I've just have had a few people tell me leaving your PC on all the time is OK and the machine "likes" it if you will. Is this true? And if so, what is it that leaving it on helps? I'd think you'd run a chance of overheating myself, but I am no computer whiz so who knows!

How many of you out there keep your computer on all the time? How long is yours on mostly on a daily basis? I guess for me, on the workdays when I get home from work I have mine on for about 5-6 hours. On the weekends something around 9-10 hours, but the weekends its a random thing, depending on what I'm doing. I always stay home more on the weekends during winter LOL. And said hours is not online time, but just how long my PC is just on, as I also play games and sometimes it just sits there and I'm not using it at all, but it's on.

Just curious, especially re the leave it on all the time deal. [img]smile.gif[/img]

<font color=skyblue>What they mean is to use sleep mode instead of turning the machine off. I have been told to do this here and there, but I rarely do so.

The benefits are that it saves on HDD life, from what I hear. Oh yeah...and it has something to do with energy reduction.</font>

[ 03-06-2005, 08:38 PM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

Well it is true that the most damaging thing you can do to an electronic circuit is turn it on, due to the relatively sudden change in voltage across the circuitry. Therefore, if you never turn it off, you never have to turn it on, thereby reducing wear on the circuitry.

Also, I wouldn't worry about overheating, since the amount of energy/sec produced in watts, should be dissipated by the heatsink and fans otherwise your comp would overheat in the couple of hours that you normally have it on.

The downside to keeping it on is the power usage, but of course you can set power saving settings to turn off hard-disks (but again turning them on is the worst) and monitor etc.

I personally always turn it off because of the noise the CPU fan makes (I can't sleep) but if it was quiet I'd keep it on.

Most PCs in businesses are on 24/7 including servers and all workstations at work (including mine) and they run fine for years.

[ 03-06-2005, 08:50 PM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

My mac never gets turned off, it just goes into sleep mode. My pc, on the other hand, is turned off after about 12 hours or so, every day. It rarely stays on overnight.

When you turn on your computer there tends to be a small spike in the power going through the system. If you cycle the power enough you could eventually cause significant dammage to your computer.

There is however a counter this argument, namely that ICs only have so much run time in them. This however is a function of temperautre so it isn't a real problem if your comptuer is kept cool.

I turn my computer on 24/7 ever since I started replaying ragnarok online. apart from the hanging once a while the computer is okay. I open up the casing and put a table fan to blow wind to it to cool it down.

Seraph stop repeating my message! [img]tongue.gif[/img] Nah, actually glad you're backing me up.

Kakero - opening up the case to cool the stuff inside with a table fan is a bad idea: you blow loads of dust onto the circuitry which can have all sorts of effects, starting from static to clogging up air vents in the side of the PSU etc.

I have 2 PC's and they're on all the time. We use them every day. By leaving them on the heat is more constant. If they're off and on all the time, everyhting expands and and contracts, thus weakening solder joints etc and shortening the life of your hardware. (havn't read all the posts here BTW)

Thanks for yall's replies so far. Had no idea so many left their PCs on. Thing is, I just don't want to do it cause I'm afraid something could go wrong and start a fire, when I'm not at home. I remember when my power supply popped a few years ago out of nowhere, luckily I was here and smelled the smoke instantly, not to mention heard the pop LOL.

I do see what yall are saying though re the power it takes to start up and turn on. Some say the same thing with automobiles now that I'm thinking about the subject.

A general rule of thumb that I use:

If you'll not be using it for at least two hours, turn your monitor off (your CRT monitor life is directly related to how long its on for - this has to be weighed against the disadvantage of frequent degaussing hence the rather arbitrary figure of 2 hours)

If you'll not be using it for 24 hours, turn your computer off.

The biggest saver is indeed on your hard drive as it avoids having to spin up and spin down which is fairly stressful.

One thing you should never do is take advantage of the windows power saving feature that lets you 'turn off hard disks' after about 10 minutes - nothing will shorten their lives more ;)

[ 03-06-2005, 09:46 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

<span style="color: lightblue">The arguments for:
What Vaskez and Seraph said.

The arguments against:
If something breaks in your computer, it is better you're with it (and so, you know what it was doing), making it a good idea to turn the computer off when you're not at it.
There are parts inside the computer which are continually spinning when on. Naturally these will degrade with time, and so turning the system off will make them last longer.
The electromagnetic radiation from the wires can supposedly cause cancer, so it is better for you not to have the computer on too often.

