Iirc I read someones post of a person who had just registered on VCF (I think) about CPU's that would spontaneously die. Personally I think that's unlikely.

However, I'm pretty sure components will start to die after a while. This can be stalled by storing components in as good a manner as possible and by doing component repairs, but in the end...there comes the end.
I know for sure this holds for my 2.88MB floppies. The drives will probably outlast the 2.88MB diskettes I have. Those disks are over 20 years old now. Just a random example.

Personally I don't worry about that too much. Even if it's true (and I think it is to a certain extend), I say "Enjoy it while you can! 😁 And have fun while doing it 😀 "

That is why I buy OEM desktops cheap to play vintage games. When they die I sell whatever is salvageable and recycle the rest. 😀

However: unlike most/some on Vogons I have no real emotional attachment to items really. Except a few Roland items but even those are easily replaceable with $ and time. 😀 With regards to Roland I recommend utilizing MPUs and then connecting modules. That way you limit the loss of $ in case a LAPC or SCC dies ($100s).

dave343 wrote:

... it would be interesting to know the lifespan of the components on these parts before they physically breakdown, ie; the resistors and caps etc... Any ideas? ...

It depends on components, cooling and PSU quality.

Cheap components with crap caps, poor cooling and crappy PSU = ticking bomb.

Quality components with jap caps, superb cooling and good PSU = potential for decades of life.

The electrical grid quality, storms and surge protection also play their part.

And if you took your 486/Pentium, stuck it in a box, kept it at room temp, dry environment for 30-40 years, then pulled it out for use....?

TELVM wrote:

The electrical grid quality, storms and surge protection also play their part.

Oh noes. You hit a sore spot. My surge protectors spend up to half of the time in overload mode.

I think one of the most critical part in keeping the system well alive, is prevent any battery leakage. Especially those darn barrel types! I had a nice 486 PCI bus motherboard die off from one of those batteries. 🙁

Well Boards with CR2032 type I guess. Personally I think the most vulnerable parts would be the motherboard and ram, with the tiny electronic components breaking down, but I'd really like to know the effect it'll have on keeping a system in storage for 20-30 years and then using it. Parts like the PSU can be repaired, but I'm going to assume it'll be even harder to dig up a socket 7 board in 2050.

When it comes to hardware issues, I've only ever had ram and PSU's die. And 1 cheapo gt220 graphics card. Regarding ram, ever since I've stuck to kingston ram, I haven't replaced a stick yet. I also try to spend a little more on a decent psu as el cheapos will possibly give you grief sometime in the future.

But as stated above cooling is a major factor as well so I always concentrate on good air flow as much as possible.

All in all, with most retro hardware being so cheap, it doesn't hurt to buy 2 of everything for backup purposes.

In regards to parts that sit, capacitors have an idle time of around 15 years, not before they die, but before their values waver, largely which could cause problems in the circuit. Solder joints can go cold or crack if the part is in a place where there is lots of hot, then cold such as a garage or shed. Moisture can cause problems.

In my opinion, if you refresh any electrolytic or tantalum capacitors with new caps, and rewet any suspect solder joints, you should be good.

The old pc stuff seems to last forever.
I have seen too many modern pc's die / corrupted instead of the older P1 and before era stuff.
The factory i work in that create many modern electric circuitry still are driven by 486's and p1 166mmx's 😀 pwnage.
If you discard the battery leakage problems that is, that seems like a maintanance problem really.

There are a lot of factors and no one knows for certain how long the answer is that it will be decades under good conditions. Look at the Voyager probes and that they have lasted nearly 40 years of continuous operation. In the end it all comes down to how long the chips can maintain their data and the thickness of the oxide gates (transistors) before they breakdown. The reasons that cause modern parts to fail are mainly do to weak joints and very close tolerances that fail with the higher temps that the norm these days.

In short replace the caps as needed and keep everything with in a safe range when it comes to the temps.

Static damage will shorten components lifespan. A lot of people that build computers these days don't worry about anti static protection because they've 'never killed a component with static'. The fact is that even a tiny static shock that you won't even feel can cause damage. The part will still work fine for a while, possibly even years, yet it will eventually fail prematurely.

Supposedly, programmable logic devices like GALs and PALs, and programmable ROM chips have a limited lifespan to hold their programming - I remember reading on a datasheet something in the order of a couple of decades, but I can't find it now. I'm not sure if this has been proven in practice or was just how long the manufacturer would guarantee them for, to limit their liability.

I think these parts can indeed really still working very long.. How long i cant tell..

