Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 07:12:41 03/29/02
Go up one level in this thread
On March 28, 2002 at 20:32:40, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>Some things come to mind, thinking a little more about this.
>
>First is electromigration. When current goes through circuits, the paths are
>eroded by miniscule amounts. This basically only matters within dense chips like
>microprocessors, where the connections are only a few hundred molecules wide.
>The point is that these chips wear out when you use them, but they're still
>designed/manufactured for 10+ years of continuous use, so it doesn't really
>matter. The problem is when you start overclocking and upping the current
>through the chips--some people claim that with high current, CPUs can be
>destroyed because of electromigration within 2 years. Again, not a problem if
>you don't overclock.
>
>The only other parts of a computer that wear out are the capacitors and the
>moving parts, i.e., the fans and hard drive. Old capacitors leak, but I don't
>know how usage patterns affect this leakage. I also don't know if fans wear out
>faster if they're left on or if they're cycled on and off. I know that hard
>drives used to wear when they were turned on and off, but now that we have
>autoparking heads and so forth, I don't think that's an issue. Laptop
>power-saving software is constantly turning hard drives on and off, and I
>haven't heard complains frop laptop users about hard drive lifespans.
>
>Really, I don't think it matters. I know people who leave their computers on all
>day and I know other people who turn theirs on and off many times per day, and
>the compuers all last a darn long time.
Where I live leaving computers on matters a lot, but for a different reason.
Here in Guadeloupe, we are living under a tropical climate.
The climate is very humid, and when I leave a computer off for say one month,
this computer stays at "room temperature" and is subject to water condensation.
Water molecules contained in the air condense when they touch the metallic parts
of the computer, everywhere including on printed circuits. This leads to slow
corrosion of the unprotected metallic parts.
Older computers were better protected against this problem because they were
built with higher standards and also because the printed circuits paths were
larger (it took longer for corrosion to eat them completely).
Current motherboards for example are really poorly protected. You can find
unprotected copper paths everywhere on the surface of a modern motherboard.
These unprotected areas are time bombs where I live: sooner or later the climate
will eat them up.
By leaving my computers on all the time I let them stay at a higher temperature.
Condensation cannot happen when the computer is warmer than "room temperature",
and this provides some protection against corrosion.
By experience, every time I leave a computer off for a long period of time, I
have 50% chances to be able to get it working again.
Half of the times it simply won't boot. Generally I have to replace the
motherboard of the video card to get it working again.
As a side note I would say that current hardware is real shit. I have several
computers built around 1990. They still work fine, and they have been subject to
corrosion for 8 years now.
Modern hardware cannot resist more than a few months here.
Christophe
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