How long do motherboards generally last?

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Gawd
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Aug 25, 2010
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I have a 3930K running on a GIGABYTE GA-X79-UD3 since January 2012. Wanted to know how long do motherboards generally last? I have no use for a new PC right now and don't want the motherboard crapping itself forcing me to buy new. I already had to replace the power supply couple years ago as it went bad and was causing restarts during gaming. Note that I have been using this PC in a climate controlled environment and dusting it out when required.
 
If used regularly, I'd say 10 years is a good run. Caps sort of have a tendency to start crapping out at that point. May go a bit longer, but then you are running a dinosaur and can forget about playing most newer/modern games.
 
modern mainboards last insanely long and i have had very good longevity from other gigabyte boards. weird company....out of the box the mainboards are often twitchy and while they do get the bugs fixed with bios updates, it can take them some time. but on the other hand they're cheaper than the competition usually and they're solid hardware.

ever since they went to all ceramic caps they have been lasting a long time. sounds like you're taking care of it, so wouldn't be surprised if it went a bit longer.

honestly, at this point if you don't need anything better just ride it out. if it dies it didn't owe you anything at this point and you're not getting a new board for that processor.
 
I've got an Asrock P5B (intel p965) running a c2q rig that's still chugging along and a MSI Z68A-GD65, bought with a 2600k that worked fine when I dismantled the rig, years ago. I would 100% trust it to fire right back up today. So who knows, you could get another 5 or 10 years out of her!
 
I feel it was a short window (the cap-plague mentionned above) that the notion of a motherboard-monitor to be expected to fail during a possible to use outside some niche hobby affair existed.

40 years old motherboard can still work, I imagine the internet is filled of retro build, late 70s Apple 2 system, etc.. still working, maybe the more complex modern affair will not have the longevity, more parts, higher requirement, but it could be quite long.

10 years would not be a particularly long life, I am sure there full of Ipod 1-2-3 from before 2005 still working.
 
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my ex build (Evga P55 Micro SLI) still can do 3.8ghz 1,2v of core i3 530 before I sold it at 2019.
that overclock applied from 2010 since the first time I bought the pair (9 years), but to be honest, I don't know the update situation on that pair as the I don't have the buyer's contact.
 
I have two socket 775 boards which were retired in the last couple of years which were still running fine when I retired them. One was a Gigabyte 965p Intel chipset board which started with an E6400 which was replaced a year later with a Q6600 and ran overclocked pretty much 24/7 until retirement. The other is an Abit IP35-e which had an overclocked Q6600 it's whole life also ran almost 24/7 the whole time and it was working fine when retired. I haven't fired it up in a while but I also have a Gigabyte socket AM2 (I think) from the same time period as the other two boards. It ran an overclocked A64 x2 4000+ (2.1Ghz stock) at 2.8Ghz for years. It was retired several years back. I might pull it out and fire it up some time just for the hell of it.

Anything older than that was sold off, thrown away or got left behind in moves over the years.

If you don't abuse the board (and I'm not talking about safe overclocks) and the board wasn't junk to begin with it should be fine for a very long time. Usually the primary death for a motherboard is the caps and the quality of those is much better than it used to be.
 
I bought an Asus Crosshair III Formula in 2009 and it still works great. As long as you don't get crazy on the overclocking they last a long time. This board's LED turns red to let you know when you are crazy. I've been running in the yellow since day one.
 
I have a gigabyte board with an Intel 750 that works perfectly. Thing has to be ~13 years old.
 
LukeTbk said:
I feel it was a short window (the cap-plague mentionned above) that the notion of a motherboard-monitor to be expected to fail during a possible to use outside some niche hobby affair existed.
Click to expand...

The capacitor plague and the switch to unleaded solder both contributed significantly. A large increase in power usage plus active cooling without robust thermal throttling added another failure mode. All in, stuff from maybe 1999-2009 is probably not going to last without major maintenance, but before and after is probably fine. I like to call it 'the lost decade', but probably nobody else will.
 
I'd say easily 10-15 years a good motherboard should last you. I have a 2012 Asus Maximus V Gene with 3770K overclocked to 5ghz since day one and it's still running in the living room as my media pc. It's watercooled and push to the limit since day one and I've had no issues with it.
 