But most problems on dead motherboards:

-Capacitors are worned out
-Bios chips could be corrupted after 23 years. (thats why i can recommend to backup the roms, so you can write a now one, and extend the live of these parts)
-CMOS battery = dead or leaked after a while..

If you keep in touch with those three things, the parts really could live a whole life i guess.

I read somewhere about how when CPU's get old, the circuit pathways oxidize and metallic whiskers start to grow on them until they form a short circuit with another pathway then the electricity goes someplace it's not supposed to and eventually the chip will just stop working when enough of these form. It's a slow process, but eventually all CPU's will succumb to this, even those kept in clean, climate controlled environments.

JaNoZ wrote:

The old pc stuff seems to last forever.
I have seen too many modern pc's die / corrupted instead of the older P1 and before era stuff.
The factory i work in that create many modern electric circuitry still are driven by 486's and p1 166mmx's 😀 pwnage.

The nature of the modern computer market, and not just because there are fewer companies than in the 80s and 90s marketing what could still be technically considered the descendants of the old "IBM PC Compatible."

On a side note, I want to point out this is why I consider preservation through emulation to be so important. I hope, for instance, that by the time my LAPC-I dies someone(s) will have perfected Roland emulation and more to give people those options that these days they must still search for in hardware only (lest they be forced to settle for something less than how it was). As far as I can tell this has already been virtually achieved in DOSBox for the Sound Blaster, Gravis Ultrasound, and their predecessors; no reason that trend cannot continue, or even expand, if the enthusiasm we all seem to share keeps remaining strong.

Emulation isn't the answer either. It takes people who give up a lot of their time for free. They also need to be highly skilled.

As hardware becomes more complex, so will emulation. Windows 98 era games for example still can't be properly emulated. Some games can be hacked, patched or modified, but how long will this last? The knowledge that it took to do this will also disappear with time.

Same goes for consoles. PS, PS2 and PS3 are all extremely challenging to emulate. Processing power is a huge issue with these systems using custom chips that are very powerful. DRM is also an issue.

I would love for Asus for example to re-design and launch a new 486 or Pentium motherboard. While components might fail I fear that the loss of knowledge is the biggest danger in all of this.

I spent a lot of time with my Super Socket 7 stuff, but this isn't going to last that much longer than 386 or 486 gear. Maybe even less who knows.

It is a shame, movies can be easily converted, but computer and video games are very complex.

The thing is, not many people care, older hardware older than 3-4 years is a waste of their time.
Obsolete is obsolete, they do not give f about support those hw even writing software to support newer os's.

We few % guy's and maybe a few gal's are falling in the catagory weird, but i do not care about that. 🤣

old stuff is fascinating and awesome to play with.

Even though some people say that old stuff will outlast newer stuff i wouldn't put my money on that. At least not with hardware that uses capacitors, sits idle in a closet and is already over 10\15 or even 20 years old. Anything that uses "wet" capacitors will fail within 15 to 30 years. Even if it doesn't fail it will start working quite erratically due to dry electrolytic inside capacitors that will drift in value. Don't forget that todays hardware uses more and more polymer caps that will last much more time than these already old electrolytic capacitors.

If unused, my bet on parts longevity would be:

Wet capacitors - 15\35 years;
Polymer caps - 60\80 years;
Integrated circuits without flash inside - anywhere from 50 years to probably a few centuries depending on the IC and it's complexity;
Flash memory (flash drives, SSD or even computer bioses) - 15 to 30 years untill data becomes corrupt inside of it. Not really sure how the actuall hardware inside a flash memory will endure time;
Resistors - Maybe 20 to 40 years until they'll drift in value and cause issues;
Cristal oscilators - those will last about 200 to 400 years untill they loose precision and eventually die.
LCDs - these will like delaminate within 20 years allowing air bubbles inside of it and ruining it permanently. That is if the ribbon cable that glues to it doesn't inglue first. Actually this is most likey to happen first. I have a AMD k6 laptop that was stored for 12 years and now a few dead lines are showing up already.

Than you have other issues with materials. Rust can happen and some plastics can yellow and go brittle (heck my voodoo 5 is getting rusty in some parts ;( ). Other plastics will last unchanged for millions of years so i would guess that if you buried your computer and your Dreamcast console in plain dirt and unbury 10000000 years later the only thing you would probably find would be some flimsy plastic shells still resembling it's original shape, everything else would be gone long ago.

So as you can see there are many things here that can go wrong even within your lifetime so the best thing to do is to actually enjoy while it lasts, and if possible record it.
Every piece of computer hardware is a ticking time bomb when it comes to failure.

The same applies to sound modules. 😀 The good news is that those are relatively cheap (except for CM-32L/CM-64,CM-500). 😀