Timeline for How long can an abandoned, semi-sheltered computer remain bootable?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 23, 2017 at 17:02 | comment | added | user | What do you have against the PDP-11? It can run UNIX, and with some care, even TCP/IP. :-) FWIW, while I have replaced parts and extended it somewhat over time, my current PC just passed the five year mark, and is humming along nicely under my desk. No special precautions, really (but I do have it on a UPS, though the PSU is newer than the UPS). The one I had before then got to become about eight years old, and I probably could have breathed life back into it if I hadn't taken that as a good a time as any to upgrade. | |
| Jan 29, 2015 at 4:33 | comment | added | jamesqf | I think the 3-5 years is an underestimation. I'm writing this on my Lenovo T61, which I bought in '07 0r '08, and have used as my main machine ever since. (I did replace the drive with an SSD a couple of years ago.) And I booted my old Dell laptop a couple of months ago, after it had been sitting for years. Worked fine after the battery charged up. Oh, and I have an HP-12C calculator from about 1982 that I still use. | |
| Dec 8, 2014 at 15:47 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | @DA: That may be a YMMV caveat. I have found my hardware to last 3-5 years. In particular graphics cards and power supplies seem to love to give out on me. My hardware lifespan seems to fit well with the practical use lifespan, so I used those numbers. I did have a P2 which lasted 15 years, but that's an older computer. Consider your hardware blessed ;) | |
| Dec 8, 2014 at 7:19 | comment | added | DA. | "3-5 year lifespan" = wouldn't that be more of a 3-5 year practical use lifespan due to software demands more than electro/mechanical failures? Very few of my computers have died at year 5. | |
| Dec 7, 2014 at 18:08 | comment | added | Ville Niemi | @EmmettR. Yes, that is why the first sentence of my comment has "underground" in it. In stable conditions the hardware could stay functional for a long time, but modern mass storage is vulnerable to "bit rot". Eventually a file needed for booting would become corrupted. That would be my "first-to-fail" guess for a computer without faulty components or environmental stress factors. | |
| Dec 7, 2014 at 17:32 | comment | added | Emmett R. | @VilleNiemi All valid failure modes. I just wonder which would be likely to fail first and when. Also, I would think that cosmic rays would be at least partially mitigated in an underground situation. | |
| Dec 7, 2014 at 7:02 | comment | added | Ville Niemi | Also, cool, stable temperature, dry environment, and being underground all help a lot. Modern computers are vulnerable to temperature variations (solder/caps), high temperatures (electronics/caps), moisture (mold), and cosmic rays (ICs/storage). Basically, any of the above kills a computer. Although cosmic rays can usually be ignored as the damage is highly random. | |
| Dec 7, 2014 at 4:18 | history | answered | Cort Ammon | CC BY-SA 3.0 |