Do Computers slow down over time?

[Doug]

Here's a question I put to all the audio restoration buffs out there.
Last night the computer I installed Craig & Ricks DCArt on gave up the ghost.

Anyway, over the last year and especially over the last several months I noticed it getting slower and slower. This is despite fresh installs of windows XP, DCArt, countless defragments and ensuring that 80% on each HD was free, even new HDs.

just before it passed out, I notice the RAM was saying 300Mb, and not 512Mb that it should have been. But, the computer is probably nearly 8-10yrs old and all those electronic components inside must be reaching their functional shelf life. So my questions for discussion are:

1. How long can/should a computer and its components be kept for archival and restoration work?

2. Can the decline be delayed?

3. Other than the possibility of failed RAM in my case, does electronic component degradation lead into a decline in computer processing power/speed


Dr Doug

PS Craig and Rick...it's Dr Doug now as of Tues last week!

[Craig Maier]

Congratulations Dr! Good luck with your future endeavours as you move forward.

I am not an expert in computer reliability, but I do know that semiconductor reliability roughly follow the Arrhenius equation which implies that component life halves for each 10 degree C in junction temperature elevation. But, in general, in digital systems, I would expect that the slow degradation would manifest itself in a catastrophic failure, not a slow decline in performance except for RAM chip failure.

Hopefully, someone else will be knowledgable about this relevant and interesting topic.

ps - here is the Wikepedia link concerning activation energies as it pertains to the Arrhenius relationship:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrhenius_equation

My simplistic summary of this math is as follows:

Running Electronic Equipment just a Little Bit Cooler makes it last a Whole Lot Longer.

[sus4chord]

Hi, Doug -

I'm still running my 7 year old home-built Pentium-III, 800 MHz to do my recording and some restoration work. It's slow (relative to my new screamer), but it still works as always. That being said, I have had to replace the memory on it. If you were down to 300-something MB, then you're getting close to just enough memory to run the operating system, much less to run applications. I would suspect your slowness came about as a result of caching out to the hard drive, because of low memory conditions. Rather than give up the ghost, I would probably just buy some new memory (try www.newegg.com). And if your system supports it, I would max it out. Memory does affect performance by limiting the amount of times data has to transfer to disk.

The other things to look at (in line with Craig's advice) is to open the box and make sure there aren't dust bunnies in there. You may also have a failing power supply; new supplies aren't that expensive. And you can easily add additional fans, but of course, that can increase the noise element.

I've generally not found a computer in the many years I've worked with them actually slow down, but I have found factors that cause it to perform slower (as mentioned above).