Hi, I had asked a question a few months ago about lifespans of CPUs and motherboards here and I got to learn a great deal from you guys and thanks to all the replied. I was hoping to ask a more specific question and hoping if anyone had some opinions about it. I have recently acquired broadband connection on my computer and plan to keep my computer on all night till about 8AM so that I can download stuff. I will be turning the monitor off. I would like to know if you think this would affect the lifespan of my system in anyway. My system is over 3 years old anyway. The opinion is that unless you overclock, your hardware is not under any risk. But do you think leaving the comp on like this (just downloading, with no activity) would reduce the lifespan drastically. If the lifespan goes down a bit I dont mind that. But I dont want my comp to fail on me in the next 6 months because I have been leaving it on all nigt till 8am. I usually keep it on from about 10pm at night to 8am in the morning. Sometimes if I am awake I give it a 30 min break from 1:30am to 2am. If this usage reduces the life a bit its fine, but I dont want it to fail on me immediately becaue of this usage. Thanks to all, Sarosh. Sarosh

My stuff is on 24/7...machines range from 2 P133's to an XP 2800+. The PIII750 laptop, 1800+, 2400+ and 2800+ all work at 100% cpu load 24/7 with the laptop only powered down when I'm using it for work. Skip

A well-taken-care-of CPU will last forever. Close to forever. Your mechanical stuff (hard drive, fans, CD) will go far earlier than your CPU will.

Many businesses leave their computers on 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year & they don't die an early death. I think you're worrying over nothing. I don't buy the "overclocking shortens lifespan" agrument either. As long as the PC is properly maintained & cooled, the shortening of the lifespan (if it does indeed occur) would be so minimal that it wouldn't even be noticed. What is the lifespan of a CPU anyway? There are still plenty of people clinging to their old socket 7 Pentium 166MHz CPUs & they're at least 10-12 yrs old now. Realistically, these CPUs have outlived their "useable" lifespan in so much as they don't have enough "horsepower" to run modern operating systems & apps...but they're still happily chugging along running Win95 & Win98 & doing basic tasks & internet. What I'm getting at is *most* people will replace their CPU long before it dies of old age. And if overclocking actually knocks a year or 2 off it's 10+ year life, who the heck cares? What are the chances that you'll still be running your P4/2.53GHz CPU in 2016? And another thing...a large majority of CPUs are underclocked to begin with. Do you really think AMD & Intel have a separate "assembly line" for each & every CPU it makes? Once the process for a certain wafer/core is perfected, they basically produce one CPU of that core type. A single wafer yields approx 500 cores, but from that one wafer can come several different speed CPUs. For example, from the same Venice core wafer, the breakdown could be something like 200-3800+, 100-3500+, 100-3200+, & 100-3000+. The only difference between the 3000+ & the 3800+ might be that it won't run stably at 2.4GHz at the default vcore of 1.4v, but will run stably at 1.8GHz/1.4v. It may run perfectly stable at 2.4GHz/1.5v, but that's not the voltage spec AMD is shooting for, so they underclock. Then again, there may be absolutely no difference between the two CPUs, other than there's a demand for both 3800+ & 3000+ CPUs, so AMD programs one to run at 2.4GHz & the other to run at 1.8GHz. Read more in response # 4 in this thread: http://www.computing.net/cpus/wwwboard/forum/13057.html

"The opinion is that unless you overclock, your hardware is not under any risk" Even though if you do not overclock your system, if you don't maintain your computer well, it will still fail under normal usuage. Dust collect in your case fast and they cause mysterous high case temperature, so I would vaccum your computer every 3 months... I still have my old 486DX machine inside my closet, plays MS-Dos games flawlessly... If my 15+ years old 486DX still works, why you need to worry about 2.53Ghz CPU which you bought it recently... I don't understand why people need to worry about high temperature like omg my CPU is at 45C full load or if I use my computer 24/7 non-stop, it will fail soon... In fact, I used computers for so long and the only times I screwed up my computer is incorrectly install the socket A heatsink, causing my old Duron 1300Mhz edge crumbled off... Other than than, I ran my old Duron 1300Mhz 75C full load for 3 months w/o any problem, until I took the damn CPU fan crapout on me (BIOS screen beep) and have to replace a new cheap heatsink, there goes my $25 investment waaaaa... TMP-Man Asus P5P800-SE P4 506 2.66Ghz @ 4100Mhz 1.525v Thermaltake CLP0024 w/ 2000RPM FAN 1024MB DC Corsair DDR400 40GB 5400RPM/120GB 7200RPM HD 128MB Radoen 9500 mod 9700 @ 360/585

Thanks guys, You are all always very helpful. Much appreciated. Regards, Sarosh. Sarosh