3 ms·

What are you doing to your CPUs? In my experience, CPUs are reliable enough to be nearly beyond reproach when troubleshooting a broken machine.

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
There are things such as electromigration that mean that solid-state stuff can wear out. (Electrons are being pushed around by electric fields higher than 1 MV/m, and do smash into things ...) I'm not complaining about my seven year old machines, but I'm not too sanguine about the current crop lasting as long ...
- timthorn 10y ago
  Indeed - and smaller feature sizes increase that risk.
- kjs3 10y ago
  Electromigration is a thing, but if you're applying your design rules correctly, it's one you worry about over decades, not months or years. I've had 30 year old ROMs/PROMs fail due to electromigration (presumedly, I didn't decap them and look), but never a CPU.
jerryhuang100 10y ago
I used to believe that CPU should be the last culprit. One time for my faulty q6600 system i replaced everything except the CPU and finally realized the CPU was the problem. And it's not even overclocked. Out of my experience of ~8 PC assembled (super small sample size), 2 CPUs kissed bye right after the 3-yrs warranty period, 1 CPU DOA. the good thing is that good guy Intel replaced DOA CPU very fast.
- thedaemon 10y ago
  I guess there are lemons with everything. I'm sitting here still using my Q6600 workstation with no issues. I keep upgrading around it as it's still fast enough.
  - ido 10y ago
    I thought so too, but recently upgraded to a broadwell i7 (4 cores, 8 threads) and compile times have fallen enormously.
    - thedaemon 10y ago
      I am an animator so my requirements are different. A video card makes all the difference for me for viewport rendering speeds. I don't render out that much, but I did notice that my wife's iMac (which is a few years newer than my q6600) renders out at about 2x the speed.
- jmnicolas 10y ago
  I assemble PCs for my friends, family and I since 20 years, we have something like 10 servers and 30 desktops (some are more than 8 years old) at work and I never had a CPU die on me. You are really unlucky imho.

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago

There are things such as electromigration that mean that solid-state stuff can wear out. (Electrons are being pushed around by electric fields higher than 1 MV/m, and do smash into things ...) I'm not complaining about my seven year old machines, but I'm not too sanguine about the current crop lasting as long ...

timthorn 10y ago
Indeed - and smaller feature sizes increase that risk.
kjs3 10y ago
Electromigration is a thing, but if you're applying your design rules correctly, it's one you worry about over decades, not months or years. I've had 30 year old ROMs/PROMs fail due to electromigration (presumedly, I didn't decap them and look), but never a CPU.

jerryhuang100 10y ago

I used to believe that CPU should be the last culprit. One time for my faulty q6600 system i replaced everything except the CPU and finally realized the CPU was the problem. And it's not even overclocked. Out of my experience of ~8 PC assembled (super small sample size), 2 CPUs kissed bye right after the 3-yrs warranty period, 1 CPU DOA. the good thing is that good guy Intel replaced DOA CPU very fast.

thedaemon 10y ago
I guess there are lemons with everything. I'm sitting here still using my Q6600 workstation with no issues. I keep upgrading around it as it's still fast enough.
- ido 10y ago
  I thought so too, but recently upgraded to a broadwell i7 (4 cores, 8 threads) and compile times have fallen enormously.
  - thedaemon 10y ago
    I am an animator so my requirements are different. A video card makes all the difference for me for viewport rendering speeds. I don't render out that much, but I did notice that my wife's iMac (which is a few years newer than my q6600) renders out at about 2x the speed.
jmnicolas 10y ago
I assemble PCs for my friends, family and I since 20 years, we have something like 10 servers and 30 desktops (some are more than 8 years old) at work and I never had a CPU die on me. You are really unlucky imho.