Is it just me, or are Gateway computers less reliable now?
I have an Astro whose mean time between crashes is about a half hour. Just now I went to the Gateway web site to look at possible replacements, and their site crashed me so bad I had to unplug it (it doesn’t even have a reset button!).
What I want in a computer:
No more crashing.
I’d like a longer time between crashes.
Eliminate keyboard hanging up.
I wish web sites did not make it crash.
Want it to keep running for many minutes or even hours between crashes.
More reliable.
Every time I have bought a computer I have asked the vendor if it will be more reliable than what I have. This has been my primary, usually my only, preference in every buying decision. And I think every computer has gotten less stable. The most stable one I have is still the Gateway 386 25 MHz DOS box with 2 MB of RAM, which cost me $3,300.00. Most have been Gateway.
I use it for paying bills, web browsing, printing out digicam photos, and light programming (it’s never my programs that crash).
I’m sure some other folks will be along with some suggestions, but your problem is truly mystifying.
My Gateway, which I’ve had for 6 months, has never crashed. Before that, I had a Dell for several years that got the blue screen of death perhaps once every 4 months or so, and that was clearly the fault of software; it had nothing to do with the hardware.
Before I retired, I ran a network of about 200 PCs, and in over seven years there, I never saw a computer crash with anything even remotely approaching the frequency you’re talking about. Actual hardware problems more often manifested themselves by preventing booting; if the PC would boot, it would run without crashing quite reliably.
I’ve encountered a few websites over the years that would cause IE to “hang,” but I’ve certainly never seen a website that actually caused a full-blown crash.
It’s frankly hard to imagine what you could be doing with your PCs that would cause them to be as unreliable as you claim! Overheating, perhaps? Is your PC jammed into an airless compartment in a desk?
While I am a diehard Dell fan, I think you have software problems. Also, do you do any routine maintenance such as defragging and so forth. Also, do you have a virus program installed and do you update it? What sort of internet connection and networking do you have?
If you give us more information about how your machine crashes or freezes up, and what programs you are running at the time, you might get some good tips from the many experts here…I’m not one of them, of course.
With Gateway’s focus seeming to move away from computers and with mass firings on the horizon, it seems conceivable that there might be some quality or reliablitiy issues with Gateway’s computer products these days.
I’ve seen them using cheap hardware, like Quantum drives.
I had to open the box on a brand new pc and install the uP that was rattling around loose.
The only crash problems I’ve seen are users installing their own goofy software or the HD going white side up.
They still make good stuff, but you can tell they have money problems. I have to talk to a support guy who tries to fix it over the phone, and they used to take my word that something was broke.
Just hold the power button down for 3-5 seconds to reset. I’m not sure if this applies to every computer without a reset button, but it’s worked on every one I’ve tried. I spent two years unplugging my old computer to get it to reset before I figured that out.
Now, what OS are you running? Have you scanned for viruses and spyware? Actually, if I was having the number of problems you are, I’d back up my important data, then format and reinstall.
We run about a 40 system network at work, and replacements have been switched from Gateway to Dell over the past year b/c of problems w/ Gateway. It seems mostly to be hardware problems in our situations–specifically, Power Supplies, Floppies and CD-ROMS going bad. Dells are working great, though.
Thanks for lotsa great notes in answer to my OP.
I use Win98 and the browser that came with the computer, and these crash quite a bit. Also, about 1/4 of the times I turn it on, it does not recognise the keyboard or mouse or the off button (yes I know to hold it in a few seconds).
I added Quicken and some other small packages, and the two programs for adjusting digicam photos tend to crash but my other added apps don’t. I use no games or software I got off the Internet.
Another problem is that when I turn it off (via the Start menu) it will get to the “Windows is shutting down” screen and freeze there. Seems like jiggling the mouse early in the shutdown process will prevent this problem, but after it freezes there’s nothing but unplugging that works. Interestingly, the two other people I know with this model have exactly the same problem - but Tech Support at Gateway says they’ve never heard of it.
The one thing I think I should have done that I don’t is to learn about tuning and tweaking Windows. But it changes so much every few years that this doesn’t seem worth trying.
But, whether or not Gateway’s latest financial trouble made my machine any less satisfactory (I bought it 2.5 years ago), one thing seems plain - it isn’t about to make the next machine any more satisfactory. Even though I’ve been buying Gateways since maybe '88 or so, I think I’ll try Dell or somebody else next time out.
well, we’ve got a gateway 500x…got it last year for my birthday. never had any trouble with it, and pound for pound, i think i got more bells and whistles on it that i could have gotten with a comparably priced dell.
that said, i have heard that when the pc ships, if it works, it will work like a dream, but if it’s got bugs, they can go on forever, and support, however well-intentioned they may be, are not great help. i’ve even heard about complete rebuilds that still fail to work reliably.
but, as i said, we are VERY happy with this pc. kickin’ video card, sound system, VERY good with gaming and digital video stuff. so YMMV.
My only bitch about my Gateway is that it shipped with a “raw” version of Win XP; what I mean is that it didn’t have any of the patches or service packs, even though those patches were out many, many months earlier. Since I’m still on a dial-up connection, I had to spend many long hours downloading SP1 and various patches before starting to use the machine.
You hit the nail on the head. I had a Gateway desktop that worked quite well so I bought my laptop from them too. BIG mistake. It was a lemon from day one and never improved. During the warranty period it was quite literally either shipped back or awaiting replacement parts more often than it was working. Replacements needed: the backlit video monitor twice, the floppy drive three times and the CD drive twice. In the immortal words of Lee Iaccoca, they were shipping crap. The thing that infuriated me was that they wouldn’t make things right. After the third repair needed within six months of owning the damned thing you would have thought they’d just either FIX it or replace it. But oh, no.
When the modem cacked, after it was out from under warranty, I just gave away the laptop to someone who’s using it solely for word processing. It was a very expensive, frustrating fiasco from start to finish.
I went with a Dell when it came time to replace the desktop. Gateway suckered me for the last time.
I’ve had many different computers, some with problems like that, some not. Basically it seems to stem from what quality the components and software go into the computer. I have had computers that ran flawlessly on Windows 95, and some that crashed like crazy. Usually frequent crashing can be traced back to a bad driver, or a faulty piece of hardware. Bad RAM for instance, can make the computer work very unreliably.
I will say, that the two most reliable computers I have had as far as stability and not crashing, have been my iMac, and my new iBook. The iMac was the first computer I have used running OS X, and it has still yet to crash bad enough to warrant a restart since I installed OS X on it, which was a little over a year ago. Same with the iBook.
Compared to the versions of Windows I had ran before, it is like a rock stability wise, and a lot of the versions of Windows I ran before weren’t bad at all. Though they seem much worse in retrospect.
