-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tuesday, 2008-12-30 at 18:01 -0500, Greg Freemyer wrote:
Curiously, when I started studying electronics, there was the idea that the transistor was much better than valves because it was ethernal (amongst other things, of course). Now that I come to think of it, I didn't see in my books a study of why do electronics fail, component by component. Maybe they were learning it.
Most electronics fail because of stress on the wires inside the chips. ... After enough flexes the wires break.
Make sense. But there are other auxiliary components that can fail earlier, like electrolytic capacitors.
I believe that is one of the reasons the infamous freezer trick works on malfunctioning hard drives. By freezing the drive, you compress the plastic chips slightly and cause all the wires to make solid connections. As the drive warms up and starts expanding the broken wires separate again and your drive stops working again.
Interesting. But it could also be the typical cold solder joint. That reminds me... I have an old computer with a HD of the step motor type for the head. If I start it on winter, it fails to boot, read error. I have to wait 5..15 minutes till it warms up, and I guess, the position of the head shifts enough to match the expected position.
Military grade chips, CPUs, etc. that are worth spending extra money on are often made with a ceramic chip enclosure. That is because ceramic expands less due to heating.
Yes, and it is also harder.
The problem must not be as bad now as 20 years ago. Back then it was always recommended to leave computer equipment on as much as possible in order to extend the life of the equipment. I still tend to leave my PCs on all the time, but I don't see that advice given in general anymore.
Yes, I have seen that recommendation too.
FYI: I've heard that in some military tech schools they teach you how to attempt to repair a broken chip by opening it up and replacing the little wires if they break. Sounds like a real challenge to me, but I can see why it would be a useful skill in some situations.
Wow. I thought they only did that on movies. :-O - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAklay2IACgkQtTMYHG2NR9WgrQCfdoNWKEq4FNS2Y256FY9DzA4q Ce8AmgNwFInWGqrc5KON21yo3zK39LKp =30l/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org