Can old software damage CPU?

OOps, here it is:

These temps are ok with me, but what worries me is that this old QPW program might be telling the CPU to do the same sequence over and over, perhaps stressing certain section of it. I know nothing about CPU architecture, so don't be surprised if what I just said doesn't make any sense and I shouldn't be concerned about running this software. I use QPW for about 2 or 3 hours a day, maybe 3 or 4 days a week. I also use Excel, but I just love the old QPW (version 1.0).

Here's a graph of the CPU usage. There are 2 windows for the CPU (I guess that's why they call it a "Duo" CPU). Notice that the left window averages about 42% CPU usage and the right window about 58%.

Though 51% cpu usage may be a bit high... it will not damage your CPU (assuming it's cooled properly)

Last year I did a major project in Publisher and my CPU stayed pretty well pegged in the 90%+ area for many hours a day... the project took a few months and the CPU survived just fine!

Back in the day, software was often written with "busy wait" loops rather than being multi-tasking friendly and releasing itself to wait on an event trigger from the operating system. I'd bet that the original Quattro Pro for Windows was just a quick'n'dirty port of the earlier DOS version where there *was* no multi-tasking operating system and a running app would just assume that it owned all of the machine's resources.

As long as the CPU's temperatures stay within the manufacturer's recommended limits, you're okay. You won't "wear out" any of the CPU's silicon. All it's probably doing is repeatedly polling the keyboard, waiting for you to type something.

I was a fan of Borland's DOS-based Quattro too. Used to use it as a drawing program for flowcharts and suchlike. Worked great! '-)

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

You're fine.

You might be able to get the application to simmer down by running in "Compatibility Mode." Get the property sheet for the program file, and you'll see a "Compatibility" tab. Pick Windows 95, or whatever seems to help.

Not a problem. All 8 of the PCs in my joint run flat-out 24x7. As long as the temps are OK, you won't harm your CPU by driving it hard; this PC's CPU temp runs much higher than yours, with no problem.

{FWIW, when my CPU temp gets close to 65°C under full load, then I clean the case: fans & filters & heatsinks. After cleaning, the CPU temp drops ~10°C.}

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Cheers, Bob

These temps are ok with me, but what worries me is that this old QPW program might be telling the CPU to do the same sequence over and over, perhaps stressing certain section of it. I know nothing about CPU architecture, so don't be surprised if what I just said doesn't make any sense and I shouldn't be concerned about running this software. I use QPW for about 2 or 3 hours a day, maybe 3 or 4 days a week. I also use Excel, but I just love the old QPW (version 1.0).

Here's a graph of the CPU usage. There are 2 windows for the CPU (I guess that's why they call it a "Duo" CPU). Notice that the left window averages about 42% CPU usage and the right window about 58%.

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If you run XP you can see the same thing today.

Run Spider Solitaire, win a game, when the fireworks start and you have a question box - say no to a new game and look at a CPU usage meter, it will jump up to the 50% range on a dual cpu unit. Past 90% on a single cpu.

Drives me nuts.

William

The other thing old DOS software (we may talking very old here so maybe not QP4W) may do is to run some delay loops to catch the vertical sync of the monitor refresh before transfering memory stored graphic info to the screen. These 'snow' avoidance schemes made glitch free graphics operation possible on the original PC's but needlessly kills the performance of newer graphics hardware if left enabled. Check what the graphics driver is set to and if there are any anti snow settings.

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Adrian C

Woah! I'd forgotten about those settings. They disappeared even before the "turbo" switches.

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

Although spreadsheets are processing hogs, that usage does seem high. Have you tried running multiple programs with QPW and checking cpu usage?

Also, QPW was Borland?, bought by Wordperfect, bought by Corel??? Why not upgrade to Wordperfect 11 which includes QP 11 for about 20USD?

Hell, I noticed my processor was running warm lately... took off the fan: totally caked up with dust! This room is *dusty*.

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @

), and

The hottest operation I ever found for DOS 3.1 was waiting at the C:\\>

prompt for input.

I also have QPW, and always run it using true DOS (eg: MSDOS6.22, PCDOS7.0, etc). Since you run it in a Gooie, that Gooie probably is extending effective RAM for the spreadsheet array(s) and the addressing done by QPW is being "interpreted" or "reflected" or "translated" to the space that the Gooie made for it. I do know for a fact that a Gooie will allow more memory to be used by a DOS program, if that program is created to use memory above "conventional" memory, and most epecially beyond the DOS 1Meg "barrier".

Not only that, but it can do things that so-called "Excel" cannot to. Too bad that Corel screwed up their X3 office version.

Sounds like QPW has a tight loop polling the keyboard or something similar that causes the CPU to run a bit warm. I routinely run my system with at least 50% utilisation - the spare CPU annotating chess games. Apart from a slight increase in fan noise there are no ill effects.

I have never known executing software able to destroy a CPU, I have once known a particular sequence typed at a keyboard that would reprogram the dynamic ram timing on a specific model of home computer frying the chips.

A decent system should be able to handle 100% utilisation and whilst it will be noisier and warmer when run flat out it should not fail unless some components are poorly specified. I might worry about the quality of the fans or dust caking on the filters if the CPU got to be above 50C.

Regards, Martin Brown

** Posted from **

Yes, unfortunately it seems to be devolving. For example, in V 12 (I didn't move to V 13 (aka "X3")) the labels for a chart axis can not be formatted as dates! You can *set* a date format for the labels but it still shows up as the numeric, Julian date. Freakin' unbelievable. Who could ever have anticipated that a business spreadsheet might want to have something as obscure as a date for an axis label?

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

Some spreadsheet software constantly calculates and updates the entire spreadsheet. Even QPW ver. 5 for windows will cause 100% CPU usage (this is the first win3.1 version of QPW I believe, which I loved and used for many years). I just fiddled with it for a minute, and could not get CPU usage to drop from 100% even after changing the calculation settings from Auto to Background to Manual. Your system can handle the load, don't fret it.

These temps are ok with me, but what worries me is that this old QPW program might be telling the CPU to do the same sequence over and over, perhaps stressing certain section of it. I know nothing about CPU architecture, so don't be surprised if what I just said doesn't make any sense and I shouldn't be concerned about running this software. I use QPW for about 2 or 3 hours a day, maybe 3 or 4 days a week. I also use Excel, but I just love the old QPW (version 1.0).

Here's a graph of the CPU usage. There are 2 windows for the CPU (I guess that's why they call it a "Duo" CPU). Notice that the left window averages about 42% CPU usage and the right window about 58%.

It's not a problem, a properly designed computer can run at

100% load indefinitely... just make sure that as time goes by you aren't letting your case intake/exhaust vents or heatsinks/fans get clogged with dust. 42C temp is plenty low enough, there are systems out there that don't run any cooler at idle and even higher under load.