Self-hosters:
Facts.
Thermal cycling is one of the biggest stressors electrical components can be subjected to. Leaving your processor on and at a consistent load massively improves the lifetime of the chip. So take THAT, mom!
Heat cycling is a huge stressor on any material. That's part of why diesel freight trucks tend to last well past a million miles while it's newsworthy if a passenger car makes it that long. How many times a week is your Toyota Corolla driving 10+ hours at a time? Most commonly, when you hear of a million mile vehicle, it was making long haul deliveries daily and was maintained at the correct intervals.
I think there are a lot of other factors in that case.
The biggest reason why it's rare to see regular cars get to a million miles is because they don't get driven as much. At the average of 14k miles per year it would take 71 years for someone to drive 1 million miles. Since it takes so long to get there, many non engine related issues start taking hold like rust and obsoletion.
I had to scroll way too far to find this. Especially considering that I have a desktop with full disk encryption, I don't worry about it. If anyone ever did break into my house and take my computer, they would have to unplug it first; at that point, the disk would encrypt, and they'd have some really nice hardware which sucks for me, but that's all they'd get.
If anyone ever did break into my house and take my computer, they would have to unplug it first; at that point, the disk would encrypt
The disk is always encrypted. When data is accessed, it is stored decrypted in RAM. The drive doesn't decrypt when unlocking it and doesn't encrypt when turning it off.
I feel that. All the information stored on my PC isnt worth a fraction of what my graphics graphics card cost...
I run prime95 24/7 on my AMD FX-9590 to keep it at a nice stable temp. Plus it means I also don't need to heat my house in the winter. Gotta love a tdp of 220W.
My refrigerator was never the same after everything that happened in Yugoslavia.
Say what you will about Serbian nationalist fridges but unlike Yugoslavia, they were built to last!
Just be sure to clear the lint off your coils every five years or so. Otherwise you're making the poor guy suck air through a shag carpet.
Old fridges never die. Modern fridges are more efficient but more break-y, can't have both.
Actually modern fridges are usually less efficient. But that's because they use refrigerants that are literally thousands of times less harmful to the environment.
Old appliances frequently used R-12 which is an damn nice refrigerant except it depleted ozone and has a GWP (global warming potential) of 10,900. That means 1lb of R12 released into the air causes the same amount of global warming as releasing 10,900 lbs of CO2.
Newer appliances use refrigerants like R134a which still works pretty well, doesn't deplete ozone, and only has a GWP of 1,430.
The newest appliances are more frequently using R-600a which is hard on compressors because it has a high head pressure and it doesn't cool quite as well. But it also doesn't deplete ozone and it has a GWP of just 3. The bigest downside of that one is that it's very flamable (it's isobutane) so the legal limit on how much residential appliances can us is very low.
Old appliances broke, but they were made to be easy to fix so our grandparents could just swap out the broken parts. I helped my dad replace the compressor on an older fridge as a kid and the heating elements on my grandma's toaster. I remember my dad taking me to some locally owned mom and pop hardware store where we could buy replacement parts for old appliances off the shelf. My parents still have the toaster, but that store closed down and new stuff isn't made to be fixable anymore (most likely due to planned obsolescence thanks to late-stage-capitalism).
On a tangent, when you think about it, throwing an entire toaster away because one heating coil burned out or throwing awag an entire fridge just because the compressor gave out is not rational. But if you tell people we should have the freedom to buy repairable appliances then they look at you like you are crazy. To me, it is the other way around. Sustainability isn't political or a luxury, it is an inevitabe, unstoppable force of equilibrium.
When it comes to refrigeration in particular newer appliances tend to break more frequently because they are using more environmentally friendly refrigerants. Old CFCs cooled really well with minimal work from the compressor. Newer fridges and freezers are more frequently using isobutane (R600a) because it doesn't deplete ozone and it's GWP (global warming potential) is 3 where the GWP of even non ozone depleting HFCs can frequently be in the thousands. The problem is isobutane requires higher head pressures to work properly and doesn't cool as well as older refrigerants so the compressors have to work much harder to get the same result.
Also when it comes to household fridges and freezers, they really aren't worth it to fix anymore. You need an EPA 608 cert to even touch refrigerants (in the US anyways). Plus you need a two stage vacuum pump and a recovery machine (amongst other things) both of which can easily cost as much as a new fridge. Then you need to actually have the skillset to remove the broken component and braze a new one in because everything uses brazed connections now to minimize leaks. Then you need to have the know how to properly recharge the system with refrigerant which when you're working with a critical charge of maybe 2oz of refrigerant is an absoulte pain. All in all, maybe if you are already an HVAC tech and had the tools and materials on hand you might barely break even fixing your own fridge or freezer.
When it comes to consumer refrigeration they can't be user repairable due to having to work with refrigerants and economies of scale mean they just generally aren't worth a trained techs time to fix.
