A few questions

[lehnerus2000]

Disconnect, not switch off

IMO, you should disconnect your power, network and TV antenna connections (from your PC) during thunderstorms.

 

[legacy7955]

IMO, you should disconnect your power, network and TV antenna connections (from your PC) during thunderstorms.

Good point.

But I agree with Mustang that it seems from personal experience and logic that overall reducing the wear on all hardware items like fans, ect, will prolong the life of a PC. Most folks don't think about this but as time passes that thermal paste on the CPU and GPU start to dry out and lose their heat transference ability and will cause increased heat stress in the processors.. If the unit is turned off at least half the day it will increase the longevity of those items and the paste.

I have a 2001 HP Pavilion 7955 that I still use daily that is working perfectly that has been powered down correctly for 12 hrs of each 24 hr day and NO hardware related problems either all original stuff in the box!

HP gets blasted around here but for PC towers they still do a great job.

 

[Mustang]

HP gets blasted around here but for PC towers they still do a great job.

I have a friend who has a 38 year old HP programmable hand held LED lighted calculator. And he still uses it every day, albeit one of the keys is a bit sticky.

Personally I wouldn't have any other printer except HP. I haven't checked out the validity of this statement, but the salesman at Office Works who sold me my first printer said the print head is in the actual ink cartridge, and when you replace the ink cartridge you virtually replace the print head. Whereas in other printers the print head is in the machine, and once this goes, the cost of repairs makes it a throw away.

This happened to a friend of mine with a Canon that was just out of the 12 month warranty, and it was an expensive machine, but the repair costs were prohibitive. Since then she's been an HP convert. Also while HP ink cartridges are more expensive they last 2 to 3 times as long as other printer cartridges.

Whenever I've helped people with PCs I've always recommended HP printers. They're cheap as chips to buy for a printer/copier/scanner and I've only discarded my first one about 6 months ago, which I bought 8 years ago. It still worked but the print alignment was not 100% square to side of page because feed mechanism was worn and biased to one side.

 

[FSeal]

HP gets blasted around here but for PC towers they still do a great job.

I have a friend who has a 38 year old HP programmable hand held LED lighted calculator. And he still uses it every day, albeit one of the keys is a bit sticky.

Personally I wouldn't have any other printer except HP. I haven't checked out the validity of this statement, but the salesman at Office Works who sold me my first printer said the print head is in the actual ink cartridge, and when you replace the ink cartridge you virtually replace the print head. Whereas in other printers the print head is in the machine, and once this goes, the cost of repairs makes it a throw away.

This happened to a friend of mine with a Canon that was just out of the 12 month warranty, and it was an expensive machine, but the repair costs were prohibitive. Since then she's been an HP convert. Also while HP ink cartridges are more expensive they last 2 to 3 times as long as other printer cartridges.

Whenever I've helped people with PCs I've always recommended HP printers. They're cheap as chips to buy for a printer/copier/scanner and I've only discarded my first one about 6 months ago, which I bought 8 years ago. It still worked but the print alignment was not 100% square to side of page because feed mechanism was worn and biased to one side.

What you say is true, but I've twice had HP "Obsolete" their printer on me after just 1-2 years, meaning they no longer would provide a new driver for the latest OS and so had to buy a new printer when upgrading. For that reason I will /never/ buy another HP printer.

If I need to buy a new printer I'd rather it be because I wore the old one out, not because the manufacturer stopped supporting it practically the instant I bought it

 

[Mustang]

What you say is true, but I've twice had HP "Obsolete" their printer on me after just 1-2 years, meaning they no longer would provide a new driver for the latest OS and so had to buy a new printer when upgrading. For that reason I will /never/ buy another HP printer.

If I need to buy a new printer I'd rather it be because I wore the old one out, not because the manufacturer stopped supporting it practically the instant I bought it

I can't argue with that. I'd forgotten but must admit the printer I mentioned in my previous post had that very same problem and it was a $600 printer. When Vista came out it would not let you load the HP drivers which had the tool box. And you needed the tool box to calibrate the print heads when you put a new ink cartridge in it. HP told me they were working on new drivers but it never happened. And I was pretty browned off at the time. Other people I knew also suffered the same problem in the transition to the new architecture in Vista.

I worked around the problem by having XP installed on the same HD as Vista, and used XP to load the tool box and calibrate the heads. The settings were then retained in the actual printer memory, not on the HD, so it could then be used on Vista in the same machine; and later on in Win7. And that's one of the reasons why I had XP Virtual on Win7. I now only use XP for a few legacy games.

However, the driver issue seems to have been resolved in the later model printers. I have been able to load the HP drivers and tool box on Vista, Win7 and even Win8 for the two current HP printers I've got. Also calibration is done by simply printing a calibration page which is then scanned to set the calibration. So that is not an issue anymore.