Author: Ed Schröder
Date: 08:29:28 03/29/02
Go up one level in this thread
On March 29, 2002 at 10:12:41, Christophe Theron wrote: >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 I wonder if "salt" is also an issue. I heard when you live close to the sea your car is going to rust much earlier. I am not sure that still holds for nowadays cars but perhaps the computer industry just doesn't care for people living near the sea. Ed
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