Most reliable / Least reliable systems?

[sputnik]

For me the most unreliable has to be the Spectrums (various models.) I've owned more duds than working ones.

My most reliable have been IBM PC (5150 / 5160), and BBC Micro, they've just kept going forever even after popping a few capacitors.

 

[Templar]

Most reliable: My Amiga and old technology in general.

Least reliable: New technology (it's obvious).

 

[Exilent]

Most relaible: My C64, its never been repaired! and its from 1982!

Least relaiable: My laptop. Just over 2 years and dead as a doornale.

 

[demolition]

I think the A500 is very reliable overall. There's no caps or battery to go bad (unless it has a battery on the expansion). If you do find a non-working A500, then reseating the chips will often fix the problem.
C64 can be reliable, but there's also quite a number of dead/faulty ones out there. The main issues here are bad PSU, ESD from plugging peripherals or heat, particularly the ones with a cardboard shield. The unreliable PSU alone might be responsible for 50% of all dead 64s (I have no real statistic on this, just a wild guess)?

Least reliable? Maybe modern mobile phones / laptops? These are probably dying because people bring them anywhere and treat them like crap. But also the fact that people usually upgrade them after 2-3 years anyway means that they don't want to pay for higher reliability.

 

[NinjaRabbit]

My most reliable have been my C64C, SNES, and all of my Nintendo handhelds. Still rock-solid.

Least reliable was the Sega Game Gear (my first one began exhibiting an issue with games randomly freezing and crashing not too long after getting it, its replacement developed a control-jamming problem caused by *normal use of the joypad* which they charged a bunch to fix but never actually did, and a relative had one that just suddenly up and died one day for no reason at all; We eventually pooled the working parts from both and made one working one), and almost every x86 box I've ever owned (they just don't seem to be built to last).

 

[DonutKing]

My original grey nintendo game boy... Had it since new, its been dropped, beaten, left in the cupboard to rot for years, still powers on first time, although you might need to reseat the carts to make it work

 

[ColourWheel64]

My A1200 is still going strong, but now sports a Blizzard 030 with 128mb and runs cooooool as ice cream. Mmmm, ice cream.

 

[supaduper]

As Nick said my main A1200 been upgraded,downgraded,chopped and still going strong,you have to watch out for dodgy CD32`s because of their bad cap leakage seen some screamers !

 

[mike_cc]

least reliable: Sinclair/spectrum due to having bought many dead ones and of course all the trauma caused by 30 minute loads that resulted in crashes and 'user meltdown' icard

most reliable: cf amigas. once that pesky fdd was removed from the equasion.

 

[TheCorfiot]

I agree Spectrums are pretty unreliable mainly due to Clives awful 9V to 12V convertor circuit which upsets the 4116 DRAMS.

Amiga wise it has to be the ole A4000, stare at it too long and it will fall over lol.

TC

 

[Bryce]

Most unreliable: ZX Spectrum, Oric 1 and anything that had a forgotten RTC battery on the PCB.
Most reliable: The Amstrad range except the 664 which had a terrible keyboard membrane.

Bryce.

 

[TheCorfiot]

Most unreliable: ZX Spectrum, Oric 1 and anything that had a forgotten RTC battery on the PCB.
Most reliable: The Amstrad range except the 664 which had a terrible keyboard memebrane.

Bryce.

Oooh I dont know i've had quite a few duffers lol.
TBH the most common part I have found fail in the CPC's is the Z80 itself...

I'm a firm believer in exercising these old systems, most likely to fail pretty quickly are those that have not been powered up for a good few years.

 

[ShambleS1980]

any of the older consoles from the 2600 to the snes.. rock solid things..
least are these stupid flat pannel monitors inverter boards inevitibly fail on them. but i think that the 1st batch of 360'shave to go down in history as the least reliable consoles ever made.

 

[Retrograde]

My original Commodore 64 probably, it has seen quite a bit of action since bought in 1986.
The IBM PS2 50Z (286-based PC with Microchannel Architecture) I had was built like a tank from the looks of it, though I only owned it for 4 years.
The floppy ejector spring was so powerful it ejected disks all the way sometimes.

 

[AndyLandy]

Always been pretty happy with my A1200. Now she's all set up, configured and running smoothly, I can just hit the 'on' switch and get some WHDLoad goodness on the go.

Least reliable was my old A4000. The motherboard was pretty solid, but the tower conversion case, fat Zorro backplane and all the drives and other niknaks I tried to attach left me with one unreliable system. In the end I flogged most of the key components.

Oh, and an honourable mention to my A3000. She turned up on my doorstep dead as a dodo. A bunch of repair work later and still going strong today. There are a couple of bits and pieces that still don't work quite right, but for the most part, I've got a fairly reliable A3000.

 

[Firthy2002]

Most reliable: My Amigas. Even the 500+ lasted 10 years of moderate to heavy use. Least reliable: Most Wintels I've owned have failed in some way.

 

[AndyLandy]

Least reliable: Most Wintels I've owned have failed in some way.

Oh, totally that. My least reliable machine of my current collection is definitely the Sempron 2200+ rig. Powering it on and it's even odds whether it finds the hard disk or the CD-ROM drive (it never picks up both from a cold boot.) I think the motherboard and the hard disk are both on the way out. Occasionally the graphics card throws a wobbly and won't talk to the monitor and you have to reboot. The whole thing is a POS. So much so that I've replaced it with a Thinkpad I turfed up from work. That machine will hit the WEEE pile Real Soon Now™

 

[cheezmonkey]

Least reliable... Playstation 3, I'm on my fourth one in 6 years. It does get a lot of use though.
Most reliable... That's a pretty tough call, I've not had a lot go wrong over the years, probably due to the level of care I give my stuff. I've got an Atari 2600 Junior and a C64C, they both work pretty well, though I think the C64 tape drive may need some adjusting/cleaning as I've never done it. As someone else said, the original grey Gameboy is pretty amazing - I had one that was completely submerged in a flood for a few hours and survived just fine.