instability with machine that was on 24/7 but recently off for 3months

[sunanon]

This isn't actually an overclocking question, but it should involve the same principles. Is it normal for hardware to be stable while running constantly for several years, but when turned off for a while (months) and then restarted will experience instability for a while, until it's "warmed up"?

I've experienced issues like this numerous times, where a computer will freeze or there are kernel panics or random issues. Then after the machine has been running a few hours and numerous reboots (and no change to hardware or software) the machine will slowly return to rock-solid stability. Does this sound crazy or does it make sense?

I'm currently experiencing this issue with an Abit KV7 motherboard (don't have the other specs on hand), but it's a machine that has run flawlessly and constantly for about four years, I mean turned on 24/7 and used regularly as a workstation and a server. Recently it was turned off for about three months. Upon starting it up again I seem to run into a spout of errors that must be hardware related. I'm running Ubuntu and it seems to regularly freeze or experience kernel panics - behavior I've never seen until now.

If this is normal, does anyone have an explanation or tips on "warming it up" ?

 

[Evilonigiri]

It could be an aging capacitor, or some dying part in your motherboard. It could also very well be a dying PSU or ram.

You should try some stress testing to try and narrow down the problem. First off, grab Prime95 and run blend test for 24hours. A failure here would indicate ram, motherboard, and/or PSU. If it's an aging capacitor in the motherboard, perhaps try increasing some of the motherboard voltages by one notch. Perhaps play around with the ram voltages as well.

 

[sunanon]

thanks for the response, I'll try out those suggestions.

I'm still curious about my original question though, the hardware seems to be fine when it's under a consistent constant stress, but after being turned off for a while a small amount of stress seems to cripple it. I'm just curious if even that as an analysis makes sense or if that's just my perception. Partly I'm curious because I think that sort of behavior is logical for certain mechanical systems like automobiles. While I know that's not a logical analog, I wondered if maybe a constant stream of electrons and a steady warm temperature is kind of like having oil keeping a mechanical system running smoothly.

It's just so common for me to run into hardware problems after simply leaving a computer turned off for a long time.

 

[StevieD]

Something aging as previously noted.

Since you are chasing ghosts, never forget that a poor connection will cause similar symptoms, though most bad connection problems correct themselves or become worse rather quickly rather than over a period of a few hours.