Multi-core CPU query

[CurlyWhirly]

I know that CPU's are generally speaking very reliable.

My old Barton processor lasted me for around 5 years and may have been working even now but I'm not sure as my old PSU blew a few weeks ago and took the motherboard with it so I have no way of knowing!

Never mind as this was the excuse that I needed to get a new PC


Anyway, what I'm curious about is if one of the cores on my Q9650 failed, would the CPU stop working or would it manage with the remaining 3 cores?

Sorry if it's a silly question but I'm curious

 

[CurlyWhirly]

Interesting question, one I have not seen asked before. And while I am not 100% sure of the answer, I am taking an educated guess.

The remaining cores should continue to work as is, but it depends on the reason for failure really I suppose. It's far more likely that the chip will just die than you will lose a core like that. But if it were to happen, then the others should still work. But being as they are all fabricated on the same piece of silicon, it's extremely unlikely to happen if the chip makes it out of the factory with all cores operating at the required frequency.

So having all the cores manufactured on the same piece of silicon means that a single core failing may never happen then?

To be honest, the life cycle of a cpu will really be far longer than that of it's useful life. The only reasons a chip might die early are excessive heat and or voltage from extreme overclocking projects, although I suppose the first could occur through extremely poor cooling as-well.

I'm not into extreme over-clocking so that shouldn't apply to me

Or an electrical surge of some sort, such as a power supply going kaput or even a mains surge/lightning strike on the power cables etc (get a surge protector)

I've been using an UPS for years.

But really the motherboard and memory are much more likely to get killed by something like this than the cpu in my experience.

That's what happened to me with my old motherboard going and I had a UPS connected and it didn't help but it could be because I never changed the PSU which was around 7 years old and was way past it's natural life.

 

[CurlyWhirly]

A UPS or surge protector won't help you if your power supply blows, they are after all, between the mains and the PSU not the PSU and the rest of the system.

Yes I don't know what I was thinking of

Good quality PSU's do tend to have fairly decent protection for your components though, so if they do go bang there is a good chance they wont damage anything else.

I'm on my second APC UPS and I don't buy cheap ones

There is no good reason why a PSU shouldn't still work after 7 years, it depends on how much use it has seen though really I suppose, and how hard it's life has been. If it's had a nice easy load for most of it, it'll probbaly be ok, if it's been running a heavy load and putting a lot of wear and tear on it's components then it'll have a shorter life of course, same for anything really.

I rarely used to turn my PC off so it did have a hard time

 

[CurlyWhirly]

ive got an antec truepower 431watt in an old comp thats been going almost 24/7 since amd64 3200 s939 came out thats around 5 years ago?

I think as time goes on, the PSU components become less efficient thus more likely to fail