4 ms·
Perhaps a stupid question, but, assuming this attack has NOT been performed, do consumer electronics processors slow down in any measurable way within the lifet
by mattbessey 11y ago
Perhaps a stupid question, but, assuming this attack has NOT been performed, do consumer electronics processors slow down in any measurable way within the lifetime of the device? Anecdotally I often have friends complain their computers get slower over time, and I've always written it off as OS level issues, fragmentation etc.
Now I'm wondering if a PC could actually become slower from logic gate failures. No, no. Thats dumb, right?
- jhallenworld 11y agoPower7 has a kind of dynamic overclocking, see this pdf: (it adjusts clock and voltage to maximize performance or save power): http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~millerti/cs680r/papers/Timing/ActiveManagementPower7.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm2n9GzOcGs3tj8u4y2jxnYU7CdAGQ&nossl=1&oi=scholarr http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=http://www.cs.bing... The paper does mention aging.. I suppose this circuit could compensate by boosting the voltage, but this would cause you to hit a power dissipation limit at lower performance, so I think the chip will indeed end up being slower over time.
- weinzierl 11y agoA while ago I read a comment (probably on HN) that said that the firmware in modern mobile hardware deliberately slows the processor down over time to counterbalance aging. I took this as some crazy planned obsolescence conspiracy theory and didn't bookmark it. Now I'm not really sure if that's really that crazy but I can't find the comment anymore.
- pjc50 11y agoWhat's more common is gradual failure of the heatsink: dust on it, fans wearing out, thermal paste losing effectiveness. This means the device can't run as fast before triggering thermal throttling.