lsmartino wrote
clare wrote
I replace enought ATX computer SMPSs before they hit 3
years - many within 2, and too many within one. And they
are running, in many cases, on protected power supplies.
Me too, and the problem doesnīt stops with the SMPS. I have seen
enough motherboard failures caused by defective capacitors. In fact,
there is even a website www.badcaps.net dedicated to motherboard
failures caused by bad capacitors.
That wasnt due to deliberately designing the component to fail
just outside warrant and is just another example of bad design,
in this case the technology used to manufacture those caps.
A TV, or a computer monitor left on all the time will last less
time of course. A CRT has a definite lifespan, and if the monitor
or the TV set is a LCD based one, the CFL bulbs used to light up
the screen have a definite lifespan. Did you knew that, Mr. Know
Nothing ?
And certain parts ONLY fail on start-up because of power surges. Some
devices would run litterally forever if never shut off - others are
robust enough to handle starting and stopping but have finite life
devices. My experience with computer monitors (over 17 years) has
been those left on 24/7 generally outlast those that are started and
stopped several times a day. Phosphor burn used to be the major
problem with 24/7 operation. Today it is SMPS failure. I can't
remember the last monitor I had to replace due to CRT failure. My own
newest monitor is well over 5 years old now. It is generally never
turned off (just powers itself down when I leave)
Thatīs interesting. In my experience I have found that computer CRT
monitors left 24/7 on, tend to present an overall decrease in brightness
and focus in less than 4 years, and in some cases they get pretty unusable.
Mine didnt
The cheaper the monitor is, the worse is the effect.
Thats just plain wrong too.
Of course, turning it off/on constantly isnīt a good idea either.
Normally I set them to turn off automatically if the computer is
left unused for 1 hour.
I only turn them off overnight, and only because of the substantial
power use thats inevitable with big 19" CRT monitors.
ANd Hard drives that are never shut off generally DO last
significantly longer than those that get powered down (which
is why I disable power management on my servers). I have
a set of 10 year old scsi drives in one of the servers that will
likely go another 10 years if I don't scrap the server. That
server has not had a SINGLE FAILURE over those 10 years.
It cost about $10,000 new. The drives were likely over $1000
each. They are 8gb? The EIDE drive I just installed is 160gb
and cost $79.00. Will it last 10 years? Not likely!
I agree with that.
I dont on that last.
I too disable power management in my harddrives and
I havenīt had a single failure with them, and also I have
found that HDDs that are normally 24/7 ON lasts a lot longer,
So much for your previous claim. Most personal desktop systems
wont ever see anything like 50K start stops with the default
shutdown before MS changed the default with XP.
and when they fail, is normally because a bearing failure, for instance.
Not anymore. And you just said that you hadnt had any failures.
You cant have it both ways.
In the other hand, I usually replace the HDDīs
of my computer as soon as they get 5 years old.
More fool you.
There is no need to take unnecessary risks, specially
when the capacity of HDDs increases each year.
Anyone with a clue has adequate backups so there is no extra risk at all.