I work for a metal alloy company and the P10 cover gas in the detector of our XRF spectrometer was out in the detector, quite possibly for quite a long time. What happens to the detector over time being without P10 cover gas?
Probably nothing except if instead some more or less corrosive has entered instead. As long as just the flow of the P10 was stopped, probably nothing happened.
The answer of Erik Strub is mostly probable. Counting efficiency, dead time, and the pulse height distribution will be changed. If the spectrometer is evacuated, the proportional counter inside is a little bit less pressure than atmospheric, argon is replaced by low pressure air, evacuated through thin Mylar film or O-ring . High voltage is applied to the proportional counter, and I am afraid that a discharge happens at low pressure, and consequently, the GaAs-FET will be destroyed. But, I have never experienced this kind of thing for 40 years. If you look at the electric cables to and from the proportional counter, the high voltage cable is from outside of the spectrometer to the proportional counter through the gas inlet or outlet. This is in order to prohibit the electric discharge.
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