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Fans, processors and folding issues

M

MN Scout

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jan 26, 2003
Messages
4,726
Who has killed or almost killed a OEM computer with F@H, UD, Seti or the like?

I almost killed my first computer today. I'm not sure if it was a direct result of running the processor at 100% or it was on its last legs. I just set up a computer at work. An old Gateway 1.1ghz Celeron. The powersupply fan was sounding a little clunky, so I told myself I'd listen and make sure it doesn't go out while I'm setting it up. So here I take a glance in the open case, while I sit at the desk, and the processor fan just stops spinning. :( I shut the comp down immediately, and switched the hd over to a second identical case.

Now I had just installed F@H 4 hourse earlier, since I was done with the instal and it was going to be deployed. Now I'm thinking that the old Coolermaster OEM fan couldn't take the heat and just siezed up. Running the processor at 100% was most likely just a catalyst to quicken up its death.

Anyone have a similar experience?

-MN Scout
 
put a drop of oil on the fan and hope for the best?

Never killed an OEM or any other computer with F@H... I've shocked the hell out of one by accident a few years back.... but never folding-related..... of course, I've had a few lockups due to heat.... but nothing catastrophic...
.

Keep on Folding!! For the [H]orde!!

 
I dunno...

I've gone though ~5 PSU's on my boxen "burning" them in for ~3+ months at most. This is across almost 200 units. Just seems kinda a high fail rate. Also cooked 2 hard drives.

Not really OEM boxen, but new white boxes build by a vendor.
 
I haven't killed a computer with folding, but I'll be surprised if 1/2 the labs that I run are in good working order in a couple months. See, we have a construction team in the building that those labs are located in, and there is dust *everywhere.* I mean, I leave work, and there is a layer of dust on me already. At this point, there is a monthly effort to clean up the computers in that building, but with the other "projects" that just got dumped on my team, there is little to no chance of that happening before June. I'm just hoping that we loose a whole lab, and that management finally realizes that addition an air filtration system AND some kind of cooling system for the labs is a good idea. Problem is, is that it'll take a 60K loss for them to see the 100K to install the filtration and cooling system as "worth the investment." :mad:

 
To me it sounds like the fan on the heatsink went out on it's own. I doubt it had anything to do with folding. You would be more likely to burn something out on the motherboard than killing a fan.

That system was by no means new and just waiting for something to go out on it I'd bet. Be glad you caught it now instead of later as that fan was going to die whether folding was on the system or not. Just remember, at least with folding on the systems they will probably heat up quick enough to lock up instead of just causing random annoying errors. This is actually better than you think. That way the system would get back to you quicker with an easy to diagnose problem. Otherwise, the person could be sitting there dealing with errors and stuff saying that Windows sucks or something.

Folding for troubleshooting wins again. ;)

 
Well, I've always heard that folding doesnt hurt your pc. That's what we say to folks we're trying to borg right?

I dont know if it's related but I installed F@H on a perfectly good laptop a few months ago. It started getting really hot and within a few days the hard drive failed. Go figure.
 
DamienThorn said:
I haven't killed a computer with folding, but I'll be surprised if 1/2 the labs that I run are in good working order in a couple months. See, we have a construction team in the building that those labs are located in, and there is dust *everywhere.* I mean, I leave work, and there is a layer of dust on me already. At this point, there is a monthly effort to clean up the computers in that building, but with the other "projects" that just got dumped on my team, there is little to no chance of that happening before June. I'm just hoping that we loose a whole lab, and that management finally realizes that addition an air filtration system AND some kind of cooling system for the labs is a good idea. Problem is, is that it'll take a 60K loss for them to see the 100K to install the filtration and cooling system as "worth the investment." :mad:

Click to expand...


Guelph University? I'm close at U of Waterloo, we (Engineering Dept...Im a student) just burnt out a servr because of that reason, dust, req'd manual cleaning and someone pinched the fan cable. Convince Waterloo Eng to fold ;)

Edit: My PowermacG5 has been going mighty strong at 100% on both processors and they run HOT.
 
SmokeRngs said:
To me it sounds like the fan on the heatsink went out on it's own. I doubt it had anything to do with folding. You would be more likely to burn something out on the motherboard than killing a fan.

That system was by no means new and just waiting for something to go out on it I'd bet. Be glad you caught it now instead of later as that fan was going to die whether folding was on the system or not. Just remember, at least with folding on the systems they will probably heat up quick enough to lock up instead of just causing random annoying errors. This is actually better than you think. That way the system would get back to you quicker with an easy to diagnose problem. Otherwise, the person could be sitting there dealing with errors and stuff saying that Windows sucks or something.

Folding for troubleshooting wins again. ;)

Click to expand...

I like that thinking.

Yeah folding shouldn't hurt anything. I've heard that running the processors 100% would decrease their life by a certain percent. Idk if that was just an old wives tale or if there is any proof from Intel or AMD what the lifespan is of their processors. I'd say that everyone should be more worried about junky psu. Even when running with no folding those things die all the time.

That heatsink got really hot fast after that fan went. Atleast I saved it, and the team can add another 1.1 ghz of Celeron goodness :rolleyes: What is that equal to a P3 400? It has the pc100 ram.

-MN Scout
 
MN Scout said:
I like that thinking.

Yeah folding shouldn't hurt anything. I've heard that running the processors 100% would decrease their life by a certain percent. Idk if that was just an old wives tale or if there is any proof from Intel or AMD what the lifespan is of their processors. I'd say that everyone should be more worried about junky psu. Even when running with no folding those things die all the time.

That heatsink got really hot fast after that fan went. Atleast I saved it, and the team can add another 1.1 ghz of Celeron goodness :rolleyes: What is that equal to a P3 400? It has the pc100 ram.

-MN Scout
Click to expand...

It would be difficult to equate it to a P3 400 as there was no such processor. The slowest released was a PIII 450. Anyway, it would run about the same as a PIII 1.1. Folding doesn't care too much about cache or bus speeds as far as the type of WU's that setup would grab. QMDs are the only ones that are an exception and that's because more than one instance of them on a system can saturate the P4's bus. This is one of the reasons why we'd love to see them running properly on an A64. It probably wouldn't have the same limitations.

 
clean_me said:
Guelph University? I'm close at U of Waterloo, we (Engineering Dept...Im a student) just burnt out a servr because of that reason, dust, req'd manual cleaning and someone pinched the fan cable. Convince Waterloo Eng to fold ;)

Edit: My PowermacG5 has been going mighty strong at 100% on both processors and they run HOT.
Click to expand...

Yep, UoG. We've got server problems of our own, but that's largely because we just moved to windows based servers from Novell ones...the problems have been staggering (not mapping drives, them being mapped incorrectly, passwords and logins not working, etc). I'm hoping that the administration learns they need to give us more money and power, but I'm admittedly not optimistic.

 
Yeah, sort of messed up my processor equation. :rolleyes: I guess that I have used the lowend p3s that seem faster. It's all subjective of course.

Let's hear more stories of computer nightmares with running computers 24/7. I don't mean to scare people off, but it's fun to hear about horror stories, and expensive equipment dying.

-MN Scout
 
I have a couple on which I can smell burning PCB...don't know if that counts as killing yet though :p As a note, the computers *are* still folding; they're under warranty, and non-critical machines, so I don't care if they die :p

 
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