computers break from not being used for two months?

[TheKurt009]

read title

 

[Ironside]

No...

 

[Magtheridon96]

Not at all.
I have a computer that's been idle for approximately 9 months now.
I used it a week ago and it was fine.

 

[TheKurt009]

wtf? mst be the moist...
or the copper wires are too small to power the computer.
the disk drives open when you click them though nothing's happening.
i don't think it's my monitor since the cpu won't reset and no sound was coming out of the speaker.
weird...

 

[Dr Super Good]

computers break from not being used for two months?

no...

computers break from two months?

yes...

They use a lot of unstable (radioactive) chemicals in some components. These degrade at a random rate (around an average) which eventually leads to reduced opperating performance till the stage an unrecoverable fault occurs. Additionally, damage from heat or over voltage can worsen the components performance meaning that it is more suspeptible to age.

How long the various components last varies. Generally the order of chance of failure is...
Mechanical drives (especially hard disk) - highest failure.
Power Supply Units - high failure rate.
GPUs - medium failure rate.
Motherboards and CPUs - lowish failure rate.
Discrete RAM (usually DDR3 now) - virtually never.

Note that SSD disks have a special failure rate. Without use they fail at about the same rate as RAM (virtually never) but they degrade during use. After a certain loading factor sectors become unusable and the storage capacity will degrade until the disk becomes unusable. Drives with bad controlers might hit this sooner than ones with better controlers.

 

[Magtheridon96]

@Dr Super Good:

That's scary

Note that SSD disks have a special failure rate. Without use they fail at about the same rate as RAM (virtually never) but they degrade during use. After a certain loading factor sectors become unusable and the storage capacity will degrade until the disk becomes unusable. Drives with bad controlers might hit this sooner than ones with better controlers.

At what rate does the amount of storage decrease?
Is it something worth paying attention to, or is it minor?

 

[Dr Super Good]

At what rate does the amount of storage decrease?

Depends of vender. Varies from a few hundred writes (cheap flash drives and bulk SSDs) to hundreds of thousands of writes (millitry/space use). You can read from drives infinitly as only writing degrades them. Additionally, the quality of memory manager pays an important role as well as how much reserve space the manufacture dedicated for failure.

Generally once the storage of the device can no longer maintain the paritions of the drive requires it is known as having failed (although most of the drive could still be usable). Modern memory controlers share loading as much as possible so one can assume that the majority of the drive will also be near failure.

Is it something worth paying attention to, or is it minor?

It is not worth paying attention to if you use a SSD for ner permanent storage like for a game or for the OS program files. If you use it for temporary files, virtual memory or OS log files then you will have to note this as the drive could fail faster than you would like.

Most SSDs are rated for a few dozen tarabytes of writing.

 

[The Reborn Devil]

computers break from two months?

yes...

I really hope you mean they can break after two months, albeit extremely unlikely.

My HDD and PSU are both 7 years old and work fine. I've never had a hardware failure with those and I've literally never had a BSOD on my computer, ever.

 

[Dr Super Good]

My HDD and PSU are both 7 years old and work fine. I've never had a hardware failure with those and I've literally never had a BSOD on my computer, ever.

It all depends on the components you use.

HDDs do not nescescarilly fail with age. They often start to degrade in performance (slower I/O) long before they fail.

PSUs are really variable. If your system is low power and you buy a good PSU rated at around the same ratting as your system and the PSU is never stressed (due to mains voltage spikes or overheating) it could well outlast a lot of components in your system. However, PSUs with a badly made capacitor can fail really fast, especially if they are high rated (as they need bigger capacitors). Like wise if you let your PSU get too hot it is much more likly to fail.

 

[BlargHonk]

They use a lot of unstable (radioactive) chemicals in some components. These degrade at a random rate (around an average) which eventually leads to reduced opperating performance till the stage an unrecoverable fault occurs.

Calling bullshit on that. There are no radioactive compounds inside a computer besides normal background levels of isotopes :/'



Anyways, a computer can break if improperly stored, the biggest nono is cold mixed with humidity.

 

[Dr Super Good]

The reason for computer failure is due to some form of chemical decay. This has nothing to do with anything in the air as all electronics come in air tight packages.

 

[Gilles]

The reason for computer failure is due to some form of chemical decay. This has nothing to do with anything in the air as all electronics come in air tight packages.

...What? Are you talking about components being shipped, or components in a computer?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Advanced computer components in general have a limited life expectancy. Unfortunatly I have not taken a course on the exact details behind manufacturing silicon components but apparently the doping use to make them semiconductive eventually becomes unusable.

One such example of this is some transistors undergo a permanent "breakdown" if exposed to a current beyond their rating due to it permanently changing the properties of the doping inside the silicon.

 

[BlargHonk]

One such example of this is some transistors undergo a permanent "breakdown" if exposed to a current beyond their rating due to it permanently changing the properties of the doping inside the silicon.

No, thats because the current literally arcs between transistors and creates a permanent burn


And yes, a few components will undergo chemical (not radioactive) decay such as capacitors, but 2 months of storage isn't nearly as bad as 2 months of active usage.

 

[Dr Super Good]

1. Indium is a radioactive element used in doping. That is it has an over 97% natural occurance of radioactive isotopes. Wether or not your PC components use it I do not know but a lot of LEDs do.
2.

The avalanche process occurs when the carriers in the transition region are accelerated by the electric field to energies sufficient to free electron-hole pairs via collisions with bound electrons.

Thus I have no idea what on earth you were talking about BlargHonk as there is no "permanent burn" nor are there "arcs between transistors".
1 transistor or diode exposed to too much current causes a too strong electric field which inturn causes electrons to increase the conductivity of the component until the point of inoprability (it becomes a short circuit).

Additionally radiation is bad for the life of electronic components. Cosmic particles are known as the largest cause of crashes in some server systems (such as those in labs ontop of mountains). All it needs is enough of them to hit a component and it will become damaged in some form. Ofcourse attributing this to permanent hardware damage under normal background radiation conditions is near impossible.

 

[BlargHonk]

1. Indium is a radioactive element used in doping. That is it has an over 97% natural occurance of radioactive isotopes. Wether or not your PC components use it I do not know but a lot of LEDs do.

Look at the half life of Indium, it's half life is 32000 times longer than the current age of the universe, 2 months isn't going to effect it

Thus I have no idea what on earth you were talking about BlargHonk as there is no "permanent burn" nor are there "arcs between transistors".
1 transistor or diode exposed to too much current causes a too strong electric field which inturn causes electrons to increase the conductivity of the component until the point of inoprability (it becomes a short circuit).

Additionally radiation is bad for the life of electronic components. Cosmic particles are known as the largest cause of crashes in some server systems (such as those in labs ontop of mountains). All it needs is enough of them to hit a component and it will become damaged in some form. Ofcourse attributing this to permanent hardware damage under normal background radiation conditions is near impossible.

Look up transistor degradation due to plasma burns. Increases with higher voltages.