5 ms·
I wonder if the average is skewed because so many people buy new phones every year / every other year.
by dyeje 9y ago
I wonder if the average is skewed because so many people buy new phones every year / every other year.
- nordsieck 9y agoStill, it's not like the chips are failing. People typically get a new phone because: * Battery is too degraded * Hardware is unsupported by the current OS version * Screen failure * Water damage (not as much with newer water resistant phones) * Want to be able to run apps faster * OS/Firmware failure (e.g. bootloop) * Want to own the latest phone (non-performance reasons) * Want a phone with a new hardware feature (e.g. wireless charging) I don't think I've ever heard of someone's phone just not working mysteriously.
- kuon 9y agoIt is not a phone, but my coffee machine electronic just died (but after 7 years). It had no visible damage (water, electric shock). After changing the main PCB it was working again, like new. I regret not playing more with the old PCB though, like checking capacitors or resistors values.
- ComputerGuru 9y agoIt might have been bad solder. Some of that lead-free stuff is utter garbage and could have failed mechanically (of it hadn’t been on right) or reflowed due to the heat.
- organsnyder 9y agoI fixed our 20-year-old range by replacing capacitors. They failed exactly like the caps on early-mid-2000's motherboards.
- kuschku 9y agoYeah, I’m right now using a 14 year old monitor, and I’ve replaced two caps, but it’s still running. Next to it I have a 6 year old monitor, in which I can’t replace the caps because it’s glued together.
- marcosdumay 9y agoBesides, when something fails, it's almost always capacitors, mechanical devices or FLASH memory. Unless those "chips" the article is talking about is only FLASH, it's a very weird statement.
- pvtmert 9y agoactually i had s4 mini and it died after 3 or so years, no booting, black screen only. power button does nothing and computer doesnt see.
- HankB99 9y agoDid you diagnose the cause of the failure? My guess is it was a failed power supply and that likely resulted from failed capacitors.
- falcolas 9y agoMost chip failures do not surface as "just stop working" - they surface as the chip overheating much more often. Or the chip over-volting other components. Or failing to throttle down, resulting in excessive battery wear. Or surfacing the occasional computation error. Or some feature just no longer being available. Also remember: batteries, screen, BIOS... all are controlled by their own chips these days; chips whose failures are attributed to the component they're attached to.
- btashton 9y agoI assume by bootloop you are talking about the LG failure that impacted the Nexus 5x among others. That _was_ attributed to hardware failure. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_smartphone_bootloop_issues#Cause https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_smartphone_bootloop_issue...
- pps43 9y ago> I don't think I've ever heard of someone's phone just not working mysteriously. My Nokia 808 suddenly died after a couple of years. Blank screen, did not react to any button presses or reset attempts. Even after replacing the battery.
- barrkel 9y agoBootloop is down to hardware ageing, specifically solder, as I understand it. System resets etc. don't fix it. I've had two phones die from it. The cure for the brave involves reflowing the solder in an oven.