Most common way to kill a PC!!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Dodgy PSUs are the primary cause it seems:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1720

Hence a decent quality PSU is essential for your PC to have a decent lifespan.

[chuckskull]

Been saying it for years and I probably don't need to say it here, but it never hurts, for god's sake people it's not just about how many watts it's got.

/me pats trusty old Seasonic

[shadowmaster]

No surprise, very few people understand how vital it is to have a good quality psu.

[Will404]

Could have guessed about the PSU, but I dont believe that CPU's without incorrectly fitted HSF assemblies is #2!!, I thought that all CPU's would throttle/cut off if they reached a certain temprature

[jim]

Maybe, but I can well believe that some people might just force it to restart it over and over again... or else it's referring to the older ones that just used to explode instead.

[cptwhite_uk]

From experience I'd say it's the following:

1) PSU
2) Corrupt graphics card
3) Motherboard
4) Hard drive failure

Although I accept 2-4's order is highly debatable!

[Terbinator]

Didn't the old Athlon XP chips die within 3 or 4 seconds if the heatsink wasn't seated properly ?

[Pob255]

Yes and after reading the artical, by the sound of it it's older cpu's that where killed by badly fitted heatsinks, newer cpu's are far more resistant and far less have been killed this way.

Bad fitting of the heat sink on the older athlons xp+ and 64 could crack of chip the cpu which would also kill it.
I seem to remember people removeing the 4 little rubber spaces thoes cu's had around the edge of the substrait (the square block of meterial the chip is mounted on) the theory was the cooler would get better contact with the cpu, the reality was that is was easy for the cooler to tilt when being fastened down putting all the pressure onto the edge of the chip which would in turn crack or a chip break off destroying the cpu.

Although the same can and dose happen to graphics cards which have only recently come with heat spreaders, not only do they help increase the surface area they are help reduce physical damage to the chip.
However people don't seem so silly as to remove the rubber raiser that surrounds GPUs as they where on the old athlon cpu's

[Madafwo]

I always thought the most common way to kill a PC was let the missus use it...

So many times a day I get people running a GTX 285 and an i7 CPU on a 700W no name PSU and swear blind it's not the PSU as it is 700W. They then go out and buy no name 1000W PSU and still have the issue and still don't believe it is the PSU. If they were to stick a 650W Corsair or equivalent PSU in they wouldn't have a problem.

Spend money on a decent PSU and it will out last any other component you buy. Fact!

[12GaugeShotty]

Dodgy PSUs are the primary cause it seems:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1720

Hence a decent quality PSU is essential for your PC to have a decent lifespan.

I've had my Corsair HX520 for 3 years now. It has been just as quiet as the day I got it and recently I finally tested out that other 6-pin PCIe connector by getting a Radeon HD 5850. Previously I had only been using one 6-pin PCIe connector between a Radeon X1900XT and Radeon HD 4830. Works without a problem.

Of course I would also highly recommend a quality UPS to protect your PSU as well. A UPS will help filter the power going into your PSU. I use APC myself.

Didn't the old Athlon XP chips die within 3 or 4 seconds if the heatsink wasn't seated properly ?

Well, if you took the heatsink off while it was on they would. It was very hard to seat the heatsink improperly unless you had zero experience installing.

[aidanjt]

A decent power strip does just as well on this side of the pond.