DOA computers?

[eagle5953]

I set up four new computers. Two didn't work out of the box.

After opening them up to look under the proverbial hood, one ended up having a loose power connection; the other had the CMOS jumper set to 'CLEAR.'

What's the deal? Was I the victim of bad luck, or is this somewhat common?

[lifeisbetterwithketchup]

The worst I've run into when setting up a new computer has been bad RAM, which can make for some weird weird problems while trying to install the OS. Unless I'm forgetting something though, everything else has always worked fine right away. You very well could be having a string of bad luck. Or the machines are just junk; that's always possible.

[eagle5953]

They were new HPs, so it wasn't like they were some unbranded machines or a frankensteinian refurb.

I'm chalking it up to bad luck. I am the one, after all, whose day one Wii came with a faulty power cable... (Nintendo did rush me one, but still. 15 hours outside waiting, and then 4 days more, before I got to play it.)

[bicostp]

At work we got a few dozen new SFF Dell OptiPlex 780s. Every last one of them needed a BIOS update to work with the DisplayPort-only monitors they bought to go with them. (They were plugged right into DP ports, no DVI adapters or anything.)

[blaze3927]

That seems like bad luck to me.
i;ve set up quite a few, and never had a single (out of the box) fail yet :touchwood:

[Hifeno]

Hey my HP laptop video card fried on Saturday and my warranty expired today what are the chances. Getting box to ship it to them. Also went ahead and purchase 1 more year warranty.

[bicostp]

What model?

Some of the dv6000 and dv6 lines (among others) were quietly recalled due to bad motherboard design eventually killing the chipset.

[Haunted360]

I have moved RAM from one main/motherboard to another where upon turning it on, it fried with a thick toxic smoke filling the room

Don't know why, but I suspect the RAM pin was bent on the MoBo...

Now whenever I install RAM or a PCI card in that fact, I move it left to right 'shake' it into the slot to ensure no pins are misaligned.

[jdmlight]

Forgetting the 4-pin CPU power connector was the only thing I've had happen to me, and that was my fault since I did build it after all.