They can last abit but I've seen various failures of the power distribution mosfetts on x99 x79 boards. Likewise a am3 9570 setup is probrably running on limited time.

Under stresssed quality setups should last forever. My server lga1366 and dual 2011 setups feel invincible.
 
Gah, I wish I hadn't sold my 2600k just so I could fire up the old MSI board. I've got the itch now. No no no, way too much to do already...
 
My Asus A7V8X is still going.

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Electronics can last a very long time. There isn't some built-in expiration date that you need to concern yourself with. I use audio hardware in my stereo that is almost 50 years old. My old Dual-Xeon system is 20+ years old now and still works fine, although it doesn't get used much these days because they are 32-bit CPUs. I still refurbish socket 775 systems for people on a regular basis, taking some old Intel Dual-Core system or even a single-core 64-bit Pentium 4 that came with Vista and putting in a Q6600, Q8200, Q9550, etc, extra RAM, adding an SSD, removing the 56k modem, and installing Windows 11. Most of them are at least 15 years old at this point and still work great.

The most important variable is, was it good quality hardware to begin with? Good quality electronics tend to last a VERY long time. Junk doesn't.
 
Most of the time longer than it is useful if It's a gaming system. For gaming it has a much lower usable lifespan. 5 to 10 years is a stretch I've gotten close, but I can't wait that long lol.
 
There was an era of bad capacitors when motherboards died very early. I want to say early 2000s? I was in the military then so I didn't build many systems at that point. But after that point, as Dan_D said, boards usually last way longer than you need them nowadays.
 
I have a friend who's still using his 486 DX33 he bought in 1991. He converted it into a linux server around 1998-99 and it's been running 24/7 since then. Last year he was sad that Linux was about to drop support for the 486. ;)
 
One of my two Intel LGA-1366 systems died about 8-9 years ago, part swapping determined it was a bad mobo (ironically it was the newer by a year board that failed). The second one is still running today; as are the pair of haswell systems I built around the same time.
 
I never had a board go bad since Socket 7 (was overclocking a K6-2 500 and killed the system, not sure if the board actually died I just built a new system). I still have MSI Z87 MPower (2013) and Gigabyte X99-UD4 (2014) they are both used everyday. I gave a (2009) MSI H57 board to a friend over 10 years ago and he still uses the system as his gaming rig. Motherboards last a very long time.
 
I haven't had a retail board fail on me in a long time.

By the time they are old enough to fail because of age the new bargain bin parts are faster. I'd recommend a planned upgrade before Murphy's Law forces one, if I were in your shoes. Then it can be orderly and maybe enjoyable. Break/fix is rarely fun. Brand new i3 12100F + motherboard + 16GB memory for $250. Maybe twice as fast, less power and heat, plus a nice upgrade path.
 
Surprisingly long. Outside of the electrolytic nightmare from the late 90s through the mid 2000s.
Recapping boards was HUGE and it wasn't just motherboards that were affected by this. Anyone with decent soldering skills could make a decent living during those times! :-D
 
At least 10-20 years. I bet a computer that was never turned off would last a lot longer than a computer that was turned on and off on a daily basis.
 
been using asus exclusively, never had one fail, i had one that was 12 years old still running lol
 
Used my Soltek FRN2 (nForce2) as my main system daily for 13 years. Overclocked the whole time. Still runs in one of my retro gaming systems to this day.
 
I have a P45 MB that's been running 24/7/365 (well minus power outages, hardware swaps, OS update reboots, etc) since 2010, usually doing DC work. Same with a P67A MB.

I'm a believer in always on vs shutting off and back on as needed with desktop systems.
 
I have an old abit board I booted up the other day. I was going to swap in an old i7 920 mobo into the case to give to my brother in law as his current pc is even older.
 
I had an ASUS Maximus V Formula that lasted 10 years until a power surge popped a capacitor. For that matter, I had a 486 that still booted after 20 years. If all goes well, hardware can last a ridiculously long time.
 
I've had stuff living in machine rooms go 18 years. Heck one went almost seven years without a reboot.
 
I had a DFI Lanparty DK P35-TRS board with a Q6600 that lasted me for years. Handed it down to my Dad to use for a light gaming then an internet machine. Was chugging along just fine until I dismantled it for retirement recently.
 
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