Survivorship bias
I've read somewhere it is because compressor nozzle has to be made thinner/fragiler for the better efficiency. Other comments say it's because old refrigerants were better but more "dangerous". Maybe both.
Old stuff that broke got thrown out and forgotten
The webway must remain open!
In the grim darkness of the present day, there is only cold food and drink.
Freezy Pops for the Freezy Pop throne.
Nothing like the coldness of the warp to keep your cold brewed recafe cold!
Fridges actually do rest. They cycle on and off as needed to maintain their desired temperature and on average only spend about 30% to 40% of their time "on".
I only found this out the other night because my fridge went dead silent for a long time. I thought it was borked, so I was peering deep into the freezer when I saw The Gates of Hell through the grate.
(Okay, so full disclosure, I had smoked some pot, but it totally looked like when Dana opened the fridge to Zuul before she was The Gatekeeper.) 😱😱😱
Anyways, turns out it was in defrost mode (which happens twice a day), and that involves some elements going orange or something. I know that's vague-- I looked it up, but as I mentioned, I was high, so I only kinda remember, lol.
Edit:
The refrigerator activates a heating element located near the evaporator coil. This element warms the coils, causing any ice buildup to melt.
That is assuming they are in good working order with no broken seals anywhere. They will run continuously if they never manage to get near the target temp. Though in that case, your food is probably also not getting refrigerated and you hopefully notice.
Tbf computers also have a sleep mode.
Mine must be narcoleptic. I put it in sleep mode. Come back the next day and it's shut itself down. (inb4 - I know)
Those young machine spirits need their rest
By the Emperors grace and the Mechanicus perseverance your toaster shall live again.
Except those walkers capable of perpetual movement, we never let them rest cause we aren't sure if we can make them move again
Glances over at my 1954 GE Combination that has NEVER been serviced outside of cleaning and replacing the light bulbs.
Meanwhile old Iskra and Sloboda Čačak vacuum cleaners: "puny mortals I will exist until the heat death of the universe"
I mean the lights dim for the entire neighbourhood when you switch it on, but it works!
Iskra FTW
Old Gorenje too.
Me with computers that have operating hours comparable to the number of hours it's been since I got them:
LG fridges sure do.
This message sponsored by LG.
My wife and I are on our third fridge in 35 years. But the furnace in her mom's house when we sold it 5 years ago had been running since the late 1970s.
Except furnaces functionally shut off when not actively making heat. A fridge potentially is only off for power outages or a cleaning
30 years is a long life for a furnace. This thing was 45-50 and still running fine. The last maintenance note on the sheet on the inside was in the 80s lol.
My grandfather has a fridge that has been in operation since the late 70's. (It's a leopard brand fridge, the company no longer exists)
RIP to the Minsk fridge my granny used until 2022. Built end of 70s, that thing was continuously in use for 50 years.
she probably just wants you to stop racking up the electric bill
Meanwhile the fridge using two cool lasers for cooling since the end of ww1
I am a simple man I see TTS reference I upvote.
We have a chest freeze from 1943 still running in my parents basement...
But how did THEY get chest freezer in 1943?
Jokingly.
Gotta catch em all!
Except LG and Samsung fridges or the ones that use the linear compressors.
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh...
A thousand refrigerator psychers must be sacrificed so the frig emperor can live on in perpetual conflict with the gods of chaos: Frigidaire, whirlpool, Samsung and Slaanesh!
Lol I had to look up the year that happened because yeah, my fridge is roughly that old. It was the fridge we got when I was a kid and now I have it at my house. I'm planning on it working until I'm dead.
Simplified:
Having a fridge running is nothing complicated compared to a computer. The compressor and the light inside are the only things that are being powered. Both components work mechanically: The compressor has an electric motor that is running when fed with electricity. Pistons inside the compressor are linked mechanically to the electric motor. The light inside the fridge is operated with a switch that is mecahanically connected to the door. The light is off when the door is closed. As long as electricity is fed to the fridge, it keeps running.
Computers however are more complicated, as they basically are running clocks that connect an event with a time stamp. They can get disturbed easily when several events happen. When a computer is running long enough it can happen that the memory overflows when a specific event is being executed for example. For this reason it is renommended that your smartphone is supposed to be restarted at least one a month, otherwise it couldn't function properly.
If refrigerators were operated the same way as a computer, like your laptop or smartphone, I bet it has to be restarted every once in a while, otherwise a malfunction would occur. To my knowledge refrigerators are built the same like 40 years ago, albeit with more efficient compressors, better insulation and less harmful refrigerant.
Every time the power goes out.....!
Is this from Warhammer?
Looks inspired by it, but the emperor only has 1 mechanical eye lighting up.
If it's not it's stolen from it.
Do computers even benefit from rest, or it's just some boomer delusion?
Way back before computers had sleep mode we were encouraged to shut it down when not in use to save electricity. I don't think Windows 3.11 had it. The first time I think I remember encountering it was Windows 2000, but correct me if I'm wrong.
