They always break on me.
My house contains one (1) Compaq notebook and one (1) HP Pavilion desktop and they have never (0?) broken down.
However, when we had one (1) really old (ancient) HP PC running Windows 98 (Ninety Eight) SE (Special Edition, that is), the computer (HP Pavilion with AMD processor 800 MHz and 64MB RAM) reached the point of no return, and my Compaq (which is kinda owned by HP and is basically a cheaper alternative to an HP) notebook (or laptop, whichever you prefer), seems to be having problems. Also, HP (and Compaq) reliability rates have dropped dramatically, so there is a trend toward HP (and Compaq) computers (notebooks and desktops) to become less appealing than companies such as (but not limited to) Dell and eMachines.