What was the worst computer you ever bought and why?

[Casey]

On 12/17/2021 at 1:04 AM, Frozone212 said:

anything on tandy? anyone?

I had several Tandy 1000s back in the day.  Thanks to Radio Shack putting the next more powerful model on sale within the 30 day return period, I went from a 1000 RL to 1000 RLX to 1000 RSX in about 3 months and actually got money back doing that.  While I can't speak for all Tandy's, none of those were at all bad.  I then had a Tandy 486 (Tandy 2100 Model 10 I believe) when I was in college and my friend who had a custom built 486 bought some RAM for his computer that he was sure was defective since it didn't work, yet worked just fine in my Tandy, so they weren't all bad.

 

The worst computer I ever bought was a Philips Velo 1 Windows CE device.  It was cool and I *really* wanted it when I bought it, but I couldn't use it for anything at all.

[Scooter83]

I had a gateway back in the 90s. I got I sometime after the tandy 1000rlx and around the time of the at&t computer.   The at&t was great the gateway however was slow and bogged down whenever you wanted to use it.    

[+davidcalgary29]

3 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

(But really, I'm surprised there isn't as much fanboyism in the computing world as the console world.)

You're just about 35 years too late for that.

 

[Krebizfan]

28 minutes ago, davidcalgary29 said:

You're just about 35 years too late for that.

 

Though anyone that wants to relive those halcyon days, Internet Archive has archives of many of the Usenet groups. Next, Mac, and Amiga advocacy groups all resulted in zip files exceeding 100 MB containing some part of the group activity. 

[Keatah]

10 hours ago, wierd_w said:

The computers themselves, I had a very stern occupational lesson about.  I almost never went with name-brand anythings for most of the 90s and early 2000s.

I was new to PC and 4me it was name-brand everything. I'd like to think I was rewarded with quality, support, and stability. In the 486 era I always bought Intel, DFI, STB, CreativeLabs, Micron, Micronics, 3Com, PracticalPeripherals, CH Products, Gateway, PowerTronic, WesternDigital, ISObar, CirrusLogic, Norton, Microsoft, AshtonTate, Lotus, and more.

 

10 hours ago, wierd_w said:

..I saw the pain and suffering that was Packard Bell and co, and said "Hard Pass."  I was very much a DIY system builder back then.The lesson to me was clear: Don't buy a boxed PC. It will suck.)

My old man's PackardBell was none of that. It was a 286 and was likely from a time before they cheapened up. I wish we still had it. After that came a 486SX-25 from Tandy. It was cheaper in that it had more integrated stuff. Both were boxed PCs and worked straight away. For someone not wanting to be constantly fiddling with stuff both served well.

 

DIY was and still remains quite the crapshoot. Depends where you get your information from and what your build philosophy is. MaximumPC will drain your wallet instantly. Carey Holzman & Tech Vets will bring some sanity back.

 

10 hours ago, wierd_w said:

I was not really a fan of Apple products, because of the "You must wear your mittens, citizen!" nature of their products, and I am a natural tinkerer.

Today that is very much likely true. In the Apple II days, and only Apple II days, the pioneering and experimenting spirit was everywhere. Everything was published, everything was open. Unfortunately the attitudes changed with the Apple ///. And stayed that way till present. Quite a contrast. Not one I'm interested in. And Photoshop would be hard pressed to paint lipstick on that pig.

 

When I don't have time and want something to just work I don't mind having paid a 25% markup. Think iPhone and the early iPods & iTunes. I don't really care if something is locked up or whatever. If it does what I want when I want without muss & fuss at this very instant, perfect!

 

10 hours ago, wierd_w said:

I tended to be a very shrewd buyer, buying very specific bits of kit, for very specific reasons.  I stayed away from BestBuy, Circuit City, CompUSA and pals, because I would argue with the sales reps, and it wasn't pretty.

I loved those shops. We'd go round and round about everything. Then go outside during any parking lot festivities and talk cars and girls and shit. This in the 386/486 and early Pentium 60/66 epochs.

 

10 hours ago, wierd_w said:

Anymore though, aside from things like chromebooks filling the "Extreme lower-end", and doing it poorly, computers are a very mature product, and such shenanigans are less frequent.

