Motherboard Life Expectancy?

[AeroCarl]

I have an Asus P5B Deluxe (P965 chipset) that is a little older than three years and is past its warranty. How much more life can I expect out of this thing? I ask because I have already burned through one video card despite no O/Cing and outstanding airflow in my case (Thermaltake Armor). My CPU is a really dated (Core 2 Duo 6700) and this motherboard only supports up to 4GB of RAM, making its upgrade options very limited. The best CPU it will support is a Core 2 Quad 3ghz. Should I upgrade or wait until this thing kicks the bucket so I have legitimate excuse to buy a snazzy new one that supports the i7's?

Thanks,
Carl

 

[Vette73]

I would wait just because the next series of CPUs from AMD/Intel are due later this year to early next year. So even if you buy a current product the new CPUs will push down the prices.

I am running a Gigabyte P965 board with a Q6600 and see no need to upgrade yet. Only thing I do think about is a SSD but that all.

 

[PureHazard]

My Abit KR7A-RAID from 2002 is still running in my old server. My Abit KT7-RAID from 2001 was running fine up till it was retired 3 years ago; however, it did need some new capacitors because it was built during the time the world had a huge bad batch of capacitors.

 

[frostedflakes]

First thing to go out would probably be the capacitors. Check to see if any of them are bulging or leaking. I have a old ASRock Socket 462 board with some caps that are starting to bulge, but the board still seems to be working fine. If the caps on yours look good, that's probably a good sign that it will continue to work for a while.

 

[PureHazard]

First thing to go out would probably be the capacitors. Check to see if any of them are bulging or leaking. I have a old ASRock Socket 462 board with some caps that are starting to bulge, but the board still seems to be working fine. If the caps on yours look good, that's probably a good sign that it will continue to work for a while.

Capacitors are cheap and it's easy to replace as long as you have a half decent solder gun and some solder. Solder sucker optional.

 

[StrangerGuy]

My 6? year old Celeron D machine still works despite being as fast as a snail.

 

[SilentAssassin]

I have an Asus A7N8X 2.0 Deluxe motherboard that I've been running since 2003. It's been running an overclocked AMD Athlon XP @ 1.76v for 7 years and is still running rock solid. I don't think I can stand it any longer so I'm going to upgrade now but in your case you at least have a Core 2 Duo so my advice is wait unless you really need something faster now.

 

[jvroig]

I have an Asus P5B Deluxe (P965 chipset) that is a little older than three years and is past its warranty. How much more life can I expect out of this thing?

Usage pattern is a variable that makes predicting remaining useful life very difficult. I've got a friend whose 8 year old Celeron machine is still working. Thing is, it's not often used, probably 2-4hours a day typical, and there are often long stretches of days when it is not used at all.

I suppose if your machine is used 6-8 hours a day (typical use) and you don't OC anything, you can probably expect a solid 2 years more. I've had a machine with that usage scenario, cheap $60 MSI board (one that didn't even have any OC options in the BIOS, really one of their "value" offerings 4 years ago), and it hasn't shown any sign of problems until I bought a new set of everything (except RAM) earlier this year. The board is still ok, but now it's just stored inside a box on the shelf, waiting for me to decide what to do with it.

 

[PureHazard]

Usage pattern is a variable that makes predicting remaining useful life very difficult. I've got a friend whose 8 year old Celeron machine is still working. Thing is, it's not often used, probably 2-4hours a day typical, and there are often long stretches of days when it is not used at all.

I suppose if your machine is used 6-8 hours a day (typical use) and you don't OC anything, you can probably expect a solid 2 years more. I've had a machine with that usage scenario, cheap $60 MSI board (one that didn't even have any OC options in the BIOS, really one of their "value" offerings 4 years ago), and it hasn't shown any sign of problems until I bought a new set of everything (except RAM) earlier this year. The board is still ok, but now it's just stored inside a box on the shelf, waiting for me to decide what to do with it.

