CPU lifetime decreased?

NightmareXX

NightmareXX

NightmareXX

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Does having BOINC running in the background constantly when your pc is on make your CPU 'wear' out faster and decrease its lifetime?

I've got mine running on an AMD XP 2000 so I don't really care if that dies but I was just wondering.
 
i wouldn't think it would actually have an effect on the life of your chip as long as your cooling is up to the extra heat produced by it being maxed out all the time

you may be right of course, though I think any effect would be fairly negligable given how long you're likely to own it for anyway
 
BOINC will wear your cpu out faster

Folding makes it last longer :D

/runs for cover


Seriously I have a P4 2.4b that was bought when they still cost a fortune. Been doing DC continuously and has just recently required a little more volts to stay stable. Want it to die to justify buying a new mobo for my spare opty 146. ;)
 
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I'm going to give a slightly different perspective on things.

Processors are designed to run at full load, day in day out, for X number of years. Running BOINC projects doesn't decrease the life of the processor, it's just running to it's original design specification. But not running the CPU at full load, and not running it all day every day artificially prolongs the life of a processor. You should be able to run BOINC projects non-stop for years with no issues. It's far more likely you'll have upgraded before the processor dies.

Overclocking however can shorten the life of a processor. But with moderate overclocking, the life of the processor is still going to be longer than the time you will likely use it.
 
Also, turning a computer on and off actually decreases the life of a processor, (not by much, so you'll still get years and years out of it, and this applies more to processors that run hot).

The constant heating and cooling of the processor causes small amounts of stress, which over the 10s of years will eventally cause damage, but most people are likly to upgrade before 5 or 6 years anyway.

And the answer to the original question, I'd say no. Running boinc constantly won'tdecrease the life of your processor, unless you are running it overclocked.
 
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NightmareXX said:
Does having BOINC running in the background constantly when your pc is on make your CPU 'wear' out faster and decrease its lifetime?

I've got mine running on an AMD XP 2000 so I don't really care if that dies but I was just wondering.
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Have you EVER had a processor 'wear' out? All my PC's since my Pentium 60@66MHz (with the bug) have been overclocked as far as they would go - often left on 24/7, often running full load and I've never had a processor wear out. Not my P150@187, my 300A@464, my 1GHz [email protected], my P42.8@3GHz etc.

In my opinion CPUs wearing out is an urban myth - sure you can kill a CPU with too much voltage, temperature etc - but if it's running stable and cool it'll last at least until it's hopelessly obsolete and in the bin.
 
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Well as the only other processor I can remember having was a P100, the answer to that would be no :p

I've never had a CPU long enough to see anything go wrong with it really. The P100 would still work fine if I hadn't taken the case apart for spares.
 
Well my dads P41.6GHz which is about 4-5 years old ish still works perfectly fine. Like people say, most people will upgrade before the CPU dies on them. It would be interesting to see a test on how long it takes to break a CPU.

AMD/Intel CPU on 24/7 running Prime or a BOINC application. How many years before it give sup and dies?
 
NightmareXX said:
Well my dads P41.6GHz which is about 4-5 years old ish still works perfectly fine....
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Likewise, my folks have a P4 1.4 or 1.6... one of the first ones and it's on for 10+ hours a day. As I said above I just don't buy into all this talk about CPUs having especially limited lifespans.
 
Well i still have all the cpu's i have ever used from my p100 and still have a p200 crunching very slowly hopefully that will die though so i can replace it with a half decent xp or something. I am on the side that your hard drive will fail before anything else, as this is the only thing apart from monitors that has failed me so far.
 
james.miller said:
Sudden.Northwood.Death.Syndrome. that's what im talking about. look it up, its quite amusing lol
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Seems to be a case of some Northwoods being a little less tolerant of voltage than normal chips. The cases are of chips dieing in weeks or months (after being overclocked) - My point stands, under reasonable operating conditions CPUs effectively last forever so having BOINC running in the background constantly as the OP was asking about will have no impact on the life of the CPU.
 
Berserker said:
It's more likely other components will fail before the CPU. Capacitors and hard disks seem to have been my recent bane. :eek:
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having been responsible for a few pc's over the last 20 years, here's my own list of failing components in pc's. (not including physical damage to cd roms and fdd's)

1. Hard drives (several hundred)
2. Cpu / System fans (several hundred)
3. PSU's (50 ish) Blown Capacitors or coil
3. MOBO (50 ish) Blown and Leaking Capacitors


I had some faulty p4's, HT early model mainly. And some blown up cpus' early pentium overdrive models, (386 - 486 type). But to be honest, 99% of my pc's have been upgraded before old age has set in.
 
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