Hello all,
I want to know how long most peoples netbooks last for. You see, I always used windows until two Christmases ago when I bought a neat little linux netbook to work on my online pharmacy sales. All was fine till it packed up working and I was told it overheated and is not meant for constant use but only for light use.
I now have a tower again. What do others think is the average age of a netbook if it is used a lot?
Mine lasted 13 months roughly. It only cost £200 so I guess I should have expected it not to last for a long time but even so I was a little gutted it packed in quite so soon.
Anyone else has this outcome?

I disagree. I have one that's over two years old, and working fine. I think they told you that, because they got to sell you a new tower, instead of a cheap netbook.

Maybe you are right but I chose to buy the Tower as I didn't want the same thing to happen again. I do use my pc pretty much all the time and leave it on when I am not using it. I was told that this overheats it and damages it.
It is only meant for light use not constant use.
I just wanted to see how many other people here have had the same thing happen and obviously you have not found this.
Computers do get very hot. Maybe the netbooks don't have a way of cooling down like towers do.

Not this outcome yet but I do notice my < 2 month old netbook runs hot with the processor cores 55 - 60 deg (tower CPU casing 40 - 45 deg) and HDD 51 deg during backup (tower 42 deg).

I use my Aspire One 8.9 whenever I want, I just give it good ventilation and feel the temperature underneath often. I can play Doom Legacy with OpenGL at 1024x768 on it, as well as Warzone 2100. I take it everywhere I will be for any amount of time. Had it since early 2009.

I have one with the Atom processor and have had it for a year & a half. I don't do alot of heavy work with it but have left it running for a week or so, more than once. I also may not use it for long periods of time. At home I prefer a larger screen, with these old eyes!

Hard to give a one-size-fits-all answer. Some netbooks have fans, some don't; some use Atom processors, some use something else; some have SSD, others have HDD, etc.

I have 2 netbooks and have used them hours a day for 1 year and 2 years respectively. No problems yet!

Linux gives you total control over fans, cpu frequency, screen brightness, and other power management features. If you feel your netbook is running too hot, there are tools at your disposal to diagnose and fix the issue.

Thanks for your replaies. Maybe I was just unlucky with mine.

which distro did the netbook have when you bought it

Personally I am a fan of netbooks because they are so handy, but I know what you mean with they seem to get hot once in a while. I found this webpage where they say that only older models tend to overheat as they had a too high power consumption and the clock speed was too fast which resulted in a too high frequency and that tends to create heat… therefore the overheating problem. But you should check out yourself how netbook overheating works, this explains it nicely.

I haven't used a desktop for going on 7 years now and I haven't had one fail on me in the respects you describe. I use my notebooks constantly and at least one, usually my HP nc6000, is on 24/7.

I did however have a HDD fail on me with my iBook G4, but that was easily fixed.

Cheers.

I have only had my netbook for 4 months..not long I know but I love it compared to a laptop period and thats simply because with my laptop..it had too many features that I didn't need or rarely used.... cd rom drive,dvd burner etc.I only used those things because I paid for them....the laptop would over-heat and eventually it broke down.

I have an Asus EEEpc and for those of you that don't know..they make 80% of the motherboards out on the market.My netbook DOES NOT OVERHEAT, DOESN'T GET HOT AND BARELY GETS WARM. The one and only time it even got remotely warm was when i had it on a pillow- on my lap..the pillow was kind of blocking the fan but it still didn't get HOT.I shut my computer completely down the proper way anytime I know im wont be using it for a few hours or days.Standby is an opton when im leaving work and I know I'll be using it when I arrive home, otherwise I do a complete shut down because keeping it on will destroy it faster.

I think netbook does and will last longer than MOST laptops because they have less features, less things that can go wrong or break. They don't get hot which is one of the number one cause for laptop repairs and damages.Companies don't make things to LAST anymore...if they did, they wouldn't have future customers thats why vaccums,tvs,computers go out so fast now a days they gotta keep business booming. the best u can do is just take care of your thinsg to make them last as long as possible.