Nothing lasts forever, not even electronics. “People assume electronic components will not age,” says Bianca Schroeder, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto. Without moving parts, electronics seem unlikely to wear out. Yet even a standard memory module comprising little more than a capacitor and a transistor can begin to dodder. “It’s kind of surprising, but most of the computer components I look at show signs of aging,” Schroeder says.
Still, system-reliability experts know relatively little about components’ life spans in the wild. “We don’t have much data,” Schroeder admits. “People usually don’t run their computers long enough to find out if they die.” Not to mention, manufacturers don't like to publish failure rates from their in-house product tests, and according to Schroeder, “they have no knowledge of how these components behave in the field.” Lab testing environments rarely match the physical jostling, temperature swings, and dust accumulation of the real world.