In the end, it depends only on which things you think are more important (and less crud).

My PC is always on, just like the TV in the livingroom and the one in the bedroom, except for when i leave the house for more than two days or so, then i turn everything off. The TV's are always in the sleepmode when i'm not around, and the PC shows a screensaver.

How do you let the hot air/heat generated by the gizmos inside( graphic card, motherboard etc etc ) escape if you don't open the casing and blow a fan to it?

edit : Also, I've found out that the computer will hang lesser without the casing on plus the fan blowing at it than when it got the casing on it.

[ 03-06-2005, 10:24 PM: Message edited by: Kakero ]

You fit proper case fans to it.

Put intakes in the bottom front of the case, exhausts in the top back. Run it at a slight overpressure and filter the intakes, and you should keep most of the dust out of it.

A computer thats only stable with the case off and a table fan blowing on it isnt built right.

When I'm doing some heavy gaming\editing\graphical work, my CPU gets way too hot for the standard cooler to handle, so I had a pedestool fan blowing into the beast and it worked well, but I use a decent Thermaltake fan and that helps alot. Before, my system temp would get to 60 deg. I was almost able to burn myself on the case [img]tongue.gif[/img] Then again, I do alot of overclocking....
So far that is the only problem with AMD, I have gotten better fans from Celeron 500's [img]tongue.gif[/img]

EDIT: Oh and I NEVER leave my PC on, I restart whenever I can, mainly to flush out my memmory, let the PC cool down and so on.....
I am also a cronic formatter [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 03-06-2005, 10:53 PM: Message edited by: Hivetyrant ]

<font color=skyblue>We were required to turn our machines off every night at work and were fussed at if we did not.
I can't remember why exactly...</font>

[ 03-06-2005, 11:19 PM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

My computer has been constantly on now for almost 2 years now, only is turned off if I leave the house for more than 2 days (which has happened 3 times so far), the only thing that I have noticed is that the noise of the psu fan has increased a bit over the last year.

If you go back fifteen years, one of the things you were supposed to do was to park your drive heads before moving a computer, 'cause if you didn't, they could get dislodged or something and you could lose the drive. That's no longer an issue because technology has improved.

As time has gone on, PCs have gotten stronger and more stable. They're able to last much longer than they used to.

I've got an old Pentium 233 sitting next to me that's my Linux box. He's on 24x7, largely because I can't be around all the time if someone else needs to use it. Except for an occasional shutdown, it's been up for the last two years... no problems with its stability or abilities. If something does go wrong... well, it's a frikkin' 233, for pete's sake! We're not exactly talking about "state of the art" here, so replacing it would be inexpensive. Heck, the machine itself cost me $25...

So my take on it? Leave it running. As long as it's not hidden away where it can overheat, you should be just fine...

WTF :eek: assuming lady Z computer is at best 400 or 500 watts then the world is in a whole lotta pain if what they say is true ... Sorry Lennon but I would place this story in the bin, right along with the magnets in your hard drive that cure cancer BS :D

Mine is on several hours a day, after I get home from work, and like you, LadyZ, I'm not always online or even at the pc even though it's on, but it does heat up the room alot and the noise of all the fans is a factor (as you mentioned Vaskez)so I shut it down at night. I do usually turn off the monitor if I won't be using the pc for a few hours or more.

On or off depends on how often you use the system and what it's used for, and different system components have different tendencies I think.

Power supplies tend to die quicker if they're left on full time.

Motherboards tend to die on powerup, so they may not like geting turned on and off.

Hard drives tend to die of old age (3 to 5 years typically), I think it's read and write activity that does them in, not powerup (just my opinion).

CRT Monitors die of all sorts of maladies, but often it's the High frequency supply, and often that goes on powerup... but IMO they shouldn't be left on due to cost, you could buy another crt for the amount of electricity it'd cost to leave yours on full time.

LCD Monitors... I dunno, have yet to kill one (and I've got 4... nice reliability there).

More on Disk Drives:

My Home domain server/file server is on 24/7, however... it has no monitor or keyboard and the drive array spins down after 2 hours of inactivity. It's been running this way since I got it (3 years or so) and I just had my first hdd failure on that box. It just got a bran-spankin new terrabyte raid array... it's also set to spin down, that array is for media (DVD's, MP3's, Pictures), and it is not used frequently.