Kids love Chromebooks, if such a thing can be said about school computers. WinXP and Win7 failed there. They just work, especially when managed by the school district.

 

10 hours ago, wierd_w said:

Instead, you have issues with component makers using purposefully confusing naming conventions, (Looking at you nVidia)

Oh gosh yes. And graphics card makers double-down on that with literally 100+ versions of the same card - delineated by a $20 price and 10MHz on the memory/GPU clockings.

 

10 hours ago, wierd_w said:

OEMs leaning far too heavily on integrated components (Basically EVERY laptop built on an Intel CPU these days), etc.

The more integration the better. Easier to set standards and compatibility.

 

10 hours ago, wierd_w said:

I still do the DIY thing, because I am still that natural tinkerer, but there actually are some good boxed units these days. Usually they are "engineering workstations", which can be juiced up, but they can frequently be obtained reasonably inexpensively.

DIY is loads of fun! Just put 2 cartridge slots in a junker i7 for emulation. A MAME cartridge if you will.

[Keatah]

5 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Everyone knows:

The worst computer was whatever everyone else was using.

The best computer was whatever YOU were using.

(But really, I'm surprised there isn't as much fanboyism in the computing world as the console world.)

Pretty sure fanboism is still alive and well when it comes to the Red, Green, and Blue teams.

Red = AMD/ATI

Green = Nvidia

Blue = Intel

Very much so!

 

In other areas it seems to be actively cultivated by the makers like MSI, EVGA, ASUS, Aorus, Corsair, G.Skill, Samsung, Acer, Kingston, Gigabyte, and others. This mainly applies to motherboards, and memory & storage, monitors and mice and keyboards, power supplies.. The industry & ecosphere for those components changes too rapidly to allow any cult followings to develop. Not to mention the parts themselves. New stuff every 3 months. Rapid discontinuations as tech moves forward.

 

So most (prospective/potential and veteran) fanbois have relegated themselves to just chasing after the names and brand styling.

 

Furthermore, any boutique PC is still just an amalgamation of whatever parts and brands are in vogue at any given moment.

[Frozone212]

The Devil's PC:

1. Runs only CP/M

2. Requires 500MB ram for anything

3. Can't be upgraded past 256MB

4. Can't run DOS

5. Can't run any software that is DRM free

6. Insists on updating 24/7 but hangs every time. BSOD's are rampant and it will explode 60% of the time (see point # 10)

7. No tech support or the tech support is infested with bots who all have one goal: Waste your time

 8. Absolutely useless yes men that deceive, mistreat and browbeat you into buying the same damn computer when trading.

Common phrases: "It's just a passing issue. Never needs fixing, Lasts forever, free support"

9.  Impossible to upgrade, Intel integrated graphics. Max resolution is 120x98.  

10. Goes up in a nuclear explosion if you so much as sneeze on the casing.

11. Requires a constant internet connection (dial up, 56k modem)

12. Text only graphics

13. No sound 

14. No video (see below)

15. Runs on a Z80 processor at 3.25 MHZ which supplies B&W video

16. Costs $8000 just for the monitor and an additional $8000 for the Tower, another $8000 for the non graphics version and $8250 for CGA graphics or an additional $5000 for the keyboard (without a mouse) or $1000 with the mouse (but it's a real POS from 1983). Optional: Buy a box that adds 640k or upgrade to a newer model that taps out at 350 MB. (See point #2 for why this sucks)

17. Membrane Keyboard.

 

[Keatah]

Gotta laugh at the notion that Intel integrated graphics are lame. These graphics are the cornerstone, a pillar, of some of the best selling and practical Wintel machines ever made. Millions of users rely on them. Not every user needs or even knows about the latest 3x overpriced hot'n'heavy RTX! Intel IGP makes the SFF PC possible and practical. You want an Integrated Graphics Processor if you're doing anything with low power consumption or home theater. Or anything small form factor and elegant.

 

But I get your drift dude..

[The Usotsuki]

I have an i7 with on-CPU graphics.

