4-year warranties.  If 
you want to know which machines are engineered to last, ask how much a 
4-year warranty will cost.

At least if you run FC linux and your system dies every 3 years you don't 
end up buying another copy of the OS.  Windows users should ask 
for a break on the software licenses when replacing failed machines.
In my experience, however, many organizations install linux on older 
hardware that no longer performs acceptably running Win32.

-- 
George N. White III  <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>