What is the average life of a computer?

Magic_it · Post by **Magic_it** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 3:54 pm

What is it?

I know there is a difference between leaving it on always and turning it off every night.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 4:01 pm

This is a contreversal issue at times because everyone has their opinion, but I think if you leave it on, there's less likly a chance for something to go wrong since there's no moving parts except for the hard drive, but when you turn it on, the "startup force" has a very slight chance of causing something to go wrong, and the suddent tempature change is not good for the metals. I never heard of a computer frying because of this though.

I think it depends on the computer, if it has good cooling - it's best to leave it on but if it has bad cooling, there's more chance of it overheating then the startup causing a problem. Also when you the HDD first goes on, there's a slight chance of something happening. But these are maybe 1/1000000 chance things.

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Magic_it · Post by **Magic_it** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 4:06 pm

ah, so what is it? 5 years? 10 years?

i guess that also depends on the computer, as well.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 4:22 pm

Hard to tell, I have a bunch of 486s here and before I started gutting them out to get the best parts, they all worked fine. But one has a dead cmos battery so I have to reset the info each time, but if they still made those I could replace it and it would be working like a charm.
But I did hear you can decrease the life of a computer if you overclock it. So then I'd give it maybe 5 10 years depending on the processor etc..

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rovingcowboy · Post by **rovingcowboy** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 9:15 pm

the hard drives are said to last for 50,000 hours of use. how ever hard it is on them by shuting off and on is not any amount you can measure.

they (office's and other companys) use to leave them on all the time and the people that worked there were told by the IT department that the computers needed to be left on. for the reason the people did not know as much as the IT department. and he knew that windows 3.1 would take forever to boot up so in stead of shutting them down and losing 1 hour of work in the morning ( half hour to boot and half hour for the person to get back from the water fountain.) the company's just had the people leave the computers on.

then they found that the screens started to burn in so they had them use screensavers.

now they dont take long to boot up and the monitors dont burn in anymore.
and they are now trying to conserve money so they are telling the people in the office to turn them off if they are a non essintal support computer.

but people are still confused by it as they still remember the first thing they were told. and that is not to turn them off.

but now you can and it dont hurt the computers but old habits are hard to break.

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rovingcowboy · Post by **rovingcowboy** » Sun Nov 16, 2003 9:20 pm

red go to radio shack and take that dead batterie with you. the numbers are different on most new models but if you look around you can find what you need in a different number but it is the same thing as the old one.

got one there for my old compudyne 486 a couple yrs ago.

by the way that old thing was made in the 1980's with win3.0 as the new os. and it was then upgraded to 3.1 and then i upgraded it in 1998 to win95. it is still working. no trouble it is still using the same hd. and i added in one from another old compudyne for a second hd. just for more swapfile space. it is working and mom turns it on and off every so many days. and plays the old games on it.

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wldkos · Post by **wldkos** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 12:10 am

On the linux counter, some guy has had his machine running straight for +1200 days and that was like 3 months ago when I checked. Machines are made to run forever, but oviously outside foreces ruin that like friction, heat, and over clocking. taking care of your computer, like a care will make it obviously last a lot longer.

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alienz · Post by **alienz** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 8:42 pm

I am sure a computer can run for 1200 hrs, but if running windows, the software will fail prior to the computer.

I am sure that these days computers become obsolete prior to them waring out, or the space they are taking up is reuired for a new computer to take its place, many old computers hit the junkbox even though they still work fine.

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wldkos · Post by **wldkos** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 12:20 pm

alienz wrote: I am sure a computer can run for 1200 hrs, but if running windows, the software will fail prior to the computer.

I am sure that these days computers become obsolete prior to them waring out, or the space they are taking up is reuired for a new computer to take its place, many old computers hit the junkbox even though they still work fine.

thats days my man.

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manadren_it · Post by **manadren_it** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 3:42 pm

As others have said, there is no real number on how long a computer will last. It's all a matter of how well you take care of it, what you do, good cooling, etc. And that's whether you leave it on or turn it off every day. Heck I've heard of a novell server once that accidentally got walled in during building renovations - eveyone forgot about it, and no one could get to it for something like 3 years. It was on all that time and never missed a beat [lets see a microsoft OS do that!]

What red said about turning computers off all the time is kinda true though. Nothing is harder on hardware than startup from a cold boot - except overclocking obviously - and the constant heating up and cooling down can do some damage, including what is called 'heat creep' where the subtle expansion of metal as it heats up and contraction as it cools down actually causes cards and chips to slowly wiggle themselves loose. Of course if you don't do anything stupid, and do regular hardware maitenance, this shouldn't be much of an issue at all.

Anyway, how long a computer will last really isn't something people worry about anymore, because chances are, you'll end up wanting to upgrade because of the new software and hardware long before your computer reaches it's end.

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