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I run Folding@Home on my laptop (2013 MacBook Pro, no GPU). I tried to convince a friend of mine to join me but he claims that running the program will degrade the life of the computer - making it more likely to fail sooner.

I know that heat can cause issues, especially excessive heat. I keep Folding@Home limited to 1 core (of 4 cores, 2 physical 2 virtual). Doing this, my laptop runs warm, but is cool enough that the internal fan doesn't spin at all, so it makes me less worried about the heat.

Other than the extra generated heat, does actually running the program constantly (or running any program for that matter) affect the life of the laptop?

Thanks!

Matthew Herbst
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  • Heat will kill any electronic. 100% CPU usage will generate heat. A CPU is design to work under certain conditions, it being at 100% is one of those conditions, does that answer your question? – Ramhound Mar 14 '14 at 18:52
  • I'm asking if CPU usage by itself, ignoring the heat component, causes any damage/life-span shortening. – Matthew Herbst Mar 14 '14 at 18:57
  • CPU Usage by itself will not shorten the lifespan of the laptop. Heat generated by the CPU will, but as long as you don't cut off airflow to the laptop, you will be fine. –  Mar 14 '14 at 19:03
  • You can't ignore the heat because that the ONLY thing outside an ESD event that can hurt the CPU. The CPU was designed to be used. – Ramhound Mar 14 '14 at 19:14

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From what I've read from various articles & hardware (failure) reviews, I think running a cpu (or half or 1/4 of a cpu) at 100% is likely to wear out the computer faster than letting it be idle.

Power consumption goes up with higher cpu usage, and heat goes up. The power will cost you real $'s, and you can't just ignore the heat generated, heat ruins things. The heat is likely to wear out the cpu itself, and the power/battery/adapter or the hard drive or system board, or if someone's got a real lucky laptop they could set their lap on fire. Even if you've got a dozen fans keeping things relatively cool the cpu core itself is still hotter than at idle, and the fans will be wearing out.

If the heat itself doesn't eventually kill something, I've read somewhere that just having more current running through things will wear them out faster too.

I don't think running @ 100% is guaranteed to break something, but most computers are only guaranteed to work for 90 days or 1 year or whatever the warranty is (probably tested under "normal conditions" too, unlikely 100% cpu usage for a full year), so if that's all the faith the manufacturer has I'd be inclined to take it easy. Unless you or your friend buy a new computer every year or so, and if you do then I'm sure the disease researchers would really appreciate a cash donation in addition to 100% cpu use.

Xen2050
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    From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration): "When operated within the manufacturer's specified temperature and voltage range, a properly designed IC device is more likely to fail from other (environmental) causes, such as cumulative damage from gamma-ray bombardment." (compared to electromigration). The Wikipedia [article on failure modes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_modes_of_electronics) might be of interest. –  Mar 15 '14 at 15:36
  • Interesting. Also mentions "With increasing miniaturization the probability of failure due to electromigration increases" and that's basically what I read somewhere about newer more dense cpu's. And "proper design practices" is key, like the paragraph right after (about WD HD failures's) mentions a 3rd party IC controller was failing early, I wouldn't bet on every piece of hardware to be "properly" designed. – Xen2050 Mar 16 '14 at 21:43
  • Most depressing is that IC's are practically designed to fail after 4-5 years (wikipedia's length estimate, coincidentially after the warranty ends), or looking at it differently they're designed to last 4-5yrs. And wikipedia's [High-temp operating life test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_temperature_operating_life) page says they "stress-test" IC's at high temp's & voltages to make them fail early, that's pretty conclusive that heat=failure. – Xen2050 Mar 16 '14 at 21:46