Hard disks chief cause of new PC failures

More than one in 10 desktop PCs sold fail to work when they are taken out of the box, according to a survey by Windows Magazine in the US. “Don’t be a cheapskate when it comes to the hard disk, CD-ROM drive, modem, mouse, monitor and motherboard (in that order),” Windows Magazine advises. “These are the parts that fail most often.” Faulty hardware components were cited as the chief cause of failure by 37 per cent of the 2,900 readers surveyed. By far the most common problem was with hard disks -- 17 per cent didn’t work. Driver problems or hardware/software conflicts came in second at 36 per cent. Application software was to blame for 34 per cent of cases while the operating system accounted for 24 per cent of problems. In terms of getting the problems fixed, 61 per cent went directly to the vendors' support desks with one in four needing a new part or complete replacement. Users made 2.7 calls on average to resolve a problem: time on hold averaged 10 minutes. Top performers in the survey were Hewlett-Packard and Dell, while Compaq, Gateway, IBM and Micron were all ranked as "good" in the Windows Magazine survey. ® Click here for more stories