Leave a Pentium 630 running 24/7?

[Joe]

Is it advisable to leave a computer with a Prescott chip running 24
hours a day? Have a Compaq 5000 with an 866 Pentium and it has never
been turned off in the past five years. Ran across this article and it
makes me wonder. . .

CPU Temperature vs Life Expectancy
http://www.overclockers.com/tips30/

Right now the chip is 66.5 C / 151.2 F and motherboard is 46 C / 114 F

ASUS P5WD2 with Intel CPU Fan
Pentium 630
Coolermaster Wavemaster
Enermax Noisetaker 420W
Jetway X300LE

Thanks for reading this -

 

[spodosaurus]

Is it advisable to leave a computer with a Prescott chip running 24
hours a day? Have a Compaq 5000 with an 866 Pentium and it has never
been turned off in the past five years. Ran across this article and it
makes me wonder. . .

CPU Temperature vs Life Expectancy
http://www.overclockers.com/tips30/

Right now the chip is 66.5 C / 151.2 F and motherboard is 46 C / 114 F

ASUS P5WD2 with Intel CPU Fan
Pentium 630
Coolermaster Wavemaster
Enermax Noisetaker 420W
Jetway X300LE

Thanks for reading this -

Thermal cycling (when you turn the computer on and off) puts stress on
the components as well. If you want to leave it on (worse for the
environment due to power consumption), leave it on. The cost of running
the computer 24/7/365 is probably more than it'll be worth in a year's
time. So, it's neither advisable nor inadvisable: do what you want.

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[Mxsmanic]

Is it advisable to leave a computer with a Prescott chip running 24
hours a day?

You can operate any computer 24 hours a day without any trouble, as
long as it is operating within its nominal temperature range. There's
nothing special about Prescott chips that changes this.

Have a Compaq 5000 with an 866 Pentium and it has never
been turned off in the past five years.

It may run for another fifteen years or beyond. The most likely
failure is a fan or disk drive, not the CPU.

Ran across this article and it
makes me wonder. . .

CPU Temperature vs Life Expectancy
http://www.overclockers.com/tips30/

But it's on an overclocker site, isn't it? If you go outside the
manufacturer's specs, all bets are off.

 

[Ed Medlin]

Is it advisable to leave a computer with a Prescott chip running 24
hours a day? Have a Compaq 5000 with an 866 Pentium and it has never
been turned off in the past five years. Ran across this article and it
makes me wonder. . .

CPU Temperature vs Life Expectancy
http://www.overclockers.com/tips30/

Right now the chip is 66.5 C / 151.2 F and motherboard is 46 C / 114 F

ASUS P5WD2 with Intel CPU Fan
Pentium 630
Coolermaster Wavemaster
Enermax Noisetaker 420W
Jetway X300LE

Thanks for reading this -

Even for the I-6xx chips, that is a bit warm. Mine was idling in the mid-low
50s and I corrected it by tinkering with my case airflow. It now idles at
38-42C and under load at 58-60C. I use the Intel stock HS/Fan. A lot depends
on your ambient (room) temps too. My problem ended up being a fan in the top
of the case was interfering with good airflow across the HS. I took that fan
out and my temps went down considerably. Correctly mounting the S775 HS can
also be tricky. I always secure the tightners by tightening one corner then
the opposite corner then repeat for the other two. It is also very easy to
break the little retainers if you remove and try and reinstall the HS/Fan.
If you had to remove the HS at any time, you may have broken one of them and
one of the corners of the HS is not making good contact with the processor.
I tend to feel that your airflow in not adequate because your MB temps are a
good 12-14C higher than mine too. At idle, mine are 31-32C steady. My main
computer room is at 72f all the time. If yours is 10degs+ f above that, then
your temps would be normal......... Good luck.

Ed

 

[JAD]

if your going to do so. some sort of power management should be used. having
the optical drives spun up and HDDs spinning would be a waste of power and
definitely cause premature failing. unfortunately allot of hardware/drivers
won't / don't support hibernation/or even standby, causing a freeze when
going into or out of power save mode.

 

[Mxsmanic]

having
the optical drives spun up and HDDs spinning would be a waste of power and
definitely cause premature failing.

Not so. Hard disk drives can run 24 hours a day indefinitely; running
them continuously doesn't reduce the number of hours they will
survive. While spinning a drive puts wear and tear on it, so does
starting and stopping it (a lot).

 

[JAD]

your not serious? bearing failure makes up 80%+ of hard drive failure. Roms
are priced and made 'disposable' these days, and letting them spin, is
asking for them to die. Although a 'load' is put on the PSU during spinup, I
don't think that out weighs the 24/7 spinning of the bearings. Use =
friction/wear. 'definitely may have been 'strong' , 'contributes' may
have been a better choice of words. I personally don't set
'standby/hibernate' to begin in >2 hrs of idle time.

 

[Mxsmanic]

your not serious? bearing failure makes up 80%+ of hard drive failure.

All the failures I've encountered on disk drives have been media
failures or head/actuator failures. Bearings will eventually fail,
but usually not before something else fails. And if one starts and
stops the disk regularly, one nearly guarantees that something else
will fail first.

Although a 'load' is put on the PSU during spinup, I
don't think that out weighs the 24/7 spinning of the bearings.

More importantly, a load is put on the media and the heads, and they
will start to wear out after enough cycles.

 

[spodosaurus]

your not serious?

There's your and you're: spot the difference and win wonderful prizes!

bearing failure makes up 80%+ of hard drive failure.

1. Source?
2. Source attributing it direcly to leaving the drives spinning?

Roms
are priced and made 'disposable' these days, and letting them spin, is
asking for them to die. Although a 'load' is put on the PSU during spinup, I
don't think that out weighs the 24/7 spinning of the bearings. Use =
friction/wear. 'definitely may have been 'strong' , 'contributes' may
have been a better choice of words. I personally don't set
'standby/hibernate' to begin in >2 hrs of idle time.

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[w_tom]

Others are confronting Mxsmanic's speculations.
Speculations? Yes. He cannot provide any technical reasons,
numbers, or citations for his claims. Somehow he just knows

One lowest number for power cycling I ever saw was on an IBM
disk drive - 40,000. That means power cycling seven times
every day (including holidays) for .... 15 years. Yes, power
cycling is destructive. And then we replace the Daily News
tabloid version with reality - the numbers. Seven times every
day for *15 years* means, for all practical purposes, that
power cycling is only destructive in myths and half truth
reasoning (also called propaganda).

Bearing failure is a significant reason for failure.
Bearing failure is due to hours of operation - not due to
power cycling. As in most myths about 'destructive power
cycling', the purveyor does not even provide manufacturer data
sheet numbers. Hours of operation is often a reason for
failures - not power cycling, not mythical transients, and not
the so many other things promoted by junk science reasoning.

Note reasons provided by Mxsmanic. He observed things. He
did not bother to learn why things failed. Did not repair
failed component inside the drive. Did not learn what
manufacturers numbers said. Did not demand numbers. Failed
to first ask so many "Whys?" Instead he just knows only from
personal observation followed by personal speculation.
Definitive conclusions based only upon a hypothesis or
speculation - and no numbers - is classic junk science
reasoning.

 

[DaveW]

The thermal limit of that CPU is 70 C, so you are running almost at the
limit. I would turn it off overnight to let it cool off.