[wierd_w]

44 minutes ago, Keatah said:

Gotta laugh at the notion that Intel integrated graphics are lame. These graphics are the cornerstone, a pillar, of some of the best selling and practical Wintel machines ever made. Millions of users rely on them. Not every user needs or even knows about the latest 3x overpriced hot'n'heavy RTX! Intel IGP makes the SFF PC possible and practical. You want an Integrated Graphics Processor if you're doing anything with low power consumption or home theater. Or anything small form factor and elegant.

 

But I get your drift dude..

 

I miss the days when you could get a "Not geared for gaming and 300% overpriced!!" laptop that did not have a really awful IGP. 

 

Intel's GPUs have indeed come a long way, but I dont know how many issues I have had with them.   have an i5 based laptop with a rather unpleasant intel IGP.  It is basically living in the year 2000, in terms of what I can run on it, games wise.

 

It does videos, and internet things fine, but anything game-wise? Very very crippled.

 

I have looked into getting a replacement with a discrete GPU, but because of the ubiquity of the intel IGP, the market has distorted. The midrange discrete GPU offer seems to not exist anymore.

 

THAT is what I decry.

[Keatah]

45 minutes ago, wierd_w said:

Intel's GPUs have indeed come a long way, but I dont know how many issues I have had with them.   have an i5 based laptop with a rather unpleasant intel IGP.  It is basically living in the year 2000, in terms of what I can run on it, games wise.

Nvidia seem to be perpetrating the continued need for their graphics chips. The efficiency of SDKs and other generic game-making or authoring engines just seem to require more and more power for experiences that are rather stagnant.

 

45 minutes ago, wierd_w said:

It does videos, and internet things fine, but anything game-wise? Very very crippled.

Intel IGP is totally optimized for 2D and video/codec operations. Yes. They say so in their spec sheets and it plays out in real life day-to-day usage.

 

I don't know much about Xe Graphics, but I'm hoping it'll rise to the level of Nvidia GTX 10 series, 1070, 1080. That would seriously satisfy me for the next couple of years.

 

45 minutes ago, wierd_w said:

I have looked into getting a replacement with a discrete GPU, but because of the ubiquity of the intel IGP, the market has distorted. The midrange discrete GPU offer seems to not exist anymore.

 

THAT is what I decry.

Sure. Not fully versed on the forces that led to midrange going away. But I increasingly buy new low-range or 2-3 year old high-range stuff. My only beef with older high-range graphics cards is power consumption and heat and noise.

 

The most useful feature of graphics boards is having enough memory for both textures and framebuffering. Swapping isn't allowed in my book because of stuttering and annoying speed variations.

[mr_me]

4 hours ago, wierd_w said:

 

I miss the days when you could get a "Not geared for gaming and 300% overpriced!!" laptop that did not have a really awful IGP. 

 

Intel's GPUs have indeed come a long way, but I dont know how many issues I have had with them.   have an i5 based laptop with a rather unpleasant intel IGP.  It is basically living in the year 2000, in terms of what I can run on it, games wise.

 

It does videos, and internet things fine, but anything game-wise? Very very crippled.

 

I have looked into getting a replacement with a discrete GPU, but because of the ubiquity of the intel IGP, the market has distorted. The midrange discrete GPU offer seems to not exist anymore.

 

THAT is what I decry.

Most people don't care about playing games so the performance/cost factor has shifted to Intel and it's good enough gpu.  A few years ago AMD was ahead with performance/cost and we benefitted with decent graphics performance.

[zzip]

On 12/18/2021 at 10:31 AM, x=usr(1536) said:

The one thing that they're still useful for: they're something you can bring up a ladder with you to perform <insert networking task here> without giving a damn if it takes a 15-foot fall onto polished concrete.

 

Having said that, living in the age of the $199 Wal-Mart laptop makes it something of a game of diminishing returns.

Is there much difference between a netbook and a $200 laptop?

[Lostdragon]

A cheap PC off a workmates dad. 

 

It was infested with malware, as had been used for a lot of porn sites. 

 

Died after a few months use by myself as a gaming machine, last PC gaming i ever did. 

 

Cost more to properly dispose of the monitor, than i paid for the entire system. 

[wierd_w]

17 hours ago, zzip said:

Is there much difference between a netbook and a $200 laptop?

