Skeptical about claim that stamp creation burns out modern CPUs

[Tim May]

On Jan 1, 2004, at 11:56 AM, Riad S. Wahby wrote:

> Tim May <timcmay at got.net> wrote:
>> Now I grant you that I haven't tested CPUs in this way in many years.
>> But I am skeptical that recent CPUs are substantially different than
>> past CPUs. I would like to see some actual reports of "burned
>> literally" CPUs.
>
> I've never seen a "burned literally" CPU, but I have tracked the
> demise of an AMD K6 (or K6-2, can't remember now) from hot carrier
> effects.  If all processors were made like that one, you would see a
> lot more load-induced failures.

Just so. A lot of games are close to being CPU-bound, plus the 
screensavers used as Mersenne prime finders and the like, and there are 
few reports of house fires caused by the CPU being smoked.

When I did reliability stuff for Intel, CPUs failed, but mostly not in 
ways that had them catching on fire, as the stamp guy is suggesting is 
common for stamp generation.

--Tim May





#1. Sanhedrin 59a: "Murdering Goyim (Gentiles) is like killing a wild 
animal."
#2. Aboda Sarah 37a: "A Gentile girl who is three years old can be 
violated."
#3. Yebamoth 11b: "Sexual intercourse with a little girl is permitted 
if she is three years of age."
#4. Abodah Zara 26b: "Even the best of the Gentiles should be killed."
#5. Yebamoth 98a: "All gentile children are animals."
#6. Schulchan Aruch, Johre Deah, 122: "A Jew is forbidden to drink from 
a glass of wine which a Gentile has touched, because the touch has made 
the wine unclean."
#7. Baba Necia 114, 6: "The Jews are human beings, but the nations of 
the world are not human beings but beasts."