Does DC kill components more than "normal" / "gaming" usage?

[VirtualLarry]

I think that it does. Especially fans. Running them at elevated speeds, for an extended duration.

Plus, things like video cards, may not have the engineering margin for constant 100% load / duty-cycle. Most are designed to withstand "gaming loads", but not "power viruses". But DC often is akin to a power virus, in terms of the load it puts on a video card. (An entirely legitimate load, I might add.)

CPUs are generally less of a problem, unless overclocked / overvolted / overtemped too far. At stock, most CPUs (with adequate cooling) can handle a 100% load / power-virus no problem.

 

[petrusbroder]

Well, I agree on your thoughts about fans. I am not sure about GPUs/Videocards: I've had my GTX560(Ti) since they came to the market and they are still running strong and have been running 24/7 364 (probably one day less than a year if I count outages and planned down time) for at least 5 years (?).
My impression is that the PSUs are vulnerable. I've learned from experience, that a 80% load on a PSU (i.e. drawing 400W from a 500W PSU) results in shorter life. Therefore I have 600W or 750W PSU when I expect to draw approx. 400W. Those have held up for years ... while I have 5 broken 400W and 500W PSU in my basement (yeah, I know, but you never know when you need a spare part ...)
The older HDD break too .... but there is a big difference between brands and models.
CPUs: no problems at all.

 

[Smoke]

I believe that advances in computer technology have resulted in the situation where we all have hardware that is still running as good as it ever did but the increased performance of the new stuff makes us wish the old stuff would break so we could upgrade.

Practically speaking we need to get the most/best use of our equipment during that equipment's technological life span.

So a fan wears out ... no big deal.

CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!

BURN BABY BURN!

 

[Orange Kid]

Power supplies run till you shut them down for a system cleaning or an up grade of some sort, then they wakeup dead
Fans have lost their bearings and run astray.
Mother boards have capped out and ram has lost it's mind,
But so far no CPU's or GPU's lost to DC.

 

[ZipSpeed]

I have replace many fans that have crapped out. What you pay, is what you get. I still have some old Scythe S-Flex, Noctua and Gentle Typhoon fans that are still going to this day. On the other hand, those cheap Bitfenix fans are being replaced on an annual basis. I haven't had a PSU or GPU go on me yet. If anything, the fan on the video card will go kaput before anything else. I have seen some slight degradation on a few of my overclocked rigs. Turning up the voltage a bit or lowering the frequency usually fixes the issue.

 

[Markfw]

Well, yes, I do think they put more stress. But here is what I do to minimize that effect:

1) Get the best quality power supply you can, and get it over rated. For example one of my boxes takes 750 watts out of the wall. So I got a Corsair AX 1200, so its barely running over 50% load. so far 3 of them 24/7/365@100% load for 4 years.
2) Video cards. Get the best quality you can with the most cooling. Run the fans @70%-90% speed, just keep temps below 65c. So far my average is 1 and 1/2 years life span. Never over-volt.
3) CPU's Get the biggest cooler you can and keep temps below70c if you can adjust your fan speed. Life span is FOREVER, even with a slight over-volt. I have an E8400 that ran for over 10 years, never turned off, and its still good. I turned it off, since its a waste of electricity.
4) Leave the case side cover off. Usually helps cooling and air flow.

 

[TennesseeTony]

I've repaired or replaced a number of video card fans (sometimes with case fans, lol). Power supplies, ugh...don't go cheap on those, but so far so good on my Seasonic and Corsair PSU's. AMD CPU, lost two, but never an Intel. No RAM failures yet. And lost a $550 ASUS workstation board, but it was within the 30 day return period. Multiple motherboards with RAM slot problems out of the box, not due to DC though.

120mm Case fans: I'll stick with 'old school' sleeve bearings, preferably from Antec, as the original case fans from my Antec 900 are still spinning away (purchased when the i7 was first available, December 2008, and they have run ever since). I have had very bad luck with $20 Scythe fans, bad batch perhaps, they might last a month, and many other ball/rifle/liquid/etc bearing fans, advertising 2x-4x longer life than sleeve bearings, have died on me in less than six months.

 

[StitchExperimen]

Hard drives have been a problem since their mechanical. Especially when running VM. Most parts break down in 30 days to 90 days. Only had one CPU fail and that was in the first several days. I had one gaming motherboard and you just couldn't keep the small fan clean, it was like 1 inch in size. As long as you did your research in the old days and didn't get a bad video vender they were fine. One inexpensive motherboard I used as a test bed but I wore out the socket and video card connectors swapping parts.
Other parts I have sold and upgraded systems and no one has ever come back saying it failed. Also I have kept my stuff on Smart UPSs or before then good quality UPSs.
But like most everyone here failure is not common even when overclocking.

StitchExperiment626
I wonder what a server Zen chip will cost?


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