[G4] Sleep or leave running?

[John Niven]

I've spent 29 years in the semiconductor industry and
have qualified many product after various "stress"
tests.

No-one has ever suggested a "turn-on, turn-off" test
:-)

We do however perform accelerated life tests at above
normal Voltages and temperatures. I have to tell you
that semiconductors DO wear out with continuous usage.


That typically only happens after extended periods,
much beyond the useful life of even a LEM Mac!

The bad news is as devices shrink, the wearout problem
is becoming more acute. Hopefully if I do my job
right, nobody will notice but, what will always be
true is that with no power there is no wearout.

We do also perform temperature cycling tests. No power
is applied but the devices are cycled repeatedly
between -40C and +125C looking for weaknesses in the
packaging. You will not see anything like these
extremes in a home computer.

I know less about spinning mechanical things, except
when I have to take my car to the garage. I think they
don't wear out when they are not moving.

If you want to have a computer for a really long time
you should learn from the makers of high-availability
servers. They have RAID arrays and redundant power
supplies. So regular backups, and a second hard drive 
(you can use OSX's RAID1 mirror format easily) are the
prescription. And a spare power supply if one comes to
hand.

I believe that one should shutdown or sleep a computer
as much as is practical. It saves power, and wearout.
While I may enjoy the warmer weather global warming
brings, it's spoiled by the water flowing in under my
door!

Cheers, John
 
--- Keith Whaley <keith_w at dslextreme.com> wrote:
 
> However, if you don't mind my interruption, any
> electronic components  
> that draw power heat up and expand when turned on,
> and cool down and  
> contract when shut off.
> 
> I guess it's entirely possible today's far more
> sophisticated  
> manufacturing engineering designers have provided
> comfortably for  
> that heat/cool cycle life. Many of 'yesterday's'
> components didn't  
> cycle all that well...


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