A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life

This discussion revolves around the concept of a "CarFax for used PCs," proposed by HP, and the overall sentiment is overwhelmingly negative, focusing on perceived lack of utility, privacy concerns, and HP's business practices.

Lack of Utility and Inaccurate Analogy to CarFax

A dominant theme is the perceived obsolescence of the "CarFax for PCs" idea, with many users arguing it's not a useful or relevant concept for used laptops. The analogy to CarFax for cars is frequently rejected because of the fundamental differences in how cars and PCs are used, repaired, and valued.

"CarFax for used PCs" is a silly analogy; a used machine can quickly be assessed for its current condition, and a log of past repairs isn't really relevant, particularly when most repairs these days are just replacing the entire motherboard." - trollbridge
"Old laptops are not particularly valuable because (a) they might be a lot slower than a new, base-model laptop at a quite affordable price, and (b) much of modern electronics has a design life of 3-5 years, and a used laptop will generally be at the end of that design life." - trollbridge
"Knowing how well-used a laptop is barely matters. And I still need to examine and test it." - Dylan16807
"throitallaway: Yeah, with used vehicles there's a lot more at stake. Mainly: potential safety concerns and they can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Neither of those are true with used laptops, and in cases where it may be they're not putting used equipment into service. HP has invented a solution to a problem that doesn't exist."
"sandworm101: Carfax for Cars is also a bit of a joke. It is designed for people who don't know anything about cars and/or are too intimidated by the process to get a proper inspection done. So the analogy holds for laptops. This is for low-knowledge people who want some nebulous/vague reassurance that a particular laptop is still "good" even though used."
"ok123456: Is there any value added here? Carfax exists because of the possibility of buying a car with extensive damage that looks cosmetically ok. Additionally, the service records they collect indicate that a vehicle has undergone regular maintenance. Computers, for the most part, aren't getting in major accidents and reentering the stream of commerce. Additionally, there's no significant mechanical maintenance required, except for blowing compressed air if the environment is dirty."
"fred_is_fred: The other purpose of a CarFax is to validate or attempt to validate that the mileage reported is accurate or not. Is there an equivalent of mileage for a CPU or motherboard?"
"mrweasel: The whole thing make no sense. They plan to store the report on the SSD (but not just any SSD, an HP SSD), so that the telemetry is retained between operating system install. I'll give them them points for doing on device data collection, but what if I replace the SSD? Maybe they don't plan on making that user replaceable, but that would work against what they are trying to do here."
"cush: Just imagine for a moment what this would look like in reality... "I was going to take your original offer of $220 for this here used HP laptop, but after looking at the high number of writes to the SSD on PCFax, I can't do better than $180." What a bizarre initiative. CarFax was started in the 80's to combat odometer fraud. Cars need CarFax because they're expensive and have thousands of moving parts"
"sandworm101: Every time I've tried to sell and/or give away my previous laptop, I discovered that nobody wants anything more than a few years old. A 6yo Acer laptop, that isn't running the latest windows, is basically worthless even in the eyes of charities. And a used laptop running linux, regardless of age, seems to be unwanted by everyone."

Privacy Concerns and Potential for Surveillance

A significant portion of the discussion centers on privacy and the potential for HP to collect and misuse user data, even on used devices. The idea of telemetry being embedded at the firmware level and stored on HP SSDs raises alarms.

"Seems like a horrible invasion of privacy for very little benefit." - 999900000999
"What I see are more technological affordances for closed firmware behavior of the device, increasing complexity, and providing additional opportunity for, and cover for, secret surveillance, backdoors, and other malware." - neilv
"All this surveillance just in case you want to have an easier time selling a laptop. I'd rather have this time spent building a better laptop that sells itself because it's a battery swap and a CPU re-paste away from feeling like new." - dietr1ch
"M95D: Other people noted this is a very bad privacy issue. Just thinking: since when laptop manufacturers encourage reuse instead of buying new? It would lower sales! I belive user tracking is the real purpose of this tech. It would have the ability to track the user no matter what OS is installed. Windows does tracking, Google does tracking, all websites have tracking, and now they want a piece of the pie too. PCFax is just a disguise - an alterative purpose more acceptable to the public than what it really is. And now, thinking ahead: what would be the next logical step for them? Ad popups directly from the firmware? Ylpertnodi: >And now, thinking ahead: what would be the next logical step for them? Ad popups directly from the firmware? Reports sent to 'someone', if you look up abortion clinics?"

