News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Fiber lasts decades, GPUs last three years: the AI boom isn't the dot-com boom [video]. Parent comment

Re:Fiber lasts decades, GPUs last three years: the AI boom i... by booty on Friday October 30, 2026 @10:08AM (#50304115) 

    Turns out running chips hard 24/7 causes them to burn out
I don't have direct experience running CPUs or GPUs 24/7, but when I was looking into acquiring used GPUs I looked into this and it seemed like "burning out GPUs" was almost entirely related to the thermal paste cooking off and other heat-related issues. The tribal wisdom seemed to be that GPUs could run pretty much indefinitely if you kept their thermals under control and reapplied the thermal paste every N months.

Hopefully somebody with direct experience can correct me if I'm wrong...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Fiber lasts decades, GPUs last three years: the AI boom i... by robochat on Friday October 30, 2026 @10:15AM (#50304235)
Which is almost exactly the same story that applied to the flaky LEDs - bad thermal designs leads to the LEDs or their driver circuitry breaking.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Fiber lasts decades, GPUs last three years: the AI boom i... by lp92 on Friday October 30, 2026 @11:48AM (#50305646)
It's amazing how many things fail due to bad thermal design.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Fiber lasts decades, GPUs last three years: the AI boom i... by NBJack on Friday October 30, 2026 @10:20AM (#50304312)
Fluctuations. If the use of the GPU is steady state, I think you're right; the thermals would be consistent. However, the reality is oftentimes loads come and go, and the rise+fall+rise of temps can lead to structural problems due to thermal expansion. Micro fractures in solder, thermal paste degradation, sagging PCBs, etc.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Fiber lasts decades, GPUs last three years: the AI boom i... by ActionHank on Friday October 30, 2026 @10:12AM (#50304197)
No, take a look into people who bought used GPUs that were from crypto farms. It's not just thermal paste, the chips become unreliable because of degradation of the circuits etched on the chips themselves.
[ Parent | on HN ]