My current server ran 24/7 for 6+ years before I recently shut it down for upgrade. My previous one ran 24/7 for ~4 years before it was upgraded. Mostly idles I suppose and serving files wasn't much of a drain.

 

[kalniel]

I don't think I've ever had a motherboard fail on me (yet). Hard drives, absolutely. Graphics cards, occasionally. My problem is outdatedness rather than reliability (I just gave away a perfectly working 10 year-old system, and last time I checked a 15 year old one I have also works)

 

[Cerb]

I don't think I've ever had a motherboard fail on me (yet). Hard drives, absolutely. Graphics cards, occasionally. My problem is outdatedness rather than reliability (I just gave away a perfectly working 10 year-old system, and last time I checked a 15 year old one I have also works)

You haven't used enough, then . Even outside of the bad caps era, and NF2 BIOS settings deaths, they can and will fail. But, it's usually either from bad design (Dell putting power caps right next to a Prescott heatsink, inefficient 2-stage power on older cheap mobos, etc.), exceptionally poor cooling (I count any and every mobo that has a fan on it in this category--cheap bastards!), or very old age (10+ years, often capacitors).

In general, a Core 2 with a good board will only be good for light firewall duty (easily replaceable by a cheap router than will use <1/5th the power) by the time the mobo dies . This is exact problem is happening all the time, with old Pentium II, III, K6 and Athlon machines. They can't even outperform your average flashable router, can't handle Flash ads or AJAX web pages, are PITAs to make file servers out of, these days (compared to other options that don't cost much), etc., etc., etc.. But, one with a good quality board and decent chipset (Intel 420-440, 810-850, AMD 75x), and good PSU (Delta, Hipro, etc.), simply will not die.

 

[AeroCarl]

Thanks for the info, everyone. As a bit of amplifying information, I have a Thermaltake Toughpower 850w PSU. I use the machine a fair bit for gaming and what not, but turn it off at night so my room doesn't turn into a blast furnace from all the heat. I guess I'll keep the whole hog around for a while...

 

[kalniel]

But, one with a good quality board and decent chipset (Intel 420-440, 810-850, AMD 75x), and good PSU (Delta, Hipro, etc.), simply will not die.

That might be it then The 15 year one is an Intel 420 I think, the 10 year is a 815 chipset

My current 5 year-old one is an ULI 1695, which I'm hoping will last someone else at least another two years when I replace it this year or next.

 

[PandaBear]

Like all said here, a lot has to do with the initial build quality. I remember my first 386SX board died after 2 years, my Pentium MMX / K6 / Athlon XP boards all lasted till the day I retire them.

These days with high heat high power CPU, boards with the same price point simply won't last as long for sure, but unless you are running a mission critical system, just use it till it die. If you are running a mission critical system, you probably should have a spare computer anyways.

 

[bigsnyder]

I think you underestimate the power of older hardware. My 486DX2 with 64MB made a great firewall/internet router running coyote linux until I needed wi-fi.

You haven't used enough, then . Even outside of the bad caps era, and NF2 BIOS settings deaths, they can and will fail. But, it's usually either from bad design (Dell putting power caps right next to a Prescott heatsink, inefficient 2-stage power on older cheap mobos, etc.), exceptionally poor cooling (I count any and every mobo that has a fan on it in this category--cheap bastards!), or very old age (10+ years, often capacitors).

In general, a Core 2 with a good board will only be good for light firewall duty (easily replaceable by a cheap router than will use <1/5th the power) by the time the mobo dies . This is exact problem is happening all the time, with old Pentium II, III, K6 and Athlon machines. They can't even outperform your average flashable router, can't handle Flash ads or AJAX web pages, are PITAs to make file servers out of, these days (compared to other options that don't cost much), etc., etc., etc.. But, one with a good quality board and decent chipset (Intel 420-440, 810-850, AMD 75x), and good PSU (Delta, Hipro, etc.), simply will not die.