Hardware Analysis - Healthy Computer Research

Re: Healthy Computer Research

Joshua Marius — 2008-05-18T05:38:41-05:00

FordGT90Concept

Thanks for the comments. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, I'm only sharing what I know has worked for me and hundreds worldwide

Re: Healthy Computer Research

FordGT90Concept — 2008-05-18T05:36:36-05:00

What do you mean by "carefully monitored their performance." Did you do a weekly, monthly, or yearly checkup? Did you have the users fill out a survey?

"[two] motherboards and one hard drive..." This wraps back into the first series of questions. I've had hard drives fail just because they were running into the wear-out phase. I've also encounted a few drives that died in the infant-mortality phase. Regardless, those things are mostly chance. I have yet to find a perfect motherboard that is completely without defects. Because of this, I tend to believe you are excluding, or not being informed of, a lot of mishaps.

Avoid Vertical Drive Cages

Kind of a moot point. The only cases I've ran into with a vertical cage design were the likes of OEMs (Dell, Compaq, etc.). I have yet to come across of the shelf ATX cases like that simply because they're a pain in the ass to work with. It really has nothing to do with cooling. If there is only one HDD in the vertical cage, they really aren't all that problematical.

Case in point, I've come across no less than four Compaq Presarios (5000 and 7000 series; 1999-2001) that are laid out like that and none have had HDD issues. They have had PSU and mainboard issues though (in abundance). I still have a 5000 series that's still kicking. The only component failure was the DVD-ROM in infant-mortality phase.

Power Supplies (PSUs)
Always use a high end PSU. Low-end or cheap PSUs die faster and can also damage other components such as hard drives, motherboards, and CPUs.

Um, the amount spent on a PSU should always be relative to the amount spent on other components. What's the point of putting a high-end PSU ($100 USD+) in a Celeron machine? There isn't one. High-end and low-end PSUs run the same risk for damaging components once the failure has began.

Not to mention, there's a lot of cheap PSUs running over 90% of the computers (OEM) out there. Most don't have any problems.

Lazy?
Don't be lazy. When installing anything inside your case always use as many screws as possible, and on all sides. This reduces vibration. Always make sure the screws are tight.

... Screwing things in tight just does a better job at forcing the entire case to dampen the vibrations. It doesn't stop them at all and it really does nothing for drive longetivity. It is best to use rubber insulation and never have the drive make direct contact with the case. Again, doesn't do any good for longevity but it does keep other bits and peices from rattling which can create a lot of noise.

Case in point, I have 6 HDDs in my server (nothing to dampen the vibrations). The farther from the ground you get, the worse the case vibrates. Really the worst side effect of this is the upper bezel door sometimes falls in sync and rattles. Other than that, it really doesn't matter.

Mesh
Cases that use mesh at the front allow excellent air intake.

Yeah...until it collects a whole lot of dust. Meshes serve great to filter the air in the enviornment. They work fine in the meantime. I prefer smart case designs where there is a back and front panel that keeps fingers out of the case and at the same time (Thermaltake and Silverstone have been good about this), keeps airflow unrestricted. Yes, dust gets in the computer but I find it easier to take a case outside and blow it out for a minute than clean a half a dozen individual filters.

Re: Healthy Computer Research

Gerritt — 2008-05-18T05:35:36-05:00

Joshua Marius said:

I don't mind the feedback, as long as it is correct. You even apologize yourself for incorrect feedback.

By no means am I going to lead people to a false sense of security. Heck! I'm already telling them to check their HDs regularly and back up their stuff. I'm sorry that I have had low HD failures but it is the complete truth. What I want to do with these videos is teach people how to have a healthier computer, and like it clearly says, prevent data loss. That includes showing them how to optimize certain things, how to backup their data, how to protect it, and make sure they don't lose it.

I'm glad you've been working on computers since the late 70's. The truth is I don't care. Ive worked with hundreds of people and many companies, and I keep meeting people who have been working with computers "since before you were born", and then I find myself cleaning up their mess. I think you get my point. I rely mostly on myself and do my own stuff to make sure that many theories and claims are put to the test and are in fact real. What I did was true, the computers are out there, you can see some of my work with pictures here: http://www.letheonline.net/systems.htm (Click on the orange links underneath the project titles and you will see them, these were also built using the same techniques).

I don't have to lie, i just want to help.

Joshua, I've not once said you lied. Nor do I want to be that grandpa that refuses to see how things are changing. Yet at the same time you permit me to say these things, you continue on to try to degregate what I'm trying to say, which initially was that you had to be more specific in order to be more clear or correct to your audience. Mayhap I've been doing this since before you were born, but I'm not attempting to stand on that, I brought it up only in response to your claim of having done this for so many years, and I thought your data was flawed. Dang it man! If you can get folks to maintain the PCs that permit them to drive BMWs, Hummers, or Prius's, then more power to you! I was just pointing out a major difference in your experience with HDDs and mine. Just because we disagree on something does not mean we have to be in conflict overall.
Relax..I'm trying too.

