Paying extra for quality

[GuiGuy]

Two incidents this week that makes me question the wisdom that "you get for you pay for"

1- The SAMSUNG Label Printer

18 months ago we needed a couple of label printers for the office. At the time I suggested just buy a couple of basic ones at throw-away prices. Oh no, said the IT bods, you need quality and you need to pay for that. $1600.00 later two SAMSUNG label printers were installed. One died recently. It was only on its second roll of labels. The verdict from the techies is that the gizmo has died. It cannot be repaired. And, oh yea, the warranty was only 12 months any way.

I feel a $99 Brother or Dymo coming on.

2- The Coolermaster Power Supply

14 months old. Bought at relatively substantial expense for the HTPC that ran XPMCE, then Vista and is now the backend and main front end for our home entertainment system.

After losing a couple of HDDs to poor power supplies and knowing a little of electronics I figured there was little value in inexpensive PS units.

The Coolermaster rolled over during the night while the Myth box was transcoding a bunch of stuff.

Naturally, as you'd expect, it's 2 months out off warranty. I don't know if there's a point to trying to get it fixed.

So, what's the next step?
At the moment the Mythbox is running on a $25.00 500w powersupply. I keep a couple at hand.

I'm starting to subscribe to the theory of some of my mates that hardware should be bought as cheaply as possible. Maybe they're right because "getting what you paid for" isn't holding much meaning for me at the moment.

Cheers

[Freakn]

i'd agree completely, i've build a supercheap HTPC running VMC and cost me $550, wireless - KB/M & WiFi.

No problems with power versus $$$$, why spend more than is really need. I don't seem to have a lot of the conflict problems so many others to that spend 2-3 times the money on there system.

[vlad]

Yes, I agree. With Linux you are getting what you have paid for - absolutely nothing.
So you loose nothing if it gone cactus - just your cheap time.
Thinking paying extra for quality?

[TiggerK]

I think there's a difference between half decent stuff (which may or may not fail at any time), and the really nasty no-name crap.

I say get respected stuff, but don't go over the top. At the end of the day though, anything can fail at any time, and these days it seems to more often than people would expect.

I do this hardware thing every day, and I like to think that I know brands that are more reliable than others. But it's all based on your own experiences, people walk in and say 'I want a hard drive, anything but Seagate 'cause they're crap'. Others say 'I only use Seagate because they're the best'.

Just don't pay a big premium for supposed quality I suppose is the best bet. That's bad luck on the label printer though, should be more reliable than that. I suspect the other one will work for many years yet.

Cheers
TiggerK

[arkay]

I agree with TiggerK. Really cheap stuff is just that. I've seen numerous $20 power supplies kill otherwise expensive components. I'd never cheap out on a power supply. You still can get dodgy "good quality" components though it's less likely.. I'd say you were just unlucky.

I've only used coolermaster and antec power supplies for ages as well as seagate drives and I've never had an issue. Infact, the only components I've ever had fail outright were Western Digital drives and 2 video cards. A Geforce 440mx and Matrox G400. Both of them ran well beyond their life expectancy.

Cheers,

Arkay.

[krypto]

When you look inside a PSU there is a difference between really cheap and middle of the road. It also shows up in voltage stability under load.

I switched from a basic consumer HDD to a WD raptor for reliability, after 3 system HDD failures in 18months. The raptor is going strong 2 years in and I suspect it is built better (haven't pulled it apart).

As for stuff failing, in my experience expensive is no guarantee.