Do CPUs ever fail?

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P

P T

It seems to me that processors and memory sticks should almost never
die.
Has anyone had failure among these sort of components?
Pete
 
P said:
It seems to me that processors and memory sticks should almost never
die.
Has anyone had failure among these sort of components?
Pete
Click to expand...

All electronic devices die, eventually. It's just a matter of how long
'eventually' is.
 
they can go bad if you get a power spike or static
but if everything is running well they should last a long time
oh yea overclocking will shorten their life
 
Same here! I've never had an Intel CPU fail here,
not even after 6 years of overclocking
three Intels. I've been using Intel CPUs
very heavily for about 14 years. I've also never
had a dead memory stick, nor motherboard, nor
video card.

The two components most notorious
for failing are power supplies and hard
drives. Recently I read a report that said about
68% of component failures are of HDs and PSUs.
My personal experience certainly bears that out -
two HD and one PSU failure in 14 years, plus
another PSU failure at work. The only other
notables are monitor and mouse. My oldest
running monitor (NEC) died after 7 years of daily use,
oldest mouse (Logitech), after 5 years of heavy use.
Durability of both of these seems much improved in the
last 14 years.
 
Raymond said:
Same here! I've never had an Intel CPU fail here,
not even after 6 years of overclocking
three Intels. I've been using Intel CPUs
very heavily for about 14 years. I've also never
had a dead memory stick, nor motherboard, nor
video card.

The two components most notorious
for failing are power supplies and hard
drives. Recently I read a report that said about
68% of component failures are of HDs and PSUs.
My personal experience certainly bears that out -
two HD and one PSU failure in 14 years, plus
another PSU failure at work. The only other
notables are monitor and mouse. My oldest
running monitor (NEC) died after 7 years of daily use,
oldest mouse (Logitech), after 5 years of heavy use.
Durability of both of these seems much improved in the
last 14 years.
Click to expand...

Also for the record, oldest floppy drive died after 9 years
of moderate use, and one early generation CD-ROM
died after less than two years of heavy use - no CD or DVD
ROM failures since. They don't make them like they used
to, thank goodness! <g>
 
P said:
It seems to me that processors and memory sticks should almost never
die.
Has anyone had failure among these sort of components?
Pete
Click to expand...

yes. several times over the years. From a sample size of hundreds of
computers.
 
BigJIm said:
they can go bad if you get a power spike or static
but if everything is running well they should last a long time
oh yea overclocking will shorten their life
Click to expand...

Awww shit, now ya dunnit. -Dave
 
For a CPU, the worst enemy is heat, and too much of it can ruin a CPU in
milliseconds. That's why all modern CPUs (at least all I have heard of) use
a heat sink/ fan combo mounted on top of the CPU. Don't forget to apply
(sparingly) the heat transfer paste.

The most common problem with memory sticks is using the wrong one. Just
because it fits the slot does not mean it is appropriate. Check the specs
carefully, and make sure there is not a mismatch between 2 or more of your
RAM chips. The best bet is to use exactly the same brand and type for all of
them, and, of course, be within specs.
 
P T said:
It seems to me that processors and memory sticks should almost never
die.
Has anyone had failure among these sort of components?
Pete
Click to expand...
I've never had RAM fail but I have had the CPU on my husband's PC (AMD
Athlon XP 2200+) fail. I had purchased it from Frys about 5 months earlier
and they replaced it on the spot.
 
I've seen just about everything die or fail, including CPU, memory, mainboard,
you name it. I would say however that is far less common than others such as
hard drives and fans.
 
I've seen just about everything die or fail, including CPU, memory, mainboard,
you name it. I would say however that is far less common than others such as
hard drives and fans.

P T wrote:
Click to expand...

I've had almost everything fail at some point or another too, except
the cpu.

2 NEC 4 disk cdrom drives failed on me - they don't make them anymore,
'nuff said.
2 Creative CDRW drives failed on me, same model, 'nuff said.
1 Liteon DVD/CDRW combo drive stopped playing DVD's after only one
month.
1 stick of ram died on me, I think that was due to a lightining strike
close to the house though.
1 dead on arrival video card from Creative.
2 Maxtor hard drives have died on me.
1 MSI motherboard dead on arrival.
1 Asus mb I shorted myself, no one to blame for that except me and
Asus fixed it for me at no cost. :-)
1 Enermax PSU was duff on arrival, I think it blew my USR modem too.
GRRR!
1 Dell PSU went on me
1 dead floppy drive, same Dell computer
I 19" NEC monitor went on me, NEC gave me a 22" as replacement. :-)
Magnetic tip blade Fan on Vantec Aeroflow HSF seized on me, I'm not
the only one that has had this particular fan seize on them either.

I'm sure I've forgotten something but that about covers it. You takes
yer chances when it comes to PC hardware.
 
For a CPU, the worst enemy is heat, and too much of it can ruin a CPU in
milliseconds. That's why all modern CPUs (at least all I have heard of) use
a heat sink/ fan combo mounted on top of the CPU. Don't forget to apply
(sparingly) the heat transfer paste.
Click to expand...

All modern cpu's have thermal protection. Even my Abit IC7 mb has the
option to shut down the PC if the cpu reaches a certain temperature
(user defined setting as to what temp to shut down at).
 
Mike Kirkland said:
All modern cpu's have thermal protection. Even my Abit IC7 mb has the
option to shut down the PC if the cpu reaches a certain temperature
(user defined setting as to what temp to shut down at).
Click to expand...

If that makes you feel safe, you are dreaming.
 
P4's contain their own sensor within the cpu, if it gets too hot it
will throttle back.
Click to expand...

This can be done also for other CPUs (without build-in thermal
throttling too!) if the MoBo has really measuring temps from onDie
diode (or using external gadget like I do to do that!), so that MoBo
can throttle Cpu down! (tipical: newer AMD sistems).
You just have to set in the bios than CPU throttling in power
saving options for example to 12,5% (default is set to 66%-not
enough!). When this MoBo feature kicks-in, the PC becomes sluggish
like a turtle, but prevents CPU thermal runaway (if HS falls off or
fan dies). I successfuly tested this on my machine while experimenting
with running my OC-ed machine running it w/o fans at all (see my site
under comp/benchs & how to check if temps are read trully from inner
Cpu diode under Burn-in article)

This MoBo feature is commonly left set at defaults
/disengaged/ when shiped & not commonly known ... (waste majority of
board has a posibility to enable this for years inside Bios settings,
but practically no-one uses it). In my case CPU die temp so did not
pass 90°C - the feature starts kicking in a bit after passing 75°C &
"brakes" CPU more & more till 80°C when throttling il at max (12,5%)
preventing thermal runaway of CPU ... Win98 did not crash at all! :-)
 
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