eli5: If modern computers and smartphones etc have no moving parts, then what causes their performance to steadily deteriorate as they age?
In: Technology
The parts may move less, but now they’re often extremely tiny and delicate. A number of factors are at play with possible damage: oxidation, moisture, dust accumulation, repeated stress (vibrational or thermal), and so on. Over time, very tiny parts can fracture, short circuit, and degrade.
For some like memory components, eventually solar radiation and such will even come into effect.
All the extra software which gets dumped on them over time.
It’s amazing how much better they get if you have them reformatted and the software reinstalled.
Well for one thing these devices do still have moving parts, or at least, parts that can be manipulated and thus get worn out. Laptops still have fans, and they definitely have hinges that can wear out or break. Smartphones have sensitive touchscreens that are susceptible to cracking and breaking. And another failure mode that many people don’t realize is the power adapter socket breaking, just from the wear and tear of being plugged and unplugged all the time.
Dust or water can get inside usually and interrupt connections, or create different paths for electricity to flow. Water can oxidize the materials, making them less conductive. The dust can also cause airflow problems that lead to overheating, which can cause soldering to fail and allow parts that need to be touching to separate slightly.
It’s mostly due to software being more and more demanding with each update, also such things like memory chips can get corrupted with time
Things gets warm. Hot. Causing things to deteriorate. Things getting dropped. Software that’s bigger, made for newer hardware. Moisture coming in. Combine all that, and it might happen.
Software updates. The updates assume that you have a newer faster computer or phone and so feel safe using more resources.
I have a Windows XP PC that worked as well as it ever did.
They actually have something that you might call a moving part: software. Software is moved around quite a lot and needs to be processed. That software tends to grow and become more complex because of updates and user data.
If you do a factory reset and do not allow any updates on your old phone, it will as fast as day one.
Software and hardware advancement. As time gone by, more powerful hardware appear, the software also adjust and optimize for this new hardware, and older hardware got left in the dust.
This become less and less noticeable nowadays since the hardware right now, even mid and entry range is more than capable of handling things thrown at them for a few year.
If it’s an iPhone: designed obsolescence. You wouldn’t be buying a new one every year if your current one didn’t degrade.
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