4 ms·

Apparently (this is second hand knowledge), the thermal design of cheap consumer routers is really poor (because a sleek package + no fans is a priority, along

Apparently (this is second hand knowledge), the thermal design of cheap consumer routers is really poor (because a sleek package + no fans is a priority, along with low cost), and this somehow causes the device to degrade over time. It's beyond my understanding exactly how this degradation works (I thought digital things either worked or not), but it appears to be a thing. FWIW, four devices might be slight more than a normal single person has, but it's definitely less than an average modern family reasonably has: 1 smartphone + 1 tablet per person, a smart TV (and/or AppleTV/Chromecast/Fire), a Sonos or two, a couple of laptops etc, plus whatever guests bring along.

omginternets 11y ago
I suspect there's a question of load as well. I quite certainly use more bandwidth than the average family: I average 2048 bps down.
- maaarghk 11y ago
  600-odd meg a month then?
  - omginternets 11y ago
    Sounds about right.
    - vinw 11y ago
      Or do you mean 2048 mbps, which would be about 650 GB over a month?
      - omginternets 11y ago
        Oh right... yes. That's what I get for not checking units and not doulbe-checking other people's math :|
mlonkibjuyhv 11y ago
Afaik the primary mechanisms behind hardware degradation are electromigration in semiconductors and evaporation of electrolyte from capacitors. Both of these are temperature dependent, and a golden rule is that an increase of 10deg C halves the lifetime of a component (at least for caps). A device may still work most of the time, but the analog electronics that implement the Boolean logic your digital device depends on are running outside design-spec, and the probability of a transient failure is increased. One can further fantasize of secondary effects for example caused by unclean voltage rails due to bad filtering on switching regulators, perhaps increasing the probability of transistors latching up, frying controllers, or directly injecting strong noise typically in the 100kHz range into IO devices fucking with touchscreens, Ethernet, WiFi, you name it. Take all of this with a grain of salt, I'm merely a university dropout struggling to make my boss understand why the 100's of decade old kiosks I service for a living don't work good like they used to. Edit: Apparently my mind-dump above merely scratches the surface. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_of_electronic_components https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_of_electronic_compon...
- rashkov 11y ago
  That is super interesting, thanks

omginternets 11y ago

I suspect there's a question of load as well. I quite certainly use more bandwidth than the average family: I average 2048 bps down.

maaarghk 11y ago
600-odd meg a month then?
- omginternets 11y ago
  Sounds about right.
  - vinw 11y ago
    Or do you mean 2048 mbps, which would be about 650 GB over a month?
    - omginternets 11y ago
      Oh right... yes. That's what I get for not checking units and not doulbe-checking other people's math :|

mlonkibjuyhv 11y ago

Afaik the primary mechanisms behind hardware degradation are electromigration in semiconductors and evaporation of electrolyte from capacitors. Both of these are temperature dependent, and a golden rule is that an increase of 10deg C halves the lifetime of a component (at least for caps). A device may still work most of the time, but the analog electronics that implement the Boolean logic your digital device depends on are running outside design-spec, and the probability of a transient failure is increased. One can further fantasize of secondary effects for example caused by unclean voltage rails due to bad filtering on switching regulators, perhaps increasing the probability of transistors latching up, frying controllers, or directly injecting strong noise typically in the 100kHz range into IO devices fucking with touchscreens, Ethernet, WiFi, you name it. Take all of this with a grain of salt, I'm merely a university dropout struggling to make my boss understand why the 100's of decade old kiosks I service for a living don't work good like they used to. Edit: Apparently my mind-dump above merely scratches the surface. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_of_electronic_components https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_of_electronic_compon...

rashkov 11y ago
That is super interesting, thanks