Not much, other than how the embeded microcontroller is programmed. (The thing pretending to be a pci bridge)

 

In chromebooks, it is often configured to present itself as an acpi subsystem enumerator. MrChromebox UEFI firmware reconfigures it to present as a fake pci  subsystem.

 

these are basically identical to modern "winbooks". Same crippled eMMC based storage, shitty microcontroller based design, etc.

 

At least with the chromebooks, you can find some with i3 or better cpus. Still going to have shit intel IGP video and non-upgradable ram/storage.

 

If you just need something for a boring office task, they are fine. Anything else? Not so much.

 

 

[CatPix]

My worst PC was of my own cause... tho I will claim that I wasn't my fault

 

It was back in 2003, when I made my own computer.

Everything worked fine... But in this early days of USB, I noticed issues with some peripherals. Being that I used Windows 2000 and it require a driver prey device, I though it was tied to drivers... but I noticed that I had issues with already installed devices, going up to BSOD when plugging devices.

Turns out, the motherboard I used had a SIS chip to deal with USB, which was (and apparently, still is) a damn shitty brand.

https://www.techspot.com/community/topics/sis-usb-problems.25803/

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/sis-745-ultra-usb-issues.87337/

In those happy days of 2003, another doom would soon plague my computer, one that wasn't know at the time either, so it was bad luck...

 

I had fitted my computer with a 80 Go Maxtor Diamondmax  drive, and later added a 160 Go one to add more capacity.

And Those late series of Maxtor drives were plagued with firmwares and hardware issues (in fact, leading Maxtor to bankrupcy).

So yeah, both my drives, around 2007/2008, started to make strange noises and to report insane amount of corrupted files and reading issues... Barely enough time to transfert the most important stuff.

 

Oh and to sum things up, at first I had a graphics card with a fan. Not an expensive model tho, so right before the HDD issue, I replaced that card with an equivalent fanless one. A blessing on my ears.... but a failed promise from the manufacturer; a bit over 3 years after getting it, the 3D part of it failed, showing psychedelics colours over everything 3D.

 

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

23 hours ago, zzip said:

Is there much difference between a netbook and a $200 laptop?

It's easier to make an employer understand that the seven-year-old netbook that just ate pavement had an approximate value of $0 compared to the $200 Wal-Mart laptop that had been in service for a matter of weeks.  They may be out of about the same amount of money either way, but it's a sweeter pill to swallow when there's a strong argument to be made for the now-dead device having been well and truly amortised out.

[zzip]

27 minutes ago, CatPix said:

I had fitted my computer with a 80 Go Maxtor Diamondmax  drive, and later added a 160 Go one to add more capacity.

And Those late series of Maxtor drives were plagued with firmwares and hardware issues (in fact, leading Maxtor to bankrupcy).

I had a few Maxtor Diamondmax from the early 2000s,  all completely dead!   I used to think of Maxtor as a good brand based on my 90s experience, and similarly thought of Western Digital as a crap brand since I saw a few WD drives die in the 90s without warning in spite of not being very old.

 

But now WD seems solid,  I have one WD drive that was in heavy service for over a decade with no signs of wear, and a few others that have been reliable for years as well

[+OLD CS1]

4 hours ago, CatPix said:

My worst PC was of my own cause... tho I will claim that I wasn't my fault

 

It was back in 2003, when I made my own computer.

Similarly, around that same time I built my second PC (I do not count my various 486 builds in the 90s.)  I researched everything I needed and wanted and landed on the Soyo KT600 Dragon Ultra Platinum for my AMD Athlon XP 2100+ .  It was a great board, in all honesty, up until its warranty expired, after which I watched ports fail in rapid succession.  USB ports, serial port, the Firewire ports.

 

3 hours ago, zzip said:

But now WD seems solid,  I have one WD drive that was in heavy service for over a decade with no signs of wear, and a few others that have been reliable for years as well

I have gotten incredible service out of WD IDE and SATA drives over the past 20 years.  The only problems I have had during this time is the Blue series, some of which would die less than a week out of the box.  Stuck to the WD Black, RAID Editions, Gold, and Red, and I have drives last way, way past their life expectancy with only a handful of exceptions.  I think WD fixed issues with the Blue series as they crept up past 512GB, but I never trusted them fekkers again.  I will only put WD Enterprise in my NASes.