Security and Data Destruction Practices

The discussion touches on enterprise data security, the destruction of SSDs, and the debate around encryption versus physical destruction. Some users believe in SSD destruction as a foolproof measure, while others argue that robust encryption is sufficient and destruction creates unnecessary waste.

"The logs are stored on an SSD , which is literally the only part you need to replace when donating or reselling a PC. Any enterprise company should have a policy ensuring SSD destruction." - 999900000999
"yjftsjthsd-h: > Any enterprise company should have a policy ensuring SSD destruction. Why? Drives should already be encrypted, at which point you just lose the key and it's unrecoverable."
"fortran77: There's a possibility that unencrypted data could be in a sector marked "bad" (if plaintext data was present before encryption was turned on). It's just not worth it. I always take my drives out and put a few holes on them on the drill press before disposing/donating computers."
"GuinansEyebrows: > Any enterprise company should have a policy ensuring SSD destruction. Counterpoint: enterprises shouldn't be incentivized to produce physical waste containing toxic components that are virtually only available from supply chains that abuse human rights and cause mass ecological devastation. this idea that we should just shred perfectly working components because an asshole in a suit doesn't understand FDE (or just... wiping the drive) is bad for everybody in the log run."
"kube-system: They should, but then it only takes one misconfigured, or misbehaving machine to cause a data breach that, depending on the industry, could be a big headache and cost. At scale, with many employees, the chances of this happening approach 1. Physical destruction is cheap and effective insurance against this."
"softalker: Yeah my employer policy is no hard drives are ever left in retired equipment. They get pulled and crushed."
"roboatcat: Also many companies want to destroy the SSD on selling old laptops. Paranoid about security and thinking they need Pentagon level security theatre. But companies should delete potential liabilities. But I'd never allow an enterprise SSD to be reformatted. If some old data leaked from the business and the business was taken to court, the prosecution might argue it leaked from SSDs and you couldn't prove otherwise."

HP's Business Strategy and Perceived Decline

Several users expressed skepticism about HP's motivations and perceived business practices, suggesting this initiative is a sign of desperation or an attempt to control the used hardware market. Some also commented on the perceived decline in HP's product quality.

"HP seems to be aiming to control (note the bits about preventing unauthorised access) rather than facilitating the market." - graemep
"This is pretty clearly just an attempt to look like they are doing something about a perceived problem without actually doing something about it." - mattmaroon
"This reminds me of an old story about Hertz and Ford Mustangs. ... people would buy a lower end Mustang, rent the higher end Mustang from Hertz, swap out the engines and return the Hertz Mustang" - alexpotato (This analogy suggests a potentially deceptive practice)
"m463: This is actually what HP is doing. They are taking a sku without telemetry, and quietly swapping in a machine with extensive telemetry and hardware locks that they can drive after you have taken possession."
"bigyabai: This is the sort of thing that gets developed for benevolent reasons, and then deployed as an excuse to outlaw any third-party servicing as dishonest log manipulation."
"msgodel: Wow HP is the last company I would expect to get this right."
"stefan_: HP is literally the company that will charge a laptop battery to 100% by default for a little bit more runtime on a random product test but exponentially less longevity. All the shitty HP office laptops at my last job would without fail have a bloated battery within 3 years, often taking the touchpad and other components with it."
"llimos: HP laptops don't last 3 years these days. You're lucky to get past 1. They haven't made anything good for years now."
"DesiLurker: HP is circling the drain! if they have to resort to rentseeking crap like this then they are already out of high ROI revenue streams."
"lwn: This feels to me like HP is trying to formalize a whole new business around second-hand hardware — not just selling off returns, but really building a controlled ecosystem for trade-ins, refurb, and resale. My guess is they want to keep that value in-house rather than letting third-party refurbishers or resellers capture it. The Carfax reference stood out to me. It seems more like a feel-good marketing move than anything with real substance — just enough to trigger that association of “trusted, inspected, certified.” Not necessarily bad, but definitely more about perception than transparency. Overall, I think they’re trying to rebrand “used hardware” into something safe, premium, and profitable — under the HP umbrella, of course."
"them: HPE is very happy with off-lease server HW only being sold on ebay and appearing as sketchy as possible. The margins are really high on server HW - offering HW support on systems sold at 20% above the used market under their brand name would cannibalize their core business so it will never happen. But in consumer space, margins are very low, and so there is money to be made reselling used HW at a premium, so they will try."

