5 ms·

> Solid-state computer components, on the other hand, have no mechanical decay, so they are practically eternal. I wish. Electrolytic capacitors seem to have

by Syonyk 4y ago

> Solid-state computer components, on the other hand, have no mechanical decay, so they are practically eternal. I wish. Electrolytic capacitors seem to have a functional lifespan of about 10-20 years, transistors do wear out, electromigration is a problem in chips in the "hundreds of years" span discussed, and there are all sorts of other interesting failure modes of "solid state" electronics that mean they're not going to last hundreds of years without some pretty massive heroics - and that's when you can repair it at all.

Gordonjcp 4y ago
[flagged]
- camtarn 4y ago
  Let me Google that for you: "All electrolytic capacitors with non-solid electrolyte age over time, due to evaporation of the electrolyte. The capacitance usually decreases and the ESR usually increases. The normal lifespan of a non-solid electrolytic capacitor of consumer quality, typically rated at 2000 h/85 °C and operating at 40 °C, is roughly 6 years. It can be more than 10 years for a 1000 h/105 °C capacitor operating at 40 °C. Electrolytic capacitors that operate at a lower temperature can have a considerably longer lifespan." ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague ) "Electromigration decreases the reliability of integrated circuits (ICs). It can cause the eventual loss of connections or failure of a circuit. Since reliability is critically important ... the reliability of chips (ICs) is a major focus of research efforts. ... With increasing miniaturization, the probability of failure due to electromigration increases ... In modern consumer electronic devices, ICs rarely fail due to electromigration effects. ... Nevertheless, there have been documented cases of product failures due to electromigration." ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration ) Before dismissively replying, maybe do your research.
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    The electrolyte doesn't evaporate. The "capacitor plague" thing was because in the early 2000s every manufacturer started buying the same kind of cheapest electrolytics they could find that simply did not meet spec. If your electrolytic caps are failing after six years, you're running them at too high a voltage.
    - camtarn 4y ago
      From an actual research paper, not just Wikipedia: "The variation of electrolytic capacitor electrical properties due to ageing can be attributed to two key degradation mechanisms: 1. The evaporation of electrolyte [3, 4, 5] 2. The electrolyte reacting with the insulation material within the electrolytic capacitor [6] A. Evaporation of electrolyte Over time the liquid electrolyte will evaporate, and therefore reduce the amount of available electrolyte within the capacitor." https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/104114/1/IECONv2a.pdf https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/104114/1/IECONv2a.pdf Yes, the capacitor plague was a particular incident not a general thing; yes, six years seems slightly ridiculous; yes, you can make them last significantly longer; but no, capacitors are not immortal - and you can't make them be immortal by just repeating "no that doesn't happen".
- l33t233372 4y ago
  Can you explain what you mean? In 100,000,000 years I can almost surely guarantee that your hard drive will be nonexistent. Surely there is a point between “fresh off the assembly line” and “disintegration” where the drive can be considered to be “worn out.”
- jdiff 4y ago
  Electrolytic capacitors can dry out, boil out, oxidize, generally break down. There's many failure modes for them that can be caused by wear, age, or unuse.
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    Only if they're used grossly outside their rated limits. Whether or not the rated limits printed on the can match what they're actually capable of is another matter, as people found out for a couple of years in the early 2000s.
    - camtarn 4y ago
      Here's another study for you, which shows a decrease in capacitance and increase in ESR (equivalent series resistance) of electrolytics operated in a DC-DC converter circuit at room temperature over extended periods of time. This shows that capacitors degrade even when used within their rated limits. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228874152_Experimental_Studies_of_Ageing_in_Electrolytic_Capacitors https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228874152_Experimen...
    - jdiff 4y ago
      Unuse also can damage capacitors through oxidation. I've never seen a datasheet that said "make sure to stretch out your capacitor's legs at least once a year." Manufacturing errors can make capacitors die young, but even the most upstanding member of a capacitor tribe will one day kick the bucket through no fault of anyone's.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  > Nope. > Nope. > None of these things "wear out". Would you perhaps like to present any evidence or even argument whatsoever?
popotamonga 4y ago
My schneider 286@12Mhz from 1990 with 40MB huge hdd still running fine, all original components.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  Older hardware tends to be more resilient due to wider traces, which means lower susceptibility to ESD and electromigration. But eventually the last atom will get eroded out of a critical trace and the thing will fail. Nothing lasts forever, especially when made to be as cheap as possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration
  - BirAdam 4y ago
    Well, all of the components are less sensitive, not just traces. Also, a lot of the old machines weren’t designed to be cheap.
- Syonyk 4y ago
  How much of that time has it been running? I would wager that it's not been running powered on for 33 years without any repairs. If it has, probably long past due for a re-cap job, and you probably don't want to put a scope on the voltage rails to see what the ripple is. For a broad handwave, "sitting powered off" isn't too bad for solid state equipment (it does bad things for hard drives, see "stiction"), but operating (and operating at temperature) is where the wear occurs from a range of effects. I've reworked [0] a Core 2 Duo board that stopped booting after a decade or so, because the capacitors filtering power for the IDE controller got so bad it wouldn't boot reliably (it would load the kernel off the drive, and then insist the drive wasn't present later). [0]: https://www.sevarg.net/2018/04/15/on-art-of-repair-re-capacitoring-old-mainboards/ https://www.sevarg.net/2018/04/15/on-art-of-repair-re-capaci...
  - popotamonga 4y ago
    Yes it ran 24/7 when i was a kid for about 4 years, nowadays i rarely turn it on.
yamazakiwi 4y ago
I recently had to replace an SSD that was only 3 years old; it's dead-dead, as in, slowed down one day and then wouldn't boot. I've never had an HDD die this fast in my life. I know this is only one example but I'm curious if anyone else has a similar experience.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sleepybrett 4y ago
  Have a virtual memory pagefile on it?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gtop3 4y ago
  Here's a pretty good document about HDD life expectancy. Depending on the model HDDs can have a fail rate of up to 12% in 3 years. I'm unsure how many drives you've used, or how much of a workload you put them through, but I wouldn't assume SSDs are significantly more reliable than HDDs based on one failed drive. [0] https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-life-expectancy/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-life-expectancy/
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  SSDs are a consumable, so depending on how much writing you do per day to it you can run it down pretty quickly. The vast majority of people never write enough for this to become a problem, though.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  > it's dead-dead, as in, slowed down one day and then wouldn't boot Did you double check if the files could be read by another system? A drive that goes read-only will also fail to boot, I think.
- johncalvinyoung 4y ago
  Had a brand new Seagate 2.5" hard drive fail after ~60 days of laptop use, back in 2010. I was a reasonably heavy desktop user, but scarcely a stress-tester, and I didn't have any memorable drop incident or accident that'd explain the failure, either (I was pretty careful with my machines). Retailer or manufacturer, I can't recall, replaced the drive (with a refurb) and I was able to recover some of the most important new data off the old drive as it failed, but it left me pretty unhappy. still have a few mis-named files deep in my personal directories, 2 PCs and 3 Mac migrations later.

