Question i7 4770k - Should I leave it on?

[ehume]

I have an i7 4770k desktop running at 4.3 GHz. I haven't been much concerned about the CPU, though apparently I should not run it more than 9-1/2 h/d. I am concerned about the DVD player, however: do you think it will mechanically wear out from starting and stopping? And if I leave my machine on to avoid wearing out the DVD, do I burn out my CPU?

This is of concern to me because both my rig and I are old, I am too disabled and weak to fix the old machine or make a new one, and no one else here knows how.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Two questions, to start with:

1) Is the CPU overclocked? Has the HSF been cleaned out in the last six months? As long as it's not overclocked, leaving your machine on 24/7 isn't going to wear the CPU or mobo out appreciably faster. (Curious where you heard that you're only supposed to run a CPU 9hr per day. That sounds kind of wacky and off-the-wall. I've ALWAYS run my PCs 24/7, usually under 100% CPU load. Haven't burned out a CPU yet, although I have worn out really cheapo motherboards without good VRMs or VRM cooling.)

2) Is there an actual disc in the DVD drive? If you're not using it, take it out, and put it into a soft sleeve or CD/DVD case. You should not leave discs in DVD drives, more than you have to. Other than that, I don't think that you'll wear them out. Some BIOSes do a "load tray" and "seek to sector zero", during bootup, which may result in clunking and some DVD drive activity every time that you boot. If you don't want that, see if you can remove the DVD drive from the boot order listing. (That of course, also means, that you won't be able to just stick an OS recovery or memtest or other boot DVD into the drive and get it to boot, without going back into the BIOS and enabling booting off of the DVD.)

 

[Magic Carpet]

I am concerned about the DVD player, however: do you think it will mechanically wear out from starting and stopping?

If you don't use it regularly unplug the molex cable. Just common sense. Personally, I have all of my DVD collection ripped to HDD for these reasons.

 

[FaaR]

apparently I should not run it more than 9-1/2 h/d.

Enable power states, if you haven't already. This lets your CPU throttle down clock speed and voltages when the CPU isn't being taxed. With voltages reduced and thus power usage and associated temperature lowered considerably, there won't be any appreciable wear to your CPU at least.

Mobo caps and possibly VRMs will wear as long as your PC is on though, but slower if your system sips less power. A good mobo should be able to last a very long time though, I have a PC from 2008 which still works just fine.

 

[VirtualLarry]

PS. OP, If your PC ever gets in such a bind that you need a new one, PM me your address, and I'll mail you one, free of charge. (If you can afford to pay shipping, that would be appreciated, but not required.)

This offer is good for as long as I'm a member here in good standing and around day-to-day, and as long as I have a stock-pile of PCs to get rid of. Once I finally clear out my stock (probably won't happen in my lifetime... bah), or if I ever end up exiled from here, then I won't be able to get your PM. (Hope that never happens.)

Edit: You want a DeskMini? I've got some with Kaby Lake G4560/G4600 CPUs in them, 8GB of RAM, will included a fresh (128GB-class) NVMe SSD and copy of Windows 10, units are themselves used, as well as PSUs. Could be useful, they make fairly snappy browser-boxes and video-players, as long as you don't run out of RAM. They would at least keep you online, if your main rig dies. Let me know in a PM, if you want one send you a mailing address. They are fairly small overall, like 5in x 5in x 4in, have VGA, HDMI, and DisplayPort. (You have to use DisplayPort with an active adapter, I've used the Club3D ones, to get 4K UHD @ 60Hz. The standard HDMI 1.4 port off of the Intel iGPU only does 4K UHD @ 30Hz.)

Edit: They have 802.11ac wifi too, with an Intel 1x1 adapter, and I think BlueTooth too.

Edit: I meant for FREE, the DeskMini Kaby Lake PC. Anyways, I'm not using them any more because I'm on my Ryzen rigs, and they were great, although I can't really do DC or mining on them (like I can my Ryzen PCs). They weren't 100% long-term reliable, and I'm not sure if that was due to something in my apt., or the wiring, or the DeskMini, or what. I would leave them running 24/7, and wake up to a shut-down / crashed DeskMini like 4-7 days later. I think that it was an incompatible early NVMe SSD in it, but I'm not 100% sure. It could have been the laptop brick-style PSU.

I rarely had any problems with it when I was actively using it, however, and it will do 4K UHD VP9 (YouTube) decoding with Kaby Lake. I think that it can also do Netflix 4K. (I have some 4K UHD TVs that I'm using.)

 

[SPBHM]

I've been running my H61 board and rest of the PC almost 24/7 since 2012 no problems so far, but it runs a stock i5, PSU is from 2008 and still going, I have to clean the dust at least every 6 months to a year or so, and I had issues with fans but applying some lubricant every few years has worked well (I've done it twice to the PSU, the fan looked really dead spinning slowly and smelling apart from all the noise... well that was like 6 years ago and I'm still on the same fan, had to lubricate it twice in this period of time),

I wouldn't really run the OC 24/7, but power saving features as mentioned should take care of this...

and... there is no guarantee that it will work, your desktop is not server grade hardware, but... parts fail for all sorts of reason, from my experience running 24/7 in this fashion (not always 100% load) is not an additional huge risk factor

keep in mind my PC is under very low load for most of the time, running it with high loads would probably be worse.

 

[UsandThem]

I have an i7 4770k desktop running at 4.3 GHz. I haven't been much concerned about the CPU, though apparently I should not run it more than 9-1/2 h/d. I am concerned about the DVD player, however: do you think it will mechanically wear out from starting and stopping? And if I leave my machine on to avoid wearing out the DVD, do I burn out my CPU?

Did that 9 1/2 hour figure come from the thread (that's now deleted) I posted in? I was joking around, there's no 9 1/2 hour limit for Haswell CPUs.

People like Markfw run their computers (with loads) 24/7. Just keep good airflow in your case, and you will be fine to run it as long as you want to.