Questionable Value of "Odometer" Metrics for PCs and Component Reliability

Users debated the value of tracking usage metrics for computer components, with many citing SMART data as an existing, albeit sometimes unreliable, solution. The perceived reliability of different components was also discussed, with some arguing that SSDs fail less often than other parts like batteries, screens, or hinges.

"That is exactly what the dealers I referred to do. The biggest thing HP seems to be adding here is a process for getting additional information that they control. Why should it need authorisation to read this information? The state of a piece of hardware should be openly and easily visible to its owner or possessor." - graemep
"wildzzz: This is likely just something that corporate users would care about. Companies often lease PCs from IT service providers rather than own and maintain their own hardware. The owner of the hardware now has a metric they can point to for how "usable" a machine is after the initial lease. As a customer, I may not want to rent laptops that have been through who knows what sort of wear and tear no matter how cheap but if the owner can now show me actual data saying how used the laptop is, I may feel more comfortable paying less for used. It's like the odometer on a car, I'd never buy a used car that didn't have an odometer (even if such a thing existed). But with an odometer, I can get a general idea of how much use a car has had despite the age. Only a year old with 30k miles? Hell no. Three years old with only 10k? That car might as well be new."
"buccal: "Odometer" for HDDs and SSDs are already provided in SMART data that is more or less standatized and accessible using many tools. The data is not resettable by mortals similarly to car odometers."
"aspenmayer: Everyone should test their hard drives within the return window after purchase for these kinds of errors as it is a warning and failure condition, but there is no reason to buy a caution or warning status drive. The metrics are standardized somewhat but the interpretations of the values are vendor and model specific."
"sokoloff: Having IT roll up into me, I've seen way, way more batteries fail than SSDs. Screen failure [and hinge failure] is far more common than SSDs failing. Keyboard/touchpads fail more often. Charging bricks/cables also fail somewhat more than SSDs. Beyond that, in the low end of the laptop re-use market, "just blindly always buy and install a new SSD" breaks the economics pretty badly."
"raszz: >but what if I replace the SSD? Im guessing the brilliant part of this strategy was copied from Apple - laptop wont work with non paired SSD. No SSD you buy new HP laptop."
"ok123456: People aren't forging SMART drive diagnostics. These are <$100 components anyway."
"kube-system: SMART stats are cleared on secondhand or "refurbished" drives quite frequently e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42864788"
"bigfatkitten: BIOS on Panasonic Toughbooks reports total power-on hours. This is independent of the HDD/SSD’s SMART reported runtime. You can view this as a normal user, but it can’t be reset by mortals."
"cosmic_cheese: I don’t know how much value it’d add, though it would be pretty interesting to see exactly how much of a Ship of Theseus that used laptop you just bought is, if this system tracks part serials and such."
"n8cpdx: I was wondering the other day about something like this for retro computing hardware, including game consoles. You can buy a device that looks perfectly good, but has rusty parts, leaking capacitors, shoddy/counterfeit replacement parts, and who knows what else."
"kmoser: AFAIK, at least some repairs done by non-dealers are never reported to Carfax, making it prone to false negatives."
"neilv: The used laptop market is very healthy already, and sellers already make money doing their own n-point tests before selling. Some use turn-key diagnostics software packages that work with the state of the laptop as it is (and drive SMART data). It's worked fine, AFAIK. I've personally bought and used ~40 used laptops, mostly from random sellers on eBay, and not knowing the laptop's dating history hasn't been a barrier."
"kristopolous: I think the reason is that, on laptops, the cosmetic has such a high correlation with what you can expect wrong with the device - people don't take their laptops in for "body work"."
"bigfatkitten: This is true for normal business and consumer laptops, but rugged machines (eg Panasonic Toughbooks) often go to the surplus market after living very hard lives. There is a thriving “refurbishment” industry putting lipstick on these pigs."
"rwyinuse: From reliability perspective an used SSD is not a bad idea. Average SSD that has seen typical business / home use will become obsolete long before it reaches its TBW rating, and many drives last way beyond that. Keyboard, screen or even the motherboard are more likely to give up before the SSD."
"999900000999: At least in my experience SSDs are literally the only part that tends to fail."