by Syonyk 4y ago

Gordonjcp 4y ago

[flagged]

camtarn 4y ago
Let me Google that for you: "All electrolytic capacitors with non-solid electrolyte age over time, due to evaporation of the electrolyte. The capacitance usually decreases and the ESR usually increases. The normal lifespan of a non-solid electrolytic capacitor of consumer quality, typically rated at 2000 h/85 °C and operating at 40 °C, is roughly 6 years. It can be more than 10 years for a 1000 h/105 °C capacitor operating at 40 °C. Electrolytic capacitors that operate at a lower temperature can have a considerably longer lifespan." ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague ) "Electromigration decreases the reliability of integrated circuits (ICs). It can cause the eventual loss of connections or failure of a circuit. Since reliability is critically important ... the reliability of chips (ICs) is a major focus of research efforts. ... With increasing miniaturization, the probability of failure due to electromigration increases ... In modern consumer electronic devices, ICs rarely fail due to electromigration effects. ... Nevertheless, there have been documented cases of product failures due to electromigration." ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration ) Before dismissively replying, maybe do your research.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  The electrolyte doesn't evaporate. The "capacitor plague" thing was because in the early 2000s every manufacturer started buying the same kind of cheapest electrolytics they could find that simply did not meet spec. If your electrolytic caps are failing after six years, you're running them at too high a voltage.
  - camtarn 4y ago
    From an actual research paper, not just Wikipedia: "The variation of electrolytic capacitor electrical properties due to ageing can be attributed to two key degradation mechanisms: 1. The evaporation of electrolyte [3, 4, 5] 2. The electrolyte reacting with the insulation material within the electrolytic capacitor [6] A. Evaporation of electrolyte Over time the liquid electrolyte will evaporate, and therefore reduce the amount of available electrolyte within the capacitor." https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/104114/1/IECONv2a.pdf https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/104114/1/IECONv2a.pdf Yes, the capacitor plague was a particular incident not a general thing; yes, six years seems slightly ridiculous; yes, you can make them last significantly longer; but no, capacitors are not immortal - and you can't make them be immortal by just repeating "no that doesn't happen".
l33t233372 4y ago
Can you explain what you mean? In 100,000,000 years I can almost surely guarantee that your hard drive will be nonexistent. Surely there is a point between “fresh off the assembly line” and “disintegration” where the drive can be considered to be “worn out.”
jdiff 4y ago
Electrolytic capacitors can dry out, boil out, oxidize, generally break down. There's many failure modes for them that can be caused by wear, age, or unuse.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Only if they're used grossly outside their rated limits. Whether or not the rated limits printed on the can match what they're actually capable of is another matter, as people found out for a couple of years in the early 2000s.
  - camtarn 4y ago
    Here's another study for you, which shows a decrease in capacitance and increase in ESR (equivalent series resistance) of electrolytics operated in a DC-DC converter circuit at room temperature over extended periods of time. This shows that capacitors degrade even when used within their rated limits. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228874152_Experimental_Studies_of_Ageing_in_Electrolytic_Capacitors https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228874152_Experimen...
  - jdiff 4y ago
    Unuse also can damage capacitors through oxidation. I've never seen a datasheet that said "make sure to stretch out your capacitor's legs at least once a year." Manufacturing errors can make capacitors die young, but even the most upstanding member of a capacitor tribe will one day kick the bucket through no fault of anyone's.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
> Nope. > Nope. > None of these things "wear out". Would you perhaps like to present any evidence or even argument whatsoever?

