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Will 24/7 100% CPU usage damage my system?

J

Jimmy the Greek

Gawd
Joined
Aug 20, 2002
Messages
657
I'm thinking about Folding on 3 PCs that are all above 2.4 GHz.

One of them is actually still of value, though, so I don't want F@H to destroy it. Will running F@H at 100% 24/7 cause the CPU or any other components to age faster and break down sooner?
 
Viper87227 said:
Assuming they are cooled properly, you shouldn't have an issue.
Click to expand...

What about a 2.8 GHz Prescott in a thin Dell (not mine, of course, heh heh) case?

The fan went into overdrive when it was running at 100%. Lowered it to 50, then 20, but still like a jet engine. I've settled on 5 for now, but that won't do any good.

Unfortunately, there isn't any temp monitoring onboard, and I wouldn't know how to begin adding sensors. The back of the case was warm to the touch, though.

As long as it doesn't crash, is everything A-OK? Or could this shorten it's life?
 
The short answer: No, it's perfectly safe.

The longer answer: No, it's perfectly safe, provided the cooling is adequate, as Viper said. And you can pretty much rest assured that your cooling is adequate unless you are experiencing instability on your computer. Keep in mind as well that lots of people around here are running an awful lot of computers at 100% 24/7, and folding never causes a problem. If that doesn't help you, then I'll tell you a little bit about semiconductor fabrication. The various layers and masks are applied, and the SiO2, polysilicon, and metal layers are added (or formed) at temperatures at or above about 450 degrees C. So you won't be getting anywhere near temperatures that would cause short-term damage. Running at a higher temperature can shorten the life of electronics, but their lifetime will still be way longer than you would use them. As in 25 years instead of 50.
 
I've been folding for 3 years and have had my machines running at 100% all the time. I built my machines withan eye on cooling because they are all overclocked (except the 2 laptops). If you are concerned with the temps download SpeedFan and see what they are.
http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php.
Also clean the computer every 4-6 months to keep it running cool. (just take it outside and use a can of compressed air. Use canned air not air from a compressor because canned air is conductive so it will not build up static. Compressed air will build up static and can (I've done it) destroy your MB/ Ram/ and Processor.
 
It has probably been close to eight or nine years since I last had a machine I didn't run at 100% 24/7 for the most part. Some of them didn't have the best cooling either.

My work machine is a P4 2.8 Preshott Dell in the mini case. I run it at 100% 24/7 and haven't had a problem. Yes, the fan does spin up and make a shitload of noise but that's unavoidable. However, it should not spin to 100% unless the area it's in is hot or the POS excuse for a heatsink is gummed up with dust. I clean mine out at work every couple of months. It does help with the noise that I have it under the desk sitting on a wooden platform type thing I also prop my feet up on. This way it doesn't grab near as much dust. That's important considering the shitty ventilation and air circulation in my building and the fact it's full of dust no matter what.

I almost forgot to add. I have yet to have a system burn up on me from this type of use. I've had hardware die due to something else going apeshit. For example, I was testing out a K6-2 system and tossed the CPU I had in the motherboard for this system. It was dumping over 3 volts into the processor which is just a little bit high for them. Sad to say, it didn't immediately fry my CPU, but it never worked correctly afterwards. The moral of the story: 100% CPU load has never killed any of my hardware.

 
You guys convinced me, so I went 50% on the Prescott. After 5 minutes of folding, the back vents were warm enough to ignite a sheet of paper.

It's under a desk with no opening at the top, so the airflow is lacking. I'm worried that it will blow up at some point.

Even though I can't find any CPU temp sensors in Speedfan, does the Prescott have an internal sensor that will throttle it to prevent fires?
 
Ignite a sheet of paper? I hope you don't mean that literally... Yes its going to be hot back there but I'd say that is somewhat of a good sign. IE. heat is successfully being vented from the CPU and case. Also, it probably will freeze and have issues long before fire is a danger and then at that point you might want to figure out why the cpu is getting too hot. Like for example the heatsink isn't properly attached or the cpu fan isn't working or something worse... The sff's i have to deal with are hp's and the fans spin up faster when they get a warmer. I think they get that way when they get a little dusty or just generally run a little warmer and therefore closer to that temperature threshold that causes the fans to speed up. In fact the sound of the increasing fan speed is often likened by coworkers to a jet engine. Though I wonder why people ask me about it, they act as if they're afraid the computer is actually going to take off. Or are they afraid their delicate ears are going to be damaged by a little fan noise? Heh Oops im ranting about the darn users again...


 
Jimmy the Greek said:
Even though I can't find any CPU temp sensors in Speedfan, does the Prescott have an internal sensor that will throttle it to prevent fires?
Click to expand...

It's a Dell, they don't let you monitor or control anything like that. You don't need to worry about cooking the CPU. The built in throttle mechanism will take care of anything long before it hits that point.

As I mentioned, open the thing up and clean the dust out of the heatsink. I know the one I use it terrible about catching dust. It's not a GX280 is it? That's what mine happens to be. The system is terrible for cooling but I have been running it 24/7 for over two years now. Amazingly enough I've had uptimes of about 90 days on them Two things normally kill my uptime: needed reboot for installed patches or power outage caused by a storm or something running down poles or whole or partial building power shutdown for maintenance on the power systems for the building.

 
My mobile barton 2500+ (oc'd to 2.4ghz) that I got shortly after I started folding has been 24/7 for close to 4 years now. Still runs like a champ. And my current 3000+ oc'd to 2.9ghz (1.1ghz oc btw) has been 24/7 for just shy of 2 years. Trust me, your box would be so old you can't give it away before folding would kill it.
 
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