this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2024
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Forced Obsolescence / Obsolescence by Design

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Video gamer calls out electronics company after realizing major design flaw: 'Own up to your mistake' (www.thecooldown.com)
submitted 3 months ago by solo to c/forced_obsolescence
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[–] voracitude@lemmy.world 25 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

To save you a click: The company in question is Lenovo; they sold a prebuilt desktop with a motherboard that ended up not supporting nVidia driver updates for the GPU. Now anyone with this desktop is stuck on an old driver version and their computer crashes a lot, and can't play games as they become incompatible with the installed driver version.

Editorial by me: The only real solution would be to upgrade the motherboard which is at least a few hundred bucks; they may need to buy a new CPU or RAM as well, depending on what else Lenovo cheaped out on, and labour which the owner may not have the skill for, meaning even more money.

[–] Deconceptualist@lemm.ee 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Don't buy Lenovo. They're the dumbfucks who sold machines with the Superfish pre-installed malware back in the day.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

Considering that Lenovo is the biggest computer manufacturer in the world, I don't think people care.

[–] activistPnk 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

There is a blurry line between what is widely regarded as the highest of quality machines known as IBM Thinkpads and Lenovo, which acquired Thinkpad in 2005. Thinkpads were the only machines certified for use on the international space station. NASA is one of the few orgs whose endorsements I trust. Lenovo buying the product line does not turn it to shit overnight. In 2008, Lenovo Thinkpads could be bought with linux officially supported and factory-installed. But then I recall a point at which linux was no longer a factory option.

When did Lenovo turn to shit? 2010? 2015? I ask because my local street market has tons of 2nd-hand laptops and I never know what to think about the Lenovo Thinkpads that are newer than mine. The 2nd hand market also has Lenovo desktop machines.. some normal size and some are tiny (like the size of an optical drive). The general attitude is that anything Lenovo is good quality, which is not necessarily accurate it’s just the sentiment surrounding the machines. I wonder if that public perception is purely an artifact of the Thinkpad line from IBM.

Superfish was purely a software fuckup in 2015, which would not affect people who already know Windows is garbage and replace it with a proper OS anyway. But that’s not to say Lenovo shouldn’t lose competency points.

(edit) looks like things went downhill in the 2012—2014 range. “In 2014, although sales rose 5.6 percent from the previous year, Lenovo lost its position as the top commercial notebook maker.” (wikipedia).

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Do you have a few minutes to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Linus Torvalds?

[–] solo 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm sorry but I believe in polytheism, I have so many Gods and Goddesses to worship, and of course Linus is one of them.

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Linus is a generous god. He's not jealous.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Prebuilt machines are always a scam.

[–] Broken_Monitor@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I’ve built my own in the past, but as of a few years ago it wasn’t really cost effective compared to prebuilt. I ended up buying from CyberPowerPC and had a great experience, zero issues. I did customize it slightly and swapped a motherboard and the processor in my order. Several of my friends had gone that route before and since then too, I’ve never heard complaints from them either.

At the time I bought it I got a good deal - it was during covid when the RTX3080s all got snagged instantly by crypto miners. Got mine with the 3080 and basically paid MSRP for the parts. That thing is still going strong, I’ve only added another M2 drive since then

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

A custom order doesn't sound like it was prebuilt.

[–] Broken_Monitor@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I mean, I didn’t build it. They also have tons of their own builds you can go with, I just chose to change mine. You can split hairs on that if you like, just saying those guys do a good job.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My point is that a custom-built order isn't the same as a prebuilt machine. I'm not drawing the distinction at whether or not you personally assembled it, but rather whether or not it's a statically defined unit.

[–] Broken_Monitor@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah they sell those too. They’re good. Go take a look

https://www.cyberpowerpc.com/category/prebuilt-systems/

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

OK, that looks like it comes out about even with piecing it together yourself, assuming they aren't cheaping way out on some of the unbranded components.

[–] Broken_Monitor@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I mean, I didn’t build it. They also have tons of their own builds you can go with, I just chose to change mine. You can split hairs on that if you like, just saying those guys do a good job.