popotamonga 4y ago

My schneider 286@12Mhz from 1990 with 40MB huge hdd still running fine, all original components.

moffkalast 4y ago
Older hardware tends to be more resilient due to wider traces, which means lower susceptibility to ESD and electromigration. But eventually the last atom will get eroded out of a critical trace and the thing will fail. Nothing lasts forever, especially when made to be as cheap as possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration
- BirAdam 4y ago
  Well, all of the components are less sensitive, not just traces. Also, a lot of the old machines weren’t designed to be cheap.
Syonyk 4y ago
How much of that time has it been running? I would wager that it's not been running powered on for 33 years without any repairs. If it has, probably long past due for a re-cap job, and you probably don't want to put a scope on the voltage rails to see what the ripple is. For a broad handwave, "sitting powered off" isn't too bad for solid state equipment (it does bad things for hard drives, see "stiction"), but operating (and operating at temperature) is where the wear occurs from a range of effects. I've reworked [0] a Core 2 Duo board that stopped booting after a decade or so, because the capacitors filtering power for the IDE controller got so bad it wouldn't boot reliably (it would load the kernel off the drive, and then insist the drive wasn't present later). [0]: https://www.sevarg.net/2018/04/15/on-art-of-repair-re-capacitoring-old-mainboards/ https://www.sevarg.net/2018/04/15/on-art-of-repair-re-capaci...
- popotamonga 4y ago
  Yes it ran 24/7 when i was a kid for about 4 years, nowadays i rarely turn it on.

yamazakiwi 4y ago

I recently had to replace an SSD that was only 3 years old; it's dead-dead, as in, slowed down one day and then wouldn't boot. I've never had an HDD die this fast in my life. I know this is only one example but I'm curious if anyone else has a similar experience.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sleepybrett 4y ago
Have a virtual memory pagefile on it?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gtop3 4y ago
Here's a pretty good document about HDD life expectancy. Depending on the model HDDs can have a fail rate of up to 12% in 3 years. I'm unsure how many drives you've used, or how much of a workload you put them through, but I wouldn't assume SSDs are significantly more reliable than HDDs based on one failed drive. [0] https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-life-expectancy/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-life-expectancy/
Dalewyn 4y ago
SSDs are a consumable, so depending on how much writing you do per day to it you can run it down pretty quickly. The vast majority of people never write enough for this to become a problem, though.
Dylan16807 4y ago
> it's dead-dead, as in, slowed down one day and then wouldn't boot Did you double check if the files could be read by another system? A drive that goes read-only will also fail to boot, I think.
johncalvinyoung 4y ago
Had a brand new Seagate 2.5" hard drive fail after ~60 days of laptop use, back in 2010. I was a reasonably heavy desktop user, but scarcely a stress-tester, and I didn't have any memorable drop incident or accident that'd explain the failure, either (I was pretty careful with my machines). Retailer or manufacturer, I can't recall, replaced the drive (with a refurb) and I was able to recover some of the most important new data off the old drive as it failed, but it left me pretty unhappy. still have a few mis-named files deep in my personal directories, 2 PCs and 3 Mac migrations later.