New PC Required?

flaneurs_lobster

TUVOK said:

 but there is a lot of gubbings pushed into a very narrow space!

Tsk, the correct technical term is "giblets".

debitcardmayhem

flaneurs_lobster said:

TUVOK said:

 but there is a lot of gubbings pushed into a very narrow space!

Tsk, the correct technical term is "giblets".

Tosh and nonsense , giblets are the bits you make your gravy with🥜

GDB2222

flaneurs_lobster said:

TUVOK said:

 but there is a lot of gubbings pushed into a very narrow space!

Tsk, the correct technical term is "giblets".

Leaving aside the semantics, do you disagree with what was said?

getmore4less

What's to fix these days, nearly everything is on the motherboards then memory and storage plugged into that.

If you are not likely to swap out a motherboard if it fails then form factor is not that big a deal.

[Deleted User]

GDB2222 said:

An all in one has all of the problems of a laptop, without the portability. For example, a minor component failure may well mean throwing the whole thing away. A tower can usually be fixed. The tiny micro PCs are often v expensive to fix. If you have the space for a tower, it's a very good option. 

The only connection you save is the one from the PC to the monitor. You still have to connect the power cable, as well as the keyboard and mouse. 

Chief advantage of an AIO is that it looks stylish. 

All in one - yes I agree, not a fan of them.

Mini / micro PC, I have a different real-life experience of this - rarely fails and cheap to fix.

I have worked in the IT dept in a business for 15 years and I manage about 800 desktop computers and 300 laptops. When I started we had tower PCs, all Dell Optiplex or HP fairly decent business machines. Almost a decade ago we started gradually moving to Mini PCs configured as thin clients connecting to virtual desktops but retained some towers which were gradually retired.

The highest failure rate in my experience? Tower PCs. Power supplies mainly, then hard disks. Some motherboard / CPU failures but by the time they failed the age made them uneconomical to replace anyway so ended up recycled.

Solid state mini PC's failures? Very rare, a couple dead on arrival, after that, nothing notable and the oldest are much older than the average age of tower PC failure. Power supplies occasionally, but they are just cheap DC power bricks easily swapped, unlike a tower PC's power supply. 

I think the mini PCs are more reliable because they run cool and have low power consumption. Most have no fans but those that do just a mini one on the CPU that doesn't fill the whole case with dust like tower PCs which invariable are in a disgusting state when they reach failure.

Had a 12-month-old Dell mini PC fail last week which was a surprise, SSD failed - as cheap and easy to swap as a tower.

At home, I had a 6-week-old mini PC fail, SSD, as quick and cheap to fix as a tower.

Monitors - the highest failure rate of all IT equipment which is why I 100% agree with not using an AIO, but as for mini PCs, my experience says otherwise.

For laptops - physical damage from dropping/liquids is the main issue but everything is easy enough to swap like keyboards and screens. Had one need a new motherboard during warranty but that was an exception.

Chino

Deleted_User said:

Mini / micro PC, I have a different real-life experience of this - rarely fails and cheap to fix.

Deleted_User said:

Had a 12-month-old Dell mini PC fail last week which was a surprise, SSD failed - as cheap and easy to swap as a tower.

At home, I had a 6-week-old mini PC fail, SSD, as quick and cheap to fix as a tower.

So that's two mini PCs failing out of an unspecified but presumably small sample size, which suggests mini PCs are quite prone to failing.

GDB2222

That’s v interesting, Tallman. I can certainly see how lightweight cpus in micro cases would work well for thin clients. And, as you say, they don’t need much cooling. 

Do you ever survey your users, to find out how satisfied they are with these machines? 

I have only got one lightweight cpu, which is in a cheap laptop. It makes me very pleased indeed  to have a full fat cpu in my main computer. 

getmore4less

Many of the micros don't use the mobile/laptop(U) CPU versions.

[Deleted User]

Chino said:

Deleted_User said:

Mini / micro PC, I have a different real-life experience of this - rarely fails and cheap to fix.

Deleted_User said:

Had a 12-month-old Dell mini PC fail last week which was a surprise, SSD failed - as cheap and easy to swap as a tower.

At home, I had a 6-week-old mini PC fail, SSD, as quick and cheap to fix as a tower.

So that's two mini PCs failing out of an unspecified but presumably small sample size, which suggests mini PCs are quite prone to failing.

The point I was addressing was a comment about mini/micro PC's being expensive to repair, in both cases the failure was exactly the same cost to repair as a tower PC and equally as easy - the failure of an SSD is nothing to do with form factor.

The sample size is currently 600 mini PCs, the oldest are over 10 years and as I said, none that I can recall of that age have failed other than power packs which are external, cheap and easy to swap, compared to the estate of tower PC's where most failed by the 10 year mark and were uneconomical to repair.

There is a blip of "infant mortality" with all technology - things either fail early and fast or then go steady until expected lifespan and then start failing.

Anyway, all I'm saying is don't be put off by mini PC's, there isn't anything inherently bad about them if it suits the user requirements. Towers are great for specific purposes and also have some new ones in the business for specific needs that require very high processing capabilities.

[Deleted User]

GDB2222 said:

Do you ever survey your users, to find out how satisfied they are with these machines? 

 

Because they connect to virtual machines in a data centre, the power of the mini PC doesn't affect performance. You can run an 8 core 32 GB + GPU virtual PC on a Celeron / Pentium based thin client with 1-2GB ram and it will run just like an 8 core 32 GB + GPU regardless.