Gerritt

Re: Healthy Computer Research

Joshua Marius — 2008-05-18T05:20:47-05:00

Re: Healthy Computer Research

Gerritt — 2008-05-18T05:03:44-05:00

Sorry I stepped on your NADs.
I thought that you were talking about a PC connected camera. My bad.
I've built as many if not more systems than you claim in total for your career, since 1978.
Why did you limit YOUR builds and data set to less than 1/50th of your supported/built claims?
I had an issue with your claim of ONE HDD failure over a period of 7 years in a test set of 100 systems, which could be 100 to 300 HDDs. I think your data is faulty, and may lead to people thinking if they follow your recommendations that they will get the same, so not back up their data, or provide for RAID redundancy, because if they follow YOUR recommendations they can beat the odds.
Taken IN or OUT of context, some of the things that you are recommending could lead to a false sense of security.
If you don't want feedback, don't post looking for it, then being a ....well, I'm not going to be you, so I'll stop there.

Re: Healthy Computer Research

Joshua Marius — 2008-05-18T04:25:40-05:00

Let me clear some stuff up. Some of the things that you said are completely incorrect.

1. It's easy to see how the vertical cages prevent airflow. That was the point, don't over complicate yourself.

2. I never talked about defragging your HD being an alert of a failure or anything like that. It clearly states to use CHKDSK and other utilities, like the ones provided by the manufacturer. There has been no proof to this day that hard drive activity can lead to a disk's death, and it even states so in Googles research on Hard Drives. They state in the abstract: Surprisingly, we found
that temperature and activity levels were much less correlated with drive failures than previously reported.

I have found this to be true myself, as I have had a Seagate 30 GB hard drive which I have low level formatted more than 50 times, high level formatted more than 100, and installed Windows 98/ME/2000/XP etc hundreds of times and it is still in excellent condition. I have used this drive for testing since the year 2000. The point of this was to constantly monitor your HD, because you never really know when it will fail.

3. My statements about the failures are completely true, and you mention "my video system", what the hell are you talking about man? Read the text again, it clearly states "My camera" as in video camera. I have no idea where you are getting video system from, or is it the fact that you just have the need to come up with something to bash the video?. This is regular behavior everytime I post a video, there is always a guy wanting to come up with anything in his power to bash it, even stuff that doesn't even apply to me.

In case you didn't know, digital video cameras are known to give an error when the video head is dirty. Cleaning the head professionally costs a lot of money, hence the reason for the text I posted.

I suggest you pay closer attention to all the statements that I make because most of the stuff you have said doesn't even apply to me.

Don't worry. I worked on this stuff for years, and anything you throw at me I'll have a clean, clear, easy to understand, and simple answer to.

Re: Healthy Computer Research

Gerritt — 2008-05-18T04:07:22-05:00

WOW.
In your test group, you've only had ONE HDD go bad in 100 systems over 7-8 years?!?
Even in the best maintained systems, thats a very low failure rate.
The information that you give is good, but could be confusing. A single HDD should not be mounted vertically, but for multiple horizontally mounted HDDs to be mounted in a vertical stack, given proper separation for air-flow and heat disipation, would be more specific and to the point. This is alluded too in the included pictoral presentations.
Though running chkdsk, defragmentation, etc., will help identify failure conditions and recover from non-catistrophic failures, they will not prevent a HDD failure, and due to the additional head movement and RW operations, could actually speed a catistrophic failure.

Additionally, you've stated only 2 other failures over the same time period, and these are MB failures, but in the first few seconds of your video, the system you relied on had a video or camera failure!!!!
Not a great start.

Gerritt

Re: Healthy Computer Research

Joshua Marius — 2008-05-18T00:54:07-05:00

Well, remember, it's only part 1, it's going to get more detailed.

Re: Healthy Computer Research

Tam the Bam — 2008-05-17T23:01:14-05:00

Well done Josh. That's good info for the n00bs out there, and for other folks who
are familiar with PC's but not extensively. I'm constantly maintaining my PC, for better
airflow, etc, dfrag disks everytime i add a huuuuuuge file, etc. I use Perfect Disk, and use
the Smart Placement everytime. I probably spend too much time on maintanence lol!

Healthy Computer Research

Joshua Marius — 2008-05-17T22:44:48-05:00

Hey guys,

I just wanted to invite you all to watch the 1st video of my new series: Healthy Computer Research.

Work was done on more than 4000 computers and the research is helping many on building healthy, and longer lasting computers.

Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeXKYaz3hhk