BleepingComputer.com: How many hours has my CPU been running?

Hello,

Is there any way to find out how many total hours of operation a CPU has done?

I'm trying to see if a tray CPU I bought is used or new, similarly to using SMART for hard drives.

I tried cpu-z but it doesn't indicate that.

Thanks in advance!

I don't know of anything like this off-hand but I would definitely be interested also if someone has any information.

I would say...a definite 'no".

It's not particularly useful info, since there is no premise of "useful life' for a CPU that might be considered worth documenting.

It's generally accepted (IMO) that the CPU is the most stable and long-lasting...of all computer components. Motherboards, hard drives, fans, PSUs, all peripherals...are more likely to fail than your CPU.

IMO, the primary reasons that CPUs are replaced...have little to do with actual failure of the unit...but more with the failures of the user/owner. I suspect that most CPUs are replaced on the whims of owners like me who merely want more recent technology...not because the unit stopped working.

Which means that AMD and Intel can never be considered the weak point on any system...everything else is suspect when things go wrong .

I would even go so far as to say...that users are probably the biggest true cause of most, if not all, CPU failures. Issues caused by overclocking, overheating, failed/improper cooling...those are user issues that ultimately can lead to CPU failure.

If you Google "CPU failures", you will see what I mean.

Louis

If you are useing a Windows machine uptime.exe will do what you want. Download it here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/232243

Drag the uptime exe into a cmd promt and use the /s. it will give results like this:

Since 6/29/2010:

System Availability: 56.4610%
Total Uptime: 16d 7h:18m:24s
Total Downtime: 12d 13h:44m:59s
Total Reboots: 14
Mean Time Between Reboots: 2.06 days
Total Bluescreens: 0



It's pulling from the system log, but CPU uptime and OS uptime should be roughly equivalent.

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Oh, you got CPU aftermarket . . . Nevermind.

This post has been edited by Heinrich Boerner: 28 July 2010 - 01:49 PM

Thanks for the informative replies everybody, but this is not about computer uptime or curiousness about an existing cpu.

This is about a cpu I bought from a shop in tray form, not box. I got a nagging idea it could be second hand (used), even though there are no physical marks or thermal paste residue on it.

To add a followup on this:

Upon closer inspection I did notice some faint marks from a cooler on the cpu, so it's definitely been used before.

In any case, I installed it, got a few freezes (not BSOD but pure freeze) but couldn't attribute them to the cpu 100% because memtest also returned some errors, and the freeze only happened during reading from a USB 3 drive so I suspected its drivers.

To narrow it down I ran cpu stress tests. Linx, IntelBurnTest, OCCT (both native and linpack testing) all returned with an error within a few minutes when testing purely the cpu and not the ram, so I'm getting very confident that it's a cpu issue.

When I get home I'll swap the ram to take that out of the equation and re-run the stress tests.

nexxer, on Jul 28 2010, 09:19 AM, said:

No but if you know what CPU it is you can get an idea of how old it is. What does CPU-Z tell you for the "code name" and stepping?

It's a Q8300. I don't think knowing how old it is would help, as they're still sold as new. My concern was whether it had been used in the past (pre-owned), which I am 95% certain of judging by the faint markings of a cooler on the die.

To follow up on this, it turns out the issue was much simpler. The Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H I have supports the Q8300 as seen in its compatibility list on Gigabyte's website. It also supports the E5200 I was running for the last year, both needing the F7 firmware. Since the E5200 had been running just fine for a year I never thought to check the firmware until someone mentioned it and I did: it was running the F5!

I reckon the E5200 wasn't pushing the motherboard as hard so any incompatibilities weren't showing up, but the Q8300 was more picky. I upgraded to F8 and ran the stress tests again, passing all of them. To be fair to the motherboard, it seems F7 also "Improve USB Device compatibility", so that could be the trouble with my USB 3.0 drive that kept hanging. So far so good.

Thanks for your time, everybody.