5000hrs of socket AM1: impressions
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I am pleased with my AM1 setup. Paired with ASRock AM1H-ITX mobo. It has DC power option for silent operation. Runs Windows 10 and VMware Workstation hosting pfSense and Lubuntu VMs no problem. Only fault for me is that it has just 1 Realtek lan, optional AC wifi and 1 expansion slot. Would like to get a case with smaller footprint.
Will try a H170N-WIFI, pentium G4500 with a Morex 557 enclosure.
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Another satisfied AM1 user chiming in. I originally bought a MSI AM1I and Sempron 2650 at Frys as a quick and cheap replacement for a flaky motherboard in my MythTV PC. Used it as a media center for about 6 months and then my ISP upgraded my speed and I found my pfSense hardware (a thin client at the time) lacking. Long story short, I shuffled around hardware, picked up a HP NC360T, and put it to work on the AM1 board for pfSense. Works like a champ. I did upgrade the CPU to the Athlon 5350 as the Sempron 2650 couldn't quite cut it with 150Mbps over OpenVPN, but the Athlon handles that easily. Zero complaints. Runs 24x7 in a cabinet with minimal airflow; the drobo sitting next to it makes more noise.
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Another satisfied AM1 user. Had to pick one up in a pinch when my last system died. Picked up an MSI AM1M + 5150 from Frys. Scavenged 2gb of ram, dual Intel PCIe NIC and SSD from my dead system. Installation was a snap. Handles my 50/10 Comcast Biz cable account + PIA VPN using AES-256-CBC encryption without any issues.
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The 5000 hours (208 days) bother me a bit. But my board is different, I do not what is ratted for.
Edit: the msi advertises 10 years @ full load and 40 years at office loads. Nice.
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/AM1I.html#hero-overview
It is almost an industrial standard 5k hours of guarantee for solid polymer caps and anyway it is much more than the best class electrolytic caps. Ultra low ESR electrolytic caps with similar performance rarely are rated more than 2k hrs operation, at least without being too expensive. The tested temperature should be much higher of the typical operational temperature, so it should work for years without problem as temperature is the number one killer of electronics. If you look at 7 years or more 24/7 limited warranty PSUs like Seasonic Platinum series, internally are all almost only poly caps with a few exemption (the big ac-dc filter caps and a few secondary caps).
Regardless the MSI claims, those aren't 24/7 operation, but gaming in a few hours put much stress on a machine than a 320ish mbps internal gross bandwidth, or even 650ish mbps (in some italian cities some TLCs are already testing 300mbps vdsl with the help of volunteer customers for free, later this year or the next should be commercially offered), especially on those low power APUs. -
Yup, psu died in my dell precision ebay find and the one on hand was too loud. I could have spent $200 on a silent one, or get a am1 setup and save a ton of power.
Based off this thread today I gave it a shot.
Frys only had msi so no ecc - but the mainboard was $29. Their AM1M has all the cool MSI capacitors and what have you. Their fastest am1 chip on hand is a 5350 for about $55.
I was able to take off the fan from the heatsink without getting an alarm and the case fan keeps everything cool while also being exceptionally quiet.
Thanks for the information it helped make my decision easier.
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5000 hours is a sort of sweat spot in term of reliability as the caps are "only" rated for 5000 hours, but there are 80486 still going today after all. I'll be back within some months at 10K hours to report failures. I hope I'll don't.
No need to worry about that. Capacitor lifespans are rated for when operating at the listed max temperature. For polymers, this is generally 105'C.
For every 10'C drop in operating temperature, you can double the expected lifespan.
Even if you are running a pure passive chassis, you shouldn't be seeing operating environment above 60'C (your system would have crapped out before that). So you can expect a 16 fold (2^4) increase in operational life - Approximately 9 years of 24/7 operation. -
It is anecdotal the 10°C drops in temperature thing, I don't know a paper that can prove this claim. Anyway, it is mostly correct.
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Except when the capacitors are made by some el cheapo off-brand. You can rate them for anything you want, but they were shite anyways. msi has made big steps in this, mainly by not buying those crappy caps anymore. What were they using, gsc or elite? Anyway, something cheap and crappy.
Of course msi was not the only brand using those really cheap parts. -
It is anecdotal the 10°C drops in temperature thing, I don't know a paper that can prove this claim. Anyway, it is mostly correct.
Actually, there is a basis for it based on evaporation rate of electrolytes based on temperature. For polymer types, this is related to shrinkage of the polymer.
Most of the major manufacturers do have formulas for calculating the target lifespan and the 10 degree rule factors into the formulas.
For polymers, this is a much greater factor. E.g. For Fujitsu FP-CAPs, the first 10'C drop is 3x, the next 10'C drop changes the lifespan to 10x.
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The asus AM1 will let you use ECC unbuffered but it's not performing the function - some hardware guys got to the bottom of it and it's just some kind of mistake.
I bought the ram anyway - but I can put it in another machine - no harm no foul imo.
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Thank you for the info on the actual cause.
If people would just do some learning and understand how a capacitor is made and what it does, they would
understand that most electronic failures are due to bad capacitors.But beyond knowing the specifics, most people know they simply accumulate and release energy/power/voltage.
So, it is like a tiny battery.
Heat is not good for batteries, why should it be for caps?
Batteries don't last forever, why should caps?It is anecdotal the 10°C drops in temperature thing, I don't know a paper that can prove this claim. Anyway, it is mostly correct.
Actually, there is a basis for it based on evaporation rate of electrolytes based on temperature. For polymer types, this is related to shrinkage of the polymer.
Most of the major manufacturers do have formulas for calculating the target lifespan and the 10 degree rule factors into the formulas.
For polymers, this is a much greater factor. E.g. For Fujitsu FP-CAPs, the first 10'C drop is 3x, the next 10'C drop changes the lifespan to 10x.