Windows XP - 9500 hours crash-free and counting

[Armitage]

So what is it?
Really 9500 hour uptime (screenshot please!) doing real work. I'd almost be impressed.
Or do you just reboot at the drop of a hat.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: TheEvil1
we have the new imacs in our physics lab. like 30 in the 2 labs. and i can say that on average they crash EVERY DAY!

My only mac experiences have always been trough schools (elementary school, middle school, high school, and university). In all cases, I could never finish one task on a MAC without at least one crash. Sure maybe there were a half dozen bad adminstrators on those MACs. But the fact remains then - you need to be an expert to get your MAC to stop crashing. Same goes with PCs. With a little love and care, you can get any machine to run fine. I just find it so funny that Apple advertizes that they don't crash - when in every experience with every Apple/Mac I've ever used they crashed.

 

[bonk102]

i used to crash weekly with 98, then i switched to 2000 and had no problems at all, now i'm on xp and about to upgrade to pro, and i have yet to have a problem in about 10 months of constant use

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: joohang
But then I am yet to see a System Update CRASHING the whole damn machine. I recently fixed a Mac at work because the thing just went to a mysterious halt during a system update. WTF? I was told that all the person did was going to some sort of online update thingy (I'm guessing it's Apple's equivalent to Windows Update).

Win2K SP3 crashed in the middle of updating a server here at work.
Restored a backup image, tried again. Success. Time taken? 5 minutes.

- M4H

 

[HendrixFan]

Windows still needs to be rebooted after heavy usage. It may not crash like 98 did, but it certainly struggles with *solid* uptime if its running for more than 2 weeks or so. I think I have gone over a month without a reboot, but when I start doing intensive tasks like audio and video editting, I need a reboot.

Oddly enough, I could run longest after I deleted IE from my computer. If it wasnt for AoM requiring some of those files for their ESO service, Id still have it deleted.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: ergeorge

Really 9500 hour uptime (screenshot please!) doing real work.

That is the key to any stability discussion. I see people all the time turn on their computer, run one stable program, and never touch the machine. Then they claim it is 100% stable. But most crashes occur while using it - loading/closing programs. Using multiple programs at the same time (when they both request the same resource at the exact same moment). What about a program that isn't 100% stable? How does your computer/OS handle those situations? Just simply having one program running non-stop without you touching the computer proves nothing about stability.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
And how many threads are out there on the quality of drivers? Choices are a double edged sword. Choices are definitely good, thats why I dont restrict myself to one architecture (I run sparc4m, sparc4u, x86, and ppc at the moment with possibilities of alpha very soon). Quality, not quantity

Quality == high prices, low choices, and "My Way or the Highway" eliteist attitude. And besides, what would the forums be without the daily nVidiot vs fanATIc flaming?

You mean x86 right? But anyways, probably not. If Apple did make the mistake of moving to the x86 architecture they would produce their own chipsets which would limit your choices of manufacturers to, yet again, Apple. Its the only sane way for them to do this.

You mean "the only sane way for them to continue ass-raping the end-user with exorbant pricing."

Pick up an iBook.

Wow. And such power I get for that thousand bucks. Halve the price and I'll buy one.

Apple is primarily a hardware company and can therefor not worry about piracy. That is how they can get away with selling 5pack licenses to Mac OS X for about $200USD instead of charging $200/license like another company I love to hate. Plus you do not have to worry about this phone home, activation, if you install too many times call us crap.

Not worry about it meaning "get screwed by it". I know a lot of people using MacinWarez as opposed to paying a few hundred bucks per app. No CD-key, no license, no registry == piracy nuts paradise. But no games.

Benchmarks are like statistics. They mean very little when you have work to do.

The point is, they took all the tests where Apple is claiming that the "G4s are 90% faster than the Pentium 4" and turned them right around. Supposedly (according to Apple, at least) they're "real world" tests - like MP3 encoding, compression, movie encoding, Photoshop work - all things that Mac users do (since they don't have the muscles to go toe-to-toe with x86 in gaming)

- M4H

 

[Supermercado]

Originally posted by: GoodToGo
The best OS out there right now is Win98. Matter closed, Xp and 2000 dont even come close to the funtionality and the stability of 98. It never NEVER crashed on me.

Not a chance. 98 crashed several times a day when I had it, running exactly the same programs I'm running now on XP with no problems. 98 is most definitely not 98.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
And how many threads are out there on the quality of drivers? Choices are a double edged sword. Choices are definitely good, thats why I dont restrict myself to one architecture (I run sparc4m, sparc4u, x86, and ppc at the moment with possibilities of alpha very soon). Quality, not quantity

Quality == high prices, low choices, and "My Way or the Highway" eliteist attitude. And besides, what would the forums be without the daily nVidiot vs fanATIc flaming?

ATi and nVidia both make producs for the Mac

You mean x86 right? But anyways, probably not. If Apple did make the mistake of moving to the x86 architecture they would produce their own chipsets which would limit your choices of manufacturers to, yet again, Apple. Its the only sane way for them to do this.

