10 Worst PC's of all time

[brianl703]

The power supply in my work GX620 failed. Dell sent a tech out to replace it.

I've had a GX260 for a couple of years now, no problems with it at all, likewise for the one my mom has. I bought both of them used so the motherboard may well have been replaced..judging by the power-on hours on the hard drive it was powered on continuously for about 3 years at one point.

 

[brianl703]

A few months ago I connected a Packard Bell to 240V. This Packard Bell was left in my attic by my ex-tenant. It was a P133 with a 2.4GB hard drive and 32MB of RAM.

I cut one of the drive power connectors off, hooked the yellow wire to one of the 120V legs and the red wire to the other 120V leg. Also connected the two black wires to neutral. I used wire nuts. This was connected to a 30 amp double pole breaker.

I booted it up and it got to the Packard Bell desktop that looks like a living room. Then I turned the breaker on...


...the breaker immediately tripped and the Packard Bell went dead. That was it. No sparks, no flames, no smoke. Actually no evidence of any physical damage inside the machine..but nothing inside worked anymore. Not the power supply, not the mouse, not the keyboard, CD-ROM or hard drive. I tried powering them up on a working power supply. The only thing that still worked was the monitor.

 

[Touring5]

I figured somewhere on that list would be Leading Edge computers. We had a bunch in our office back in the late 80's. They earned the nickname "Trailing Edge" amongst those of us that got one.

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: tmorris1
Originally Posted By: daves87rs
In 2006 I bought an Emachine...it toasted 2 motherboards in two years. The Gateway that replaced it nearly 2 years ago has been great. So has my GW labtop.


Strange...

More than likely it was a result of the junky power supplies that they had.


+1 I had both go out at once on my emachine. At least it made a satisfying BANG, letting the smoke out. Found a capacitor wrapper that took off like a firework inside. Found a NOS other brand mobo on ebay, PS from newegg, reused my celeron chip, it's still rocking.

I got one of those cute flaky dell Optiplexes, that was made flaky by bulgy caps. A known problem.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: Touring5
I figured somewhere on that list would be Leading Edge computers. We had a bunch in our office back in the late 80's. They earned the nickname "Trailing Edge" amongst those of us that got one.


Most of the Leading Edge stuff was made by Daewoo. I was given a Leading Edge 386 laptop..this thing had jumper wires on the board where they'd messed up the layout and had to repair it after the fact. It still worked...as in it powered up if you applied power to the battery connector. The floppy controller was bad and so was the hard drive.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

Originally Posted By: brianl703
A few months ago I connected a Packard Bell to 240V. This Packard Bell was left in my attic by my ex-tenant. It was a P133 with a 2.4GB hard drive and 32MB of RAM.

I cut one of the drive power connectors off, hooked the yellow wire to one of the 120V legs and the red wire to the other 120V leg. Also connected the two black wires to neutral. I used wire nuts. This was connected to a 30 amp double pole breaker.

I booted it up and it got to the Packard Bell desktop that looks like a living room. Then I turned the breaker on...


...the breaker immediately tripped and the Packard Bell went dead. That was it. No sparks, no flames, no smoke. Actually no evidence of any physical damage inside the machine..but nothing inside worked anymore. Not the power supply, not the mouse, not the keyboard, CD-ROM or hard drive. I tried powering them up on a working power supply. The only thing that still worked was the monitor.


Cool story, bro. Awesome.

 

[Virtuoso]

Finally, people who thought the same of Packard Bell as I did..

 

[Kruse]

Originally Posted By: Touring5
I figured somewhere on that list would be Leading Edge computers.


Sometime back in the late 80's, I bought a 286 Leading Edge computer from Best Buy (I think). It worked okay and a few years later, I bought a new motherboard to replace the factory one that came in it. The LE case had just enough proprietary pieces in it that I finally ended up buying a new case for the upgrades. Since then, I've been pretty leery about buying a name brand computer.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: Bottom_Feeder

Cool story, bro. Awesome.


The best part is, we set it out for trash pickup and someone actually took it before the garbage truck did!

 

[wander2039]

I had a Packard Bell 486SX as a first PC. Did alot of upgrades to it and never had a problem. A friend had one with the pentuim he wasn't as lucky.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

Originally Posted By: brianl703
Originally Posted By: Bottom_Feeder

Cool story, bro. Awesome.


The best part is, we set it out for trash pickup and someone actually took it before the garbage truck did!


I don't think you picked up on the sarcasm...

 

[brianl703]

I did, believe me. I was going to say that we just dumped it into the ditch on the side of the road.

 

[kkreit01]

My first 2 PCs were IBM PS/1. The first was a 386, and then a 486. I remember paying about $2K for the 486. They ran like a champ. I never had any issues with neither. It is true that they were difficult and expensive to upgrade (memory was always way more than others, etc.). They would probably still be running today if I had them.

 

[sunfire]

HA... I knew Packard Bell was at the top of the list. Worst present ever.

 

[SLCraig]

Had a PS/1... for like 10 years. Not one issue ever.

I know their qualm was not reliability, but it sure was a solid machine, just not great in any other way

 

[EricF]

the packard bell was just a headache in itself. when I'd go and do a network install, we'd insist on compatible's that we'd build & spec ourselves or a name brand like Micron or HP. I hated dell back then because their cases weighed 40 pounds with all the stupid trim stuff.

there'd always be someone who'd bring their own computer to be networked as well, and it'd always be a packard bell. the ISA Tree connector was a headache & fragile.
I could never get an ISA NIC to stick at irq 5 (or 10) and the i/o to 300h or 320h. the settings were always squirrly.

what a headache those machines were.