The worst hardware you have ever bought?

[Agent]

Ah yes, not sure how I could have missed XFbloodyX off my list

[dagwoood]

XFX!!! *Shudders*

Their UK customer services were useless when I received a dud 6600GT; took me nigh on 3 months to get it sorted/a replacement

[nichomach]

Over the years I've had to deal with some very shonky kit, but I've mostly been able to put my hands up and say "not me, guv, the <department> guys chose that themselves and wouldn't be talked out of it...", my favourite example being the department of programmers headed up by a chap who insisted on buying these seriously dodgy white boxes (all preinstalled with NT4, none with a COA attached) off a local firm at an inflated price. The fact that he was retained by them on a regular basis to do their website maintenance and design was of course completely unconnected...

However, in my case I can immediately think of two; at the low end of the scale, two Belkin USB KVM switches. These were all-in-one jobbies and they were shockingly bad. There was a button on the top to switch between machines, and it would take several seconds (doesn't sound that long, I know) to swap between machines, the machines would frequently boot without either the keyboard, mouse or both not working, and while running the switches would spontaneously switch machines uncontrollably. Units retired by percussive maintenance. Then there is the Juniper Netscreen 50, and its associated Netcsreen Remote IPSec client, possibly the most recalcitrant and uncooperative firewall it's ever been my misfortune to be involved with. L2TP over IPSec using that bastard was the bane of my life. Replaced with Sonicwall PRO4060, which has been rather better.

[Shooty*]

I love XFX cards.

The only GPU I've ever had a problem with was a BFG, about 6600 or something, and that was coz I bought an Arctic cooler for it, but BFG had non-standard holes in the board, so it' wouldn't sit. From memory. that was a wee while ago.

LOL at the Q-tec suggestions. Qtechnolgoy, on the other hand, rock.

My worst: I'd go with Belkin Wifi Cards too, or more specifically, that crappy bundled software that comes with it. Sod that, let Windows sort it.

[digit]

Just thought this subject might make an interesting thread.

For me it was an MSI K8N neo2 platinum motherboard. When I first got it had loads of problems trying to install an OS because the hard drives kept disappearing from BIOS, which I later found out was because there was a compatibility issue with Nvidia SATA controller and the drives I was using.

And the final straw was when Nvidia decided that they would not do any Vista drivers for the Nforce3 chipsets.

There were vista drivers for Nforce 3. I ran the MSI K8N Neo Plantium (Socket 754) on vista.

On the release of vista on MSDN: AA I used a beta driver from nvidia giving me a fully functional motherboard with everything working.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_vista_15.16.html --> that is latest and final driver I think for nforce 3 and vista.
I wasnt aware of issues with the raid controller and certain hardrives on the socket 939 version but mine certainly served me well under vista till I upgraded to quad core. I may have flashed the mobo bios though can't remember though.

My bad experience with the aforementioned motherboard was when the sata controller decided to fail causing me to end up with a corrupted data on 2 of 3 hard drives. How the 3rd hard drive didnt get affected i'll never know. Oh and also how socket 754 lasted all of about ten minutes

I'm afraid I brought a pc chips motherboard back in the days of socket 370, oh the shame, how little I knew

[Sputnik]

There were vista drivers for Nforce 3. I ran the MSI K8N Neo Plantium (Socket 754) on vista..................Oh and also how socket 754 lasted all of about ten minutes

Well, I don't think there were any 'official' Vista drivers for the Nforce 3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NForce3 although they did do drivers for Nforce 4 which I know some people were trying to use with Nforce3 with various degrees of success.

If you search hard enough on the Nvidia site you will see the FAQ's where they say "if you wish to use Vista you should upgrade to a better platform......"

The BIOS was terrible at the start and eventually I found an unofficial BIOS that made it a bit better. But, Regardless of what BIOS used it would never work with Maxtor Maxline drives.(of which I had bought 2 new ones for the build and have not bought a Maxtor drive since).

And yes socket 939 didn't last much longer than 754.

[Shooty*]

I <3 S939



Never heard of PC Chips... you lot must be older than me (33 on Friday this week!)

[dagwoood]

Never heard of PC Chips... you lot must be older than me (33 on Friday this week!)

They're not that old, they were widely available 3-4 years ago iirc.

They were dire though

[strike-down]

Have to say belkin pcmcia G+ wifi card and belkin turbo G router.
Took me bloody ages to get them to work at all. Firmware update for the router sorted that thing out. But with the wifi card, I still had to refresh the wireless network list 30ish times to be able to see the network, let alone connect to it.
My Ovis link (airlive) card on the other hand works a treat

EDIT: XFX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DavidM]

Not the worse piece of hardware - but perhaps the most annoying...

A USB Parrot

[rainparade]

Some time in 1995 I decided it was time to investigate this new Internet thingly, so invested in a 14.4k modem card (can't remember the brand) for my trusty 486.

Excitement at the prospect of getting online for the first time quickly turned to frustration as I spent an entire weekend trying to get the thing to stay connected for more than a couple of seconds.

Having disabled or removed just about every other piece of non-essential hardware in a vain attempt to avoid possible conflicts, I took the thing back to the shop, only to be told that this particular piece of c**p had problems working with various motherboard chipsets, mine included.

Needless to say, I swapped it for an external model (still 14.4Kbs!), but I've never quite got over that particular weekend of fun...

[scaryjim]

Curious. I've had varied experiences with PC-Chips: the first PC I bought myself (from some cowboy shop in town) had a PC-Chips mobo that's still going strong after various up-, down-, and regrades. On the other hand, I had another cheap one that was massively unstable, and died completely when I tried to flash the BIOS. On the other hand, it cost me less than &#163;20 (and this was back in 2003) so I just binned it and got something else!

My first XFX card was a GeForce4 MX that was such a huge improvement on the SiS integrated graphics (on the PC-Chips mobo mentioned above, as it happens!) that I immediately fell in love with it. Sold that on after I'd had it less than a year, though, and I have no idea how it held up after that...

My worst buy was probably an XFX 5200FX with a passive cooler that would freeze within 30 seconds of putting *any* 3D load through it. I bought one of those PCI-slot exhaust fans, put it right under the heatsink, and presto, problem solved. Nice enough card, appalling cooling!

[Thorsson]

Pretty much every Creative card I've owned...

Pretty much my immediate thought.

My Hyper Type R didn't even last a year, but I certainly wasn't going to get a replacement under warranty!

I had loads of problems with Hauppage cards, although they may have been releated to the reative cards in the same boxes...

[Pob255]

I advoided the PC-Chips motherboards through luck.
I fell foul of a Qtec, although it never destroyed anything or even died, it still works to this day and gets pulled out now and again for Fan testing only.
However before the Qtec I fell foul of an Eagle PSU which took out a single memory stick and motherboard bios chip. (A credit to my Epox motherboard)

My worst to date was my ATi 9700Pro, a totally stock from ATi that cooked it's own memory.
The situation was not improved any because I got it from OcUK and that was the last time I've ever shopped with them.

EDIT: I'm another one who has yet to have any problem with any xfx card I've owned
On creative, Sound blaster 2.0 and Sound blaster Pro Both great cards, back in the day I never had any problem with ether and they were much better than the cheap clones at that time.

[Uriel]

Nearly forgot - a B-Grade MSI 6800GT from dabs. It had corruption all over the screen in everything - even the BIOS screen. Obviously hadn't been tested but they did pay for a courier to collect and give me a full refund.

[shadowmaster]

An ezcool psu that blew up