Component lifetime

[Mazo]

One thing I have not seen before is a rough guide as to how long a component will last when its:

A) Not overclocked
B) Overclocked
C) Overclocked with voltage boosts

Anybody got any ideas?

[MentaL]

[Sardaukar]

Thats very dependant on how high of a quality your individual parts are...



Usually a voltage change is what starts reducing the lifespan of any particular item, the time of life is not really anything predictable, as some parts are slightly higher/lower quality.. its all a luck of the draw, such as with GPU's and CPU's and RAM.

In terms of making a chart, it really is fairly impossible to get a really averaged out detailed chart. The best bet to picture it as.. the more volts you pump into the particular overclock, the higher stats it has to burn out. Time is very relative to one major thing, being able to remove the excess heat from the overclocked/voltaged item.

[gigermunit]

I think anything thats overclocked without the proper cooling will have a very different lifespan than a non overclocked,something thats not overclocked would most likely be based on quality

[NoPeace]

A CPU with out voltage increases (whether its OCed or not) that has been kept from over heating will last about 10-15 years.

With voltage increase it's all depends on how much. Pump too much and it wont last 6 months. Don't go over 10% and it should last until you get a new computer (2-4 years).

Mother boards is a different story. It's down to the quality of capacitors. If they use high end stuff I don't see why the board can't be used for the same length of time as the CPU. Though if you get a cheap board then you'll start to see the capacitors go after a couple of years. Also the more you OC the more you stress out the board and the shorter it will last.

With Video cards it's the same as the motherboard. Though they quality of the capacitors are typically very good. So it's down to how much it's overclocked. A highly overclocked one might last 3-5 years. A normal one will probably last up wards to 100.

Hard drives depends on how much you use them. If you have a storage drive that is hardly accessed and never moved around it'll last you ages. But if you move it around or have it accessed a lot then they'll go after a few years.

Monitors vary. CRT lasts for about 5-10 years just like normal tube TV's and over time the quality goes. With LCD's they last for about 15-20 years with little change of quality.

Mice and Keyboards is about how you treat them. Treat them like shit and they wont last. Treat them good and you can still be using them 20 years latter.

Optical Drives... All is down to the quality of the lens and how much you use it. Some last 1-2 years while others last 5-10 years.

Sound cards and NIC's. They last ages. Seen 10-20 year old ones still work. The only time when I see them go is when there is static involved.

PSUs are determined by the quality and load you put on it. Since it's most down to large capacitors the better quality you have the longer it'll last. Also the amount of continuous load you put on it effects it also. If you are running a 550w PSU at 500w 24/7 it wont last very long.

I think that's about it.

NoPeace - out

[Mazo]

Cheers NoPeace, perfect answers :)

[username1]

A CPU with out voltage increases (whether its OCed or not) that has been kept from over heating will last about 10-15 years.

IBM AT. 80286 @ 6MHz. The chip is dated 1983. Still works fine (that's 24 years as of this post, for those that can't do math).

Monitors vary. CRT lasts for about 5-10 years just like normal tube TV's and over time the quality goes. With LCD's they last for about 15-20 years with little change of quality.

You've got it the other way around... CRTs last well over 20 years before starting to have image fade, while LCD backlights (cold cathode fluorescent tubes) last at the most around 50000 hours (~17 years at 8 hours per day), but that's for the highest quality tubes and at minimum brightness. Typical values are more like 25000 (8.5 years, still reasonable), and some of the newer "super bright" LCDs drive the CCFT hard enough to reduce that down to 10000 hours (less than 3.5 years). But CCFTs are easily replaceable, unlike the entire tube in CRTs.

Mice and Keyboards is about how you treat them. Treat them like shit and they wont last. Treat them good and you can still be using them 20 years latter.

IBM Model M keyboard, for example.

PSUs are determined by the quality and load you put on it. Since it's most down to large capacitors the better quality you have the longer it'll last. Also the amount of continuous load you put on it effects it also. If you are running a 550w PSU at 500w 24/7 it wont last very long.

I have a 520W server PSU from 1985. It's probably been running nearly 24/7 since it was made. Still perfectly fine.

It seems old hardware was built better, and lasts longer... theoretically solid-state components should last forever.