31.7% of laptops fail due to non user malfunction in first 3 years

[taltamir]

http://tech.icrontic.com/news/asus-toshiba-sony-best-apple-in-laptop-reliability/

Very interesting reliability info. I am surprised at how high failure rate is. Also interesting is the reliability rating of specific companies. HP was lowest, by far. Apple was actually was only 4th place.

The company’s report illustrates that Apple notebooks failed at a rate of 17.4% over three years, while Asus led the way with a 15.6% failure rate, followed by Toshiba and Sony at 15.7% and 16.8%, respectively.

Even so, SquareTrade gave Asus and Toshiba the nod for this holiday season saying, “ASUS and Toshiba laptops failed just over half as frequently as HP, which makes them a solid bet in terms of reliability.”

So, Asus makes the most reliable laptops (according to this study)... which has "only" a 15.7% of dying completely on its own in 3 years (user / software / etc problems were tracked separately, the above figures are only for hardware failure that excludes physical damage)

note: this is from 2009, so it isn't breaking news. But it is the most up to date study I know of. if you have a newer one, please link.

 

[gorcorps]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2026668&highlight=laptop+failure+rate

original link is now dead, but this was talking about the same study... so yeah semi-repost

 

[taltamir]

thanks. I never saw the original article discussion (it has been inactive for 6 months now).
thanks for the link.

 

[MJinZ]

My G60VX had the GPU die within a few months of owning it. Bestbuy, which services Asus machines using its GeekSquad, replaced it within 2 weeks.

 

[Auric]

Prolly ain't so faily if Nvidia GPU are excluded.

 

[ModestGamer]

It might be slow and old and not techie or shiny. but my cf-29 just plugs through the work everyday without complaint.

 

[WhiteFireDragon]

my old toshiba laptop lasted more than 6 years. i kinda wished it would just die so i can have an excuse to buy another laptop, but that dam thing is like a tank. i finally gave and up just bought a new laptop, the old toshiba one is in the garage, still works fine though.

 

[TruePaige]

Prolly ain't so faily if Nvidia GPU are excluded.

I am still under GPU warranty into year 3 because of faulty nVidia chipsets.

..

But they finally gave me a functional board and an updated BIOS for thermal management, and I bought a cooling pad. Never had an issue after this perfect storm of fixes.

 

[cbn]

Too bad they didn't list the most likely and least likely parts to fail. I find it interesting that netbooks failed more than laptops considering they classically have less parts (hard drive, etc).

 

[Zap]

IMO people are just treating their notebooks rough. Maybe not enough to count as physical damage, but abuse is abuse. I know someone who's notebooks are always falling apart. I even gave her my 3 year old notebook which was in absolutely perfect shape, and in a couple months keys were missing from the keyboard. "I don't know what happened, they just fell off." I've seen people pick up their notebooks by the screen. I've seen people use notebooks on soft surfaces (like a bed) which will cause overheating due to blocking vents. I've seen people plop down notebooks on hard surfaces like they would a normal book. Recently I heard about a notebook that was getting lines in the screen. It looked fine but when asked, the owner goes "when I do this" and violently jerked the screen back/forth several times.

 

[tcsenter]

Very interesting reliability info. I am surprised at how high failure rate is. Also interesting is the reliability rating of specific companies. HP was lowest, by far. Apple was actually was only 4th place.

During the period over which the laptops would have been sold, ASUS had just entered the market and only sold premium laptops in excess of $1200. The report also found that more expensive laptops were generally more reliable than cheaper ones, across the board. Or maybe people take better care of laptops when they spend $1500 vs. $600. Either way.

So the numbers for ASUS could have been skewed in its favor by the fact that it literally did not offer any sub-$1000 notebooks until recently.

 

[beginner99]

Too bad they didn't list the most likely and least likely parts to fail. I find it interesting that netbooks failed more than laptops considering they classically have less parts (hard drive, etc).

But they are built much cheaper and probably carried around much more like in a backpack compared to a 17 incher. Steady shaking probaly can lead to hardware failure over time.
My netbook gets extremly hot when charging. I now you should never charge and use it at the sametime and I try to avoid it but when it's warm it's impossible.
They are generally rather badly vented.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Meh. I think it boils down more to how one treats his or her equipment.

I have a 5-year-old HP ZT3000 that still runs brilliantly, despite traveling on some 60 business trips in that period of time. I have also taken it apart twice, cleaned it, replaced the CPU, added RAM, and replaced the HDD. It now runs Win7Pro32 (minus Aero) and replaced my GF's equally-old DELL Latitude which has since fallen apart but never traveled as much as mine did.

Based on my experience, you can't go wrong with an HP.

That said, I just bought a Sony Vaio. We'll see how it compares.

