I look at many used cars in the last few days, and try to educate myself on how and where a car breaks down and what to look for.
Now I have just come to the point that even such a PC is a relatively expensive investment, whose lifetime is limited.
But from what? Which parts are broken?
The hard drives / SSDs, if you do not chop them down, will last forever.
Processors from the early years of computers still work.
Memory is as good as unbreakable.
The power supply can, with a lot of bad luck and bad care, give up after many years, but is simply replaced.
Graphics cards with sufficient cooling are usually replaced only because of obsolescence, not because they are broken.
From broken motherboards (apart from the battery) on desktop PCs, I've heard very rarely, although there are thousands of different features and components on it. Is not it very unlikely that every single transistor, every resistor and every capacitor will be faultless? Or is there a certain error rate negligible? I do not think so with technology. Or is there simply redundancy for everything?
(I'm only talking about desktops here, laptops often have problems with jiggling or breaking wires, overheating and of course the screen, but also due to the physical effects)
Is the electronics manufacturer's business based solely on the fact that components are extremely outdated and thus renewed, even if they are not broken, or what does it look like? Am I just imagining the low error rate of PCs? But I really do not know anyone who has changed his PC due to a defect.
Some assumptions are grossly wrong.
Hard drives are more often than you think the first component that breaks in a system. After 4-5 years of intensive use, they usually go awry at some point. Sometimes they break even after a year or two if you are unlucky. In no case, these are unbreakable.
Processors from the early years still work, but newer processors are more sensitive because of the finer lithography. I would not build on more than 10 years.
Work storage is absolutely not unbreakable. He often breaks down after a few years. Most of the time, though, you get bluescreens instead of a "total loss", but you have to replace it anyway. Also often one of the first broken components.
With mainboards, the capacitors break down more often, but that works with one or two fewer.
I would say that business builds on people getting more and more computers. Who does not have a computer these days, most of them probably have several monitors computers, iot devices and the like. And in the industry more and more are purchased.
Okay, I'm a little bit surprised that so many say HDDs broke down quickly. For laptops, I can only agree with that, I've lost 2 myself, but I still have one from a PC, which is now approaching the age of 20, and although this is no longer up to date, but still works.
Of course, luck can be, but I thought these things are quite durable, if you do not just put magnets in the room.
Even old consoles, such as the now almost 15 years old Xbox 360 or as an extreme example of the first Gameboy, work fine with me, both as far as I know with memory and motherboard, admittedly not all work anymore.
Maybe you can explain how this is regulated with the capacitors? Are those for the core functions simply unimportant or is it then switched to other, still functional?
With higher capacities, the probability is much higher that the things break. Your 20 year old hard disks just have more room for tolerance. But if manufacturers now squeeze significantly more than 10tb on a 3.5 inch drive, then there's little room for there.
Consoles are also not used as often as a PC. It makes a difference if you run the device 12 hours a day, or 10 hours a week, once a week. Daa device ages with use, not with time.
That's why people are more interested in cars for the mileage than the year of construction (unless of course a year has certain features or the like).
And as I said, lithography is finer today. An 8kB RAM chip on the Gameboy will break you as fast as a 512MB RAM chip in a computer.
To use the car comparison again, if you have a Ford Model t you will hardly have problems with the Navi.
With the capacitors, it's just that you have a lot of them, and if they fail then the others are usually good enough too. They are just there to ensure the stability, goes to many without synonymous.
Well, a certain qoute of faulty transistors in the cpus, etc. Is indeed tollerierbar. Usually it's not what breaks.
what's.den PCs usually "by itself" broken is the hard drive or the power supply. Also like a few capacitors on the motherboard.
Incidentally, the reason most PCs "die" is the increased requirement for hardware. In the past, the pc itself was overloaded with unnecessary software. Today, this takes over for us microsoft with all the updates. I mean it can't handle, that the 32 Gig SSD of the transformer book of my Boyfriend is just enough for the operating system…
lg, Anna
PS: in this form of physical impact mostly survive only ancient computers such as the C64
So that's true with the records at least have a record of 2011 and is still faster than my 2016 record but is only Sata2! That the CPUs are more sensitive does not work either. The one with the motherboards is half right. What I think is the first goodbye is the power supply depending on the care. The graphics card then afterwards what it depends on how to handle the hardware whether now respected for adequate cooling or cleanliness is respected
Yes, components are quickly out of date, they usually last a long time.
CPUs, RAM parts and hard disks last almost forever.
GPU's wear out faster (because of the greater load, more parts, more heat). For me, a card has already smoked.
Just like the power supplies, which are indeed loaded with hundreds of watts of duration. I already smoked one.
A motherboard also lasts a long time, if something goes kapput, then it's more like capacitors that you can exchange.
Then there are the fans, which also do not necessarily last forever.
Well, your example of a hard drive says little about the general public.
And of course it also depends on how much you use the plate.
The CPUs seem more sensitive. Can't say more is logical if you know how they die. They are more sensitive nowadays. However, they still last a long time.
The power supply is often the component that dies first, but there are very strong quality differences. A cheap power adapter may last for 3 years, a high-end power supply 6 or 7.
Graphics cards die too early, but as said in the question, they are usually exchanged in advance anyway. Graphics cards are now mostly the first component you exchange.
