Pat Pong
The point I was trying to make was that poking around as FL310 suggested and doing a bit of cleaning is unlikely to result in any hardware damage - as long as you guard against static - and have a reasonable idea about what you're doing. And that even if you do fry one component it's not the end of the world. Although I did point out that in 10 years of messing around inside PCs and being extremely lax about static protection I have never damaged a piece of hardware. Although – I did give you couple of examples of how I’ve recently screwed up OS installations.
Ok, there maybe people out there with new high spec systems with some bits inside them worth more than my £100 figure but if you have a brand new system you should be getting hardware troubles sorted under the warranty.
£100 is a significant amount for me - I don't have a large income since I'm a scientist not a professional pilot
- but compared to the cost of calling in a professional service technician or buying an extended warranty for a system £100 really isn't that much.
- When was the last time you tried to obtain a replacement part?
About a month ago - a new internal keyboard for my Dell Latitude (beer spill
). For the record, replacement internal keyboard for a Latitude C600 was £34.95 - and took about 20 minutes to install.
I've bought and installed many components over the years so I'm not talking from a position of total ignorance. Hard drives, CD-drives, floppy-drives, motherboards, processors, fans, power supplies in addition to all the easy stuff like memory modules and PCI cards. Of course, you can run into to trouble if the system is really old – compatible replacement parts might not be that easy to buy – but then there should be plenty of them knocking around in unused old systems that can be bought second-hand for very little.
- Have you seen the price of EDO RAM (if you can readily find it)?
Yes I've seen the price - and it really isn't that expensive or difficult to find (e.g. Crucial). But then again - there are plenty of old unused PCs around from which memory can be scavenged.
- ****ed a BIOS flash on a chip that’s soldered to a motherboard?
Never done this - if I did I'd probably just have to buy a new board - you say this would be £132.
- Ever enquired about the cost of data recovery (and the dubious success) from a knackered HDD?
Yes, I know it costs a fortune - but data recovery should never really be necessary should it? Because everyone makes regular backups right?
I will concede that whether or not to open the box should be determined on a case by case basis - a general recommendation to have a poke around is just plain silly - but on the other hand there's no need to be terrified of having a go if you have some idea of what you're doing.
You suggest that a clean installation of your OS is like using "
a sledgehammer to crack a nut or buy a new car when the ashtrays are full. " This is ridiculous - a sledgehammer damages the inside of the nut and a new car costs money! The only thing a clean installation should cost is
time - and often it takes less time than tinkering away with the installation trying to solve a problem. Having said that I usually try the tinkering approach myself only to later give up and do the clean install so I end up wasting twice as much time as I need to. Frequently it turns out that a clean install is not only the most efficient solution – but it may also be the only truly effective solution. Again this needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis though.