 

[taltamir]

During the period over which the laptops would have been sold, ASUS had just entered the market and only sold premium laptops in excess of $1200. The report also found that more expensive laptops were generally more reliable than cheaper ones, across the board. Or maybe people take better care of laptops when they spend $1500 vs. $600. Either way.

So the numbers for ASUS could have been skewed in its favor by the fact that it literally did not offer any sub-$1000 notebooks until recently.

very important observations on your part. I concur...

 

[aceO07]

SquareTrade (they did the study) sells warranties. It's probably to their interest to shape the data so that people will think about purchasing warranties. Depending on the methods for collecting the data, it's very possible to find much lower percentages..

 

[ArchAngel777]

IMO people are just treating their notebooks rough. Maybe not enough to count as physical damage, but abuse is abuse. I know someone who's notebooks are always falling apart. I even gave her my 3 year old notebook which was in absolutely perfect shape, and in a couple months keys were missing from the keyboard. "I don't know what happened, they just fell off." I've seen people pick up their notebooks by the screen. I've seen people use notebooks on soft surfaces (like a bed) which will cause overheating due to blocking vents. I've seen people plop down notebooks on hard surfaces like they would a normal book. Recently I heard about a notebook that was getting lines in the screen. It looked fine but when asked, the owner goes "when I do this" and violently jerked the screen back/forth several times.

My exact same thoughts and experiences. People just don't know how to treat electronics. Whenever I lend my brother anything, it comes back broken and dirty... I usually just give him the item without asking for it back now because I know I won't want it after he has trashed it.

I think in general you will find it comes down to personality of the person. I am careful in everything that I pick up and do. I don't throw electronics. I have very few failures on any of my equipment. That doesn't mean I am a better person, but I think it does mean that those who take care of their electronics and treat them properly are going to have better results.

 

[Winterpool]

it's important to bear in mind that SquareTrade research is based on SquareTrade data (ie 'laptop computers covered by SquareTrade Laptop Warranty'). This is hardly a random sample of the notebook population. The numbers are nice and big though (you generally want at least a few hundred for good sampling).

On the other hand I'm not sure if SquareTrade punters would skew towards more responsible (it's somewhat geeky to know about SquareTrade) or less (perhaps their sample tend to be risk-takers, heavy users, travellers, etc). I'm not ruling out the possibility that it could be a fairly representative sample too.

But to take just one possible outlier: the vast majority of Apple users subscribe to AppleCare including the 3-year (really 2) extension. So a huge proportion of Apple notebooks are not being sampled by SquareTrade. Again, I don't know if one would guess Apple to actually be more or less reliable than the SquareTrade data suggests.

15-20 per cent seems reasonable to me. One third is getting a bit ridiculous. Note even Dell was below 20 per cent malfunction rate.

 

[Emulex]

people buy crappy consumer laptops and wonder why? i have had one laptop fail on me. I lent my buddy my car and my laptop; he ran over it with my car. it still works just the screen doesn't so its more of a desktop now.

 

[taltamir]

people buy crappy consumer laptops and wonder why? i have had one laptop fail on me. I lent my buddy my car and my laptop; he ran over it with my car. it still works just the screen doesn't so its more of a desktop now.

oh wow, that is just hilarious... well, at least he didn't run over your laptop with your car while running your car into a tree.

 

[Emulex]

in those situations you can only laugh..

 

[EarthwormJim]

Wasn't HP the first OEM to approach Nvidia about their failing solder bumps?

 

[mmntech]

Too bad they didn't list the most likely and least likely parts to fail. I find it interesting that netbooks failed more than laptops considering they classically have less parts (hard drive, etc).

I'd like to know what defines a failure. A bad HDD or battery aren't catastrophic.

 

[corkyg]

The whole premise begs the question, "What percentage of laptops fail because of user abuse during the first 3 years?"

 

[wirednuts]

i think many laptops fail because dust clogs the system inside and nobody cleans it. furthermore the heatsink paste that manufacturers put on (i swear to god) is designed to deteriorate after a couple years. at least thats what ive noticed. bad enough to the point where i take apart and rebuilt my laptops myself as soon as the warranty is out. clean out the dust and repaste everything with real heatsink goo and youd be surprised how quiet and nice it runs.

 

[cbn]

i think many laptops fail because dust clogs the system inside and nobody cleans it. furthermore the heatsink paste that manufacturers put on (i swear to god) is designed to deteriorate after a couple years. at least thats what ive noticed. bad enough to the point where i take apart and rebuilt my laptops myself as soon as the warranty is out. clean out the dust and repaste everything with real heatsink goo and youd be surprised how quiet and nice it runs.

Wow. That is really interesting. I never really gave TIM/dust much thought till you mentioned this.