How many of you have had a dive computer fail?

[sphyrnidus]

Wife bought a Gekko 10 years ago: 800 dives along, no failures.
I had an Uwatec Alladin one, it is 7 years old and is used as backup now, never failed. It has issues with Nitrox, the O2 % can only be set with a i.r. connection to a windows pc (which I do not have)
That's why I bought a Suunto Vyper. I used it for 500 dives and then I was old and had trouble seeing the display. One of the daughters is using it now. No failures.
So I now have an Uwatec Galileo Luna, whit about 110 dives now. No failures yet...
Diving locally I do not bring a back-up. If it fails, I'll depend on my wife. Most diving is rather shallow, between 5-40 ft. Only on trips or multiple dive day's I will bring a back-up.

 

[Taliena]

I had a brandnew HW ostc3 failing. I used it just 3 or 4 days. I ordered the ostc2 at a divecenter where I would do some holidaydives (techdives). They got the ostc3 from HW and said to me: use it the next 2 weeks, it will fail in less than 2 weeks. They sold 7 ostc3's and all had a problem with the depthsensor. So mines had same. It is now fixed with the newer ones, but I like the ostc2.

And the uwatec 2g is a computer that always fails. I have now 3 new ones (warranty), they refuse to start after a couple of time.

 

[drbill]

I just bought two new batteries for my Dive Rite Nitek Duo and Nitek Trio. They would not revive the Duo so it appears it is dead. The Trio did revive (although the reason I haven't used it in ages is that its readings have been significantly inaccurate com,pared to my Aladin 2G. Three out of four of my Dive Rite computers have had problems.

 

[C Dub]

I just bought two new batteries for my Dive Rite Nitek Duo and Nitek Trio. They would not revive the Duo so it appears it is dead. The Trio did revive (although the reason I haven't used it in ages is that its readings have been significantly inaccurate com,pared to my Aladin 2G. Three out of four of my Dive Rite computers have had problems.

Dr. Bill, meet Shearwater Petrel. Petrel, meet Dr. Bill.

 

[drbill]

Dr. Bill, meet Shearwater Petrel. Petrel, meet Dr. Bill.

Nice to meet you Mr. Petrel, but I'm a retired dive bum. $850 for a computer is a bit much (even for one as good as the Petrel is reported to be). I wouldn't be able to put petrol in my car to get to the dive sites.

 

[WarrenZ]

How much is gas on Catalina?

 

[bowlofpetunias]

My Uatec is very good at failing at the worst time possible. Last trip to North America it died. Fortunately I had my Oceanic Pro Plus 2 with me as backup. Then I thought the Uatec didn't like cold water. This trip the Uatec decided to log multiple "bounces" to 120M (393ft) at BHB no less! Once again I was diving with a redundant computer so Other than the annoyance of continual warning beeps and difficulty with downloading info it wasn't a big deal. Very frustrating tho! I take my computers on the plane as carry on to avoid them being in the hold without being pressurized:doh: Should be interesting to hear what the dive shop has to say about this issue..

 

[victorzamora]

Nice to meet you Mr. Petrel, but I'm a retired dive bum. $850 for a computer is a bit much (even for one as good as the Petrel is reported to be). I wouldn't be able to put petrol in my car to get to the dive sites.

AWESOME pun, that was hilarious. On the other hand, think of it this way: You've had four computers fail so far? Add the cumulative prices together on those and see how close to $850 you get. Then call a bunch of dealers hoping for a deal and see how close you get to THAT price. Add in all the awesome features the Petrel has over everything else and you've got a quickly closing gap.

 

[Centrals]

AWESOME pun, that was hilarious. On the other hand, think of it this way: You've had four computers fail so far? Add the cumulative prices together on those and see how close to $850 you get. Then call a bunch of dealers hoping for a deal and see how close you get to THAT price. Add in all the awesome features the Petrel has over everything else and you've got a quickly closing gap.

You are not suggesting that this computer is fail proof!!!
I am diving with two 17/18 yrs old Aladins nowadays and so far so good. I am also a cheap charlie so two Uwatec BT for my baby deco dive. The combined cost of two BT is well under US$240.00. Am I missing something?
BTW, Deco for Divers by Mark Powell cost less than a rec dive.
It was Predator then it is Petrel couple of yr later. What would you recommend in few yrs time, something starts with a P? While this happening, my Aladin soldier on(hopefully)!

 

[r4e]

I have had three Liquivision X1s die:
- first one had disappearing pixel rows until about half of pixels were missing and information was illegible
- second one continued to dive despite me surfacing - refused to reset until ran out of battery charge
- third one had a battery that swelled out and caused a seam to leak

My Suunto Vytec occasionally awoke into diving 5 meters too late, i.e. calculated everything as 5 meters too shallow. At that time I was very happy about a X1 beside it on my arm. Finally the Vytec died during a dive (if I recall correctly). Suunto gave me a HelO2 replacement for a nominal upgrade price.

My most recent dive computer, a Xdeep tmx model, continued diving at 0,5m depth after I surfaced after 100 minutes. Most likely was solved by software update - knock on wood.

So that totals to 4 eventual hardware failures during my 6 1/2 years of diving in cold water. I would not consider diving without two computers. Plus I have a bottom timer as well...