Re: Pi-FAN for RPi4 with 4 (instead of 3) cables?

On 12/9/24 10:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 08/12/2024 19:50, David Higton wrote:

In message <vj1d28$31v9g$12@dont-email.me>
           The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>

It's an interesting thought as to why one would use a fan at all. If its
such a high compute task that you need one, maybe a bigger Pi or an
Intel based machine is indicated.
>
I dislike fans. They fail.

>
PC fans run pretty much all the time.  A fan on a RasPi is likely to
run less of the time, and could well last longer overall.
>
Fans fail.  Disc drives fail.  SSDs fail.  Batteries fail.  Reservoir
capacitors fail.  But before they do, they are very useful.
>

 Such an ArtStudent™ view of life.
 Do you know what MTBF means?
 

I was surprised you'd use MTBF for a component which is expected to steadily deteriorate due to wear and tear.
I though MTBF was more a random failure thing.
For some relatively reliable components, such as people, you initially see a relatively low failure rate, but come 80 or 90 years they start dropping like flies, due to wear and tear.
For some things like atomic an atomic nucleus, the failure does seem random, so MTBF seems applicable.
I don't know which it is for PC fans, but would assume it is more wear and tear than random.