Critical shortages of components might raise prices

MarkK - true i guess some are assembled in cut-corners ways, there is certainly a lack of QA testing when it comes to things like use & operation of digital onscreen menus - they get worse and slower by the day it'd seem. it's like nobody tests them at all, yet such products are shipped out in huge numbers, and a lot of the time sold thru outlets where the sales people only know the sparse & useless fragments of info on display about the products - and manuf. websites are often as bad in listing required product info.

however - i can attest as a consumer that electronic goods do tend to just keep working, if u don't misuse them. and they are very repairable - the point of my initial post was to do with how, eg a planar or motherboard fail tends to mean there is a path that can be repaired, or one or a small amount of components (yes often SMT) that failed - the rest of the device is fine.

not really sure what u mean about the ATX points raised. other than AV / games & coding workstations, and gaming rigs, most people only need a 2 - 4 core. 2 if they aren't using media-intensive web content, 4 (and required GPUs and RAM) if they intend to use it as a media player or they visit a lot of graphic&media intensive websites. it's shocking the amount of network packets generated by loading a simple (and often most popular sites) webpage - most of the info is redundant, and it isn't something that caching is any use in either.
even if people don't re-use them (if i understand u right), they are still very useful machines - tho it isn't since the DDR3s that they bothered to include ECC RAM as standard, so older versions true aren't as reliable as servers. they can be used in failover configs tho, and wouldn't boot up(therefore not consume extra power) unless the other server/s failed. depending on power-consumption too, old machines are still fine to use in clusters (such as the failover configs mentioned) in a makeshift blade manner.

yeah i know the difference between surface mount (often if not always 'printed' on by machines, themselves requiring such parts & assembley)& components that still need people (in 3rd world countries or places where they pay very little) to solder them on.

SMTs tend to be even smaller than the hobbyist type human-soldered components. regardless of size, the same applies. those SMT parts are, as i'd written, lying around in huge numbers on largely-working sandwich boards.
huge numbers.

that logic, of not wasting & having sustainble sane practice as a baseline, applies regardless of the economic situation. it's insane to waste based on the notion that some generlaised averaged out stats say that 'the industry' is a-ok - that kind of attitude is why any shortages & problems appear later on.

Spook, laying off highly trained workers for even moderate demand drops is what bad management does. Retraining and poorer yields often costs more than retaining skilled workers.

I suspect also that discrete components in shortage have smaller margins for manufacturers than other products that could be made with production facilities.

babylonmustfall, I agree that many consumer products like audio receivers, DVD/CD/BR players could have much longer useful lives if not constructed with the shortest of reliability lifetimes. ATX computer supplies could be made more efficient and reliable at higher cost, but few consumers would bother re-using them. Other than server motherboards, most computer and consumer goods are made obsolete in about five years.

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First of all, some clarification and correction.

@abylonmustfall
what you probably were saying are the components that hobbyist use, those with two short leads that you insert into PCB hole and solder on the other side. The shortage that we are seeing are for SMT size parts, almost all manufacturer are already fully book for 3rd quarter, and almost fully book for the 4th quarter of this year. So if you are planning to do your Christmas shopping on electronic devices, you might want to do it early.

What we are also seeing are the cause of the economic bust in 09 and the slowdown in 09, almost all companies that were hit by this economic slump, saw are reduction in order and excess in inventories.

Therefore in the second half of 09, company end up being conservative in their production management, never anticipating a boom in sales for 2010. For those who never saw the pick up in sales and end up being conservative in their production planning, which include component manufacturer, this is the effect of increase in demand while production lags.

Maybe we consumers could take a breather from mindlessly purchasing new cool doo-dads for a few extra weeks. Somehow I think we will survive...

if they manufactured boards properly in the first place and didn't allow a throwaway attitude to electronics, then that wouldn't happen.

it's insane that devices that maybe need one or two tiny components replaced on them, get chucked away. it shouldn't be allowed, to manufacture anything machine-like and not have a lifetime (& beyond - if it's inherited the same applies) service-system in place. there needs to be more refurb, and built-to-last mentality in the industry.
more modular designs too - so devices are upgradable properly.

now there's size considerations, which does apply on mobile devices - but come on. shortage? - there'll be tonnes of boards lying around with the required components sitting in them, doing nothing. you are allowed to have fly-overs with chained-components on them to replace one expensive component.

it's been taken over by the same idiots that put facilities that need easy access buried under roads and pavements. ad naseum.