You mean "the only sane way for them to continue ass-raping the end-user with exorbant pricing."

No, I mean its the only way for them to stay in business if they made that mistake. Hardware is their business, not OSes. We can leave that up to Microsoft.

Pick up an iBook.

Wow. And such power I get for that thousand bucks. Halve the price and I'll buy one.

The iBook I got was the best deal for the money at the time.

Apple is primarily a hardware company and can therefor not worry about piracy. That is how they can get away with selling 5pack licenses to Mac OS X for about $200USD instead of charging $200/license like another company I love to hate. Plus you do not have to worry about this phone home, activation, if you install too many times call us crap.

Not worry about it meaning "get screwed by it". I know a lot of people using MacinWarez as opposed to paying a few hundred bucks per app. No CD-key, no license, no registry == piracy nuts paradise. But no games.

Games are not important to me. Piracy is rampant and apparently easier than in the Wintel world. I dont know, I dont pirate.

Benchmarks are like statistics. They mean very little when you have work to do.

The point is, they took all the tests where Apple is claiming that the "G4s are 90% faster than the Pentium 4" and turned them right around. Supposedly (according to Apple, at least) they're "real world" tests - like MP3 encoding, compression, movie encoding, Photoshop work - all things that Mac users do (since they don't have the muscles to go toe-to-toe with x86 in gaming)

- M4H

Its advertizing. Do what most intelligent people do, ignore it.

 

[thawolfman]

Originally posted by: aphexII
Ive used plenty of mac's and ji can tell youj without a doubt, tjhey are NOT crash free.

Anyone whjo says so it lying throughj their theetjh.

your J key alright there bro?

 

[CaesarX]

The 9500 hours obviously weren't consecutive. The computer is sometimes rebooted several times a day when installing new software, but sometimes it stays up for weeks. Either way, i've been using it for a year, and it hasn't crashed on me once, so i consider that to be pretty stable. Not to mention the kind of crap i always pull on this machine - tons of beta software all the time.

 

[dawks]

I'll just throw in my two cents.. my XP box was running 45 days straight with 6-7 hours of daily use.. things like photoshop, dreamweaver mx, flash mx.. quake3, mohaa, nhl 2003, 3d studio max 5... so on.. I only had to reboot to put my new sound card in..

If you have good hardware, and good drivers, XP is stable as any OS you can run.

Edit: NHL 2003 crashed three times due to crappy programming (i crashed when you moved the mouse pointer over one button).. that was the closest the system came to instability.

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: CaesarX
The 9500 hours obviously weren't consecutive. The computer is sometimes rebooted several times a day when installing new software, but sometimes it stays up for weeks. Either way, i've been using it for a year, and it hasn't crashed on me once, so i consider that to be pretty stable. Not to mention the kind of crap i always pull on this machine - tons of beta software all the time.

Ok, then I'm not impressed.

We typically go many months to > 1 year on linux clusters (and my linux desktop) without a reboot on any of them.
Haven't done it recently though due to non-software related issues :disgust:

 

[GoodToGo]

Umm lot of people seem to underestimate 98 (from the replies to my first post). I dont know why your 98 (BTW I am talking about SE here) would crash weekly or whatever, but my 98 never crashed on me. And this was while I was running Kazaa, Winmx, burning cds, watching movies and what not. The only time it crashed was when one of my hard drive overheated but then it was not really 98's fault. I am running XP right now and it can get really really slow after exiting some programs (like UT2003). Go figure

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: joohang
I don't mind Macs, although I get pissed at the OS's usability.

You get pissed that out of the box it has more features and is more usable than a Windows based OS?

Just curious, how is a Mac more usable out of the box? More features built into the OS? Isn't that what people blast Microsoft for? Bundling everything into the OS and killing competition?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: joohang
I don't mind Macs, although I get pissed at the OS's usability.

You get pissed that out of the box it has more features and is more usable than a Windows based OS?

Just curious, how is a Mac more usable out of the box? More features built into the OS? Isn't that what people blast Microsoft for? Bundling everything into the OS and killing competition?

I blast Microsoft for integrating various programs on a technical basis, not on a monopolistic level.

I get OpenSSH, perl, sed, awk, grep, gcc, etc on my system after an installation. All of it comes with the OS, for free. Thats why I think Mac OS X is more usable after an install

 

[fluxquantum]

i still used windows 2000 and so far it has been rock stable for months.

 

[wellerdball]

Originally posted by: Yield

Originally posted by: CaesarX
Was just thinking about how funny it is that all the Mac users walk around and talk about how it makes sense to pay double for Macs because they are so much more reliable than PCs. Well, what exactly are they talking about? I've been using Windows XP since the day it came out, and my machine has never crashed. Not only that, but it's also on 24/7, so we're talking roughly 9500 hours worth of error-free operation. It can't get much better than that, can it?

I have the same experiences with Windows 2000
rock stable and 100% crash free.

i remembermacos 8.5 and 9 crashing on me but win2ks be solid since i got it a program will never take the os down with it