[zzip]

42 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

Similarly, around that same time I built my second PC (I do not count my various 486 builds in the 90s.)  I researched everything I needed and wanted and landed on the Soyo KT600 Dragon Ultra Platinum for my AMD Athlon XP 2100+ .  It was a great board, in all honesty, up until its warranty expired, after which I watched ports fail in rapid succession.  USB ports, serial port, the Firewire ports.

 

I have gotten incredible service out of WD IDE and SATA drives over the past 20 years.  The only problems I have had during this time is the Blue series, some of which would die less than a week out of the box.  Stuck to the WD Black, RAID Editions, Gold, and Red, and I have drives last way, way past their life expectancy with only a handful of exceptions.  I think WD fixed issues with the Blue series as they crept up past 512GB, but I never trusted them fekkers again.  I will only put WD Enterprise in my NASes.

I have a few WD blues 500gb+  that I've had in consoles.   They've been solid as well.  Oldest is 2014.  

[CatPix]

Same experience here, WD, Hitachi/HGST, all good stuff. I have a few Samsung drives running as save drives as well.

For my computer, I had an AMD Athlon 2200.

I don't recall the motherboard, I think MSI? Never had any trouble with it, save for the crappy SIS support.

BITD it was harder to get infos on many stuff, and my hardware choice was limited to the stuff a small shop could offer me. Ah well, I make it sounds like it was horrible but not really. Just a bit frustrating with the occasionnal USB going BSOD; one trick was to remember what went where and/or leaving stuff always plugged.

The HDD debacle just signed the end of that rig, that was quite aging too; while not as crazy as it was just before, PC hardware still aged quickly. I set up something quickly on an used HDD and kept that rig running until 2009.. when I bought a Mac Mini to "see" the other side of things ?

It was a bit limited, but I still use that Mac Mini as a fancy, sleek media player.

I never had any major trouble since with my computer. No data loss, no HDD failure... Just RAM getting issues. Tho with that brilliant motherboard design that put RAM sticks near the CPU cooler, what could you expect?

[TheGameCollector]

My Windows XP era (2004) eMachines computer probably fits the bill here. First the hard drive died and had to be replaced, then the CD-rw drive started malfunctioning and making duds. Then finally the motherboard went out on me after I only had it for 2 years. I was lucky my stepdad's dad worked on computers and was able to replace things for me for a while.

 

When the second computer also made of cheap parts he could find died, I ended up buying an older Dell Dimension from a friend for $50 and it still works to this day. I hardly use it anymore though because I got a similar but better, smaller model from someone free and was able to get an era correct video card and max 2gb ram.

 

A couple other candidates are both netbooks that could barely run the OS they were shipped with. I ended up putting LxLe on both to make them at least somewhat usable.

 

One is a Toshiba NB255. Windows 7 starter is just too gimped to be of any use to me. The screen resolution in this thing is also too limited.

 

The other is an HP Pavilion with touchscreen that shipped with Windows 7. Again, the os ran very slowly.

 

All they're really any good for is downloading stuff with Linux without worrying about viruses.

Edited December 22, 2021 by TheGameCollector

[MrDave]

Timex sinclair .. so bad..

[Keatah]

On 12/21/2021 at 1:13 PM, zzip said:

I have a few WD blues 500gb+  that I've had in consoles.   They've been solid as well.  Oldest is 2014.  

I'll second recent WD reliability having been very good in past 10-15 years.

 

I do have a couple of Caviars from the early 1990's that are still fully functional. And a couple of 120GB drives that have been bonked and exposed to whump-thucks while operating. And aside from expected SMART errors due to interruption, they's be in great shape.

 

Another WD survived my amateurish installation of a clear window made from a fast-food takeout box.

[+5-11under]

3 hours ago, MrDave said:

Timex sinclair .. so bad..

I'll agree, but...  a) it was a computer, b) when we first got it (the ZX80 at least), I didn't know anyone else who had a computer, c) it was all we had, and d) it was all we (my brother) could afford, so... it was awesome at the same time.