Software and OS Cadence as the Primary Driver of Obsolescence

A recurring point is that the primary reason for laptops becoming obsolete is the software and operating system update cycle rather than hardware failure. Users suggest that a more viable approach would be for vendors to support older hardware for longer.

"OtherShrezzing: I think the main problem with old laptops being discarded is one of software & OS release cadence more than hardware relatability. My accountant has used the same 4 apps since the turn of the century. Yet the industry has created a situation where they’ve needed to buy 10 new computers to keep up, even though they still just use email, spreadsheets, web, and a word processor. They’d happily be in XP if it were still on offer."
"ethan_smith: Modern OS vendors could easily create lightweight versions optimized for older hardware with reduced telemetry and simplified UI layers, extending usable lifespans by years without compromising core functionality."
"knowitnone: HP has 0 incentive to give old laptops new life if they don't profit from it. People who buy used laptops are already doing so. Yes, there are somes risks but if the computer boots up, perhaps run a few performance tests, then it's good. A used laptop is $100 - $500, not $2000 - $10000 and it most likely is not sold multiple times because after teh second owner, it's likely already too old, too slow, and not not supported (Microsoft). I was a seller of used laptops."

HP's Lack of Serviceability and Repairability

Some users pointed out that HP's own design choices, specifically regarding repairability and component accessibility, contradict the idea of extending the life of their devices.

"Honestly if HP cared they would make the device more easily serviceable by the end users, and upgradable." - mrweasel
"A4ET8a8uTh0_v2: This, I think, is the part that confuses me. ... And this is all before we get to how difficult HP has gotten to repair. My last HP ( consumer grade after which I swore no personal HP machines ever ) did everything short of soldering hdd to the board ( ridiculous placement, non-standard screws )."
"theandrewbailey: This comes off as somewhat disingenuous coming from HP, whose laptops constitute about 90% of the BIOS passworded systems we get. We can't do anything with a laptop that we can't adjust the boot order or disable secure boot on, and the value of completely disassembling, de-soldering, and flashing the BIOS chip of a laptop that would only go for ~$100 is dubious. (We've tried everything short of that.) This is particularly painful when I just today went though a lot of over 100 HP Elitebooks with 8th and 10th gen i5 CPUs. (That's plenty usable for most people.) I could sell these for $100-150 each (~$15,000 total, of which I would get 10% commission on), but since they're all BIOS locked, they're worth little more than scrap."

Enterprise Fleet Management and Lease Models

A few comments suggest that the HP initiative might be targeted at enterprise fleet management and lease models, where tracking device usage for return or resale value is more relevant. However, even in this context, skepticism remains about the implementation and necessity.

"bcraven: Whilst you may have used them, this is referring to an enterprise setting where devices are usually replaced at the end of the warranty. Indeed, this is the point. When that business is done with it you can buy it, know how well-used it is, and give it a second life."
"wildzzz: [...] The owner of the hardware now has a metric they can point to for how "usable" a machine is after the initial lease. [...] I'm assuming since it writes to a vendor-reserved sector, replacing it would make the whole thing moot. The rental company wants to retain that data because it makes a used PC more valuable."
"jamesgill: Having access to fine-grained usage and health information for each device in their fleet can help IT managers decide which devices are sent to which users, as well as when maintenance is scheduled Based only my own experience in large enterprises, the usual process is to EOL new laptops after about three years, regardless of condition. There's a whole sandwich of business and financial agreements built around this, so this 'fine-grained data' doesn't seem very useful (or necessary)."
"captainregex: you’re not the enterprise they’re going after. buying a used fleet is going to be a different exercise in risk mitigation"