Per Jessen said the following on 06/19/2013 02:40 AM:
Your cards are in a rough(er) environment I guess - I don't recall when I last had to replace a broken network card.
You're lucky! The clients I deal with seem to have bean-counters dominating some aspects of IT. The servers are all good machines, meaty things from IBM and HP (I had clients that used Data general boxes that were considered suitable for 'raised-floor' use running SVR4-variant but really they were not reliable and WTF it was government anyway... I'm better off out of it), but desktop and issue-laptop are another matter. These seem to be lowest-cost bulk purchase on what I call a 'toilet paper' approach. The servers have support agreements. The desktops don't. They break and they get flushed and a new one is puled from inventory. When inventory gets low another - different - batch of low-cost bulk purchase is set in motion. I've seen over half a dozen clients that do this in one form or another and the bean-counters justify in various details but it always comes down to the same thing. With low cost items its cheaper to replace than repair. And often not just low cost. I have a nice wide-screen LG Flatron that was consigned to the dumpster. I replaced an (obviously to my eyes) blown capacitor and have a working screen :-) I thought OK, and went back to the dumpster for more but it had been emptied :-( So there is the 'Closet of Anxieties - the graveyard of machines that are termed "dead" for one reason or another, but which by playing around with cables, drives, memory maybe one in five can be resurrected. From the bean-counters POV is not with doing, but they are there and in the idle time between fighting other fires ... I can't say its a lifestyle I prefer, but its not as if it amounts to more than a 'hobby'. Still, it beats building models of Rideau Palace out of matchsticks :-) -- How long did the whining go on when KDE2 went on KDE3? The only universal constant is change. If a species can not adapt it goes extinct. That's the law of the universe, adapt or die. -- Billie Walsh, May 18 2013 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org