How much do heat temperatures really impact computer longevity

[ChiBOY83]

Well gentlemen, the topic says it all. I understand that a major controibuting factor to computer and cmponent longevity is heat, but does a fluctuation of 10 C really have a noticeable impact upon the life of the components. Is it really worth it to have your AMD64 CPU running at 45 C instead of 55C. I guess what i am asking is if the life begins to degrade only when it reaches the threshold temperatures stated by the manufacturer??? And how does heat impact the differnet components dirfferently

 

[BEL6772]

Manufacturers spec temperaure envelopes for their products that "guarantee" proper lifespan. As long as you operate within the thermal specification, you should meet or exceed the manufacturer's definition of a lifetime. Now, having said that, you may see a longer useful lifetime from a part maintained at 55C as compared to a part maintained at 65C, but both will still satisfy the manufacturer's expected lifetime.

My understanding is that the 'on time' of a part has more to do with its overall lifetime than the temperature it runs at, as long as the temp is within the envelope. Once the operating temperature exceeds specification (by a lot) you can start doing things like diffusing the dopants in the silicon which will permanently damage the chip. Typically the resistance in the interconnects increases to a point that the device becomes unstable and stops operation before temperatures got high enough to do permanent damage to he silicon, though.

 

[bobsmith1492]

From what I've seen, hard drives are the most affected by heat. Everything else in the system (save fans) are solid state, which isn't affected as much by heat. In my computers, I've had 4 maxtor 80GB hdds (2 per computer, 2 computers) , and in the family computer we have an identical one. In my computers, they were positioned behind the front intake. The family computer has poor airflow, however, so there is more or less a dead zone around the drive. That drive is incredibly noisy now, while the four with decent cooling are silent. That's what I'd reccomend - keep some airflow on the hard drives.

 

[onix]

Accelerated testing for lifetime and reliability is often done at elevated temperatures. The changes in device and material performance is nonlinear, and sometimes exponential, with temperature. When you combine multiple factors such as temperature AND humidity, the problems are highly exacerbated. So even small changes in 10C can significantly impact reliability.

This came up in a search under google for "accelerated testing at high tempearture": http://www.weibull.com/hotwire/issue43/relbasics43.htm.

Try your investigation with similar search criteria.