Using the windows "hdd shut down" feature isn't necessarily bad, it depends on how often your drive is getting hit. And the reason not to use it is more annoyance of waiting for spin-up than anything else imo. If it's a drive that's only occasionally used, spin it down and live with the slight delay. set the waiting period to a couple hours so it's not going up and down too frequently and you won't have a problem, most HDD's fail from read/write (surface) failure not mechanicals or electricals.

All the desktops in my house are shut down every night, PC's cost money to run, and any reduction in component life is likely more than balanced by savings in energy bills.

Interesting post Thoran. If you ever get a minute, would you mind giving a brief description of how your home network is set up and what you use your server for exactly?

I'm quite interested in getting something similar set up myself and is always good to hear what its used for by other people!

WTF :eek: assuming lady Z computer is at best 400 or 500 watts then the world is in a whole lotta pain if what they say is true ... Sorry Lennon but I would place this story in the bin, right along with the magnets in your hard drive that cure cancer BS :D </font>[/QUOTE]Hehe yeah I had a good laugh at that one [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] The power leaked from the cables intuitively shouldn't be enough to give cancer to an ant with its head next to the cable for 10 years!

As has been said, systems should never heat if they have a decent heatsink and some good fans to generate good airflow around the case.

I leave two of my desktops on 24/7. I reset one every month or so, or whenever I need to restart (only when the registry needs edited) as this is a desktop, so is actually being used. This one stays on even when I'm on holiday.

My server is on every day, but is switched off overnight, as it isn't generally needed. My new computer I just purchased will also be running 27/7, and has some good fans and filters etc. to keep it clean.

I am also going to convert one of my 386's into a linux IRCSSI box, which will run without keyboard and mouse, and just be used as an IRC server. This will run 24/7 too.

The only problems with this is power consumption, but I turning the monitor off greatly lessens this, and I don't tend to boot down HDDs etc, as I use them frequently.

By the time your computer would wear out from these factors, it would likely be time to get a newer computer anyhow.

BUT...if you're going to leave your computer on all the time, how about running Einstein @home? (see prevous thread on Gravitational Waves)

Dunno, it might generate too many electromagnetic waves [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

Besides my PC Isn't a workhorse, it's a being with emotions and needs its rest! :D

No problem...

Hardware:

The network is a combination of Gigabit ethernet (Netgear GS508T Switch) and Wireless-G (Linksys WRT54G Broadband Router). Internet is Cable Modem through the Router firewall.

I have 3 systems on the wired lan:

Primary Domain Controller: Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition, P3-1ghz, 1 GB ram, 1TB RAID10 array, 36gb UW-SCSI for the OS. That system is also running SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 and Coldfusion MX 6.1 (for development).

Experimental Box: I have an old P2-450 that I used to use as a Proxy Server (using Microsoft ISA Server), but since I got the Router I just goof with it, play with Linux and such.

Desktop system : Athlon XP 2400 running Windows XP

Over wireless I have an additional two systems:

Desktop system : Athlon XP 1700 running Windows XP
Laptop : Compaq NW8000 Pentium M-1.6 running Windows XP

I set up a domain because it gives me ABSOLUTE POWER over all the systems on my network... MWAHAHAHAH! (evil laugh)

The kids don't install ANYTHING without getting permission, but they can login from any machine and get access to their share drive for homework or whatever.

I can control access to any box (including setting times when the kids aren't allowed on), and easily centralize resources... as I said, the large drive array has about 30 full quality DVD's on it, 12,000 MP3's, and 200 Gigabytes of family pictures going back to the 1940's (it's the main archive for my extended family). Also the Ink Jet and Laser printer are shared from the server, so that one machine is the only one that needs to stay on 24/7.

Finally, all my applications and utilities are stored on the server, when I bring home a new system (or reinstall windows on an old one), all I have to do is add the new box to the domain and I can connect to the archive with all the stuff I'll want to install... it seriously simplifies setting up new machines.

It also adds some security, even if a user got into the network (say through the wireless connection) they wouldn't be able to access any resources.

I also get a nice audit trail, anytime someone logs in, out, or attempts to login the server tracks it (along with about a bazillion other things).

Overall and most importantly... it's a cool geek toy. [img]smile.gif[/img]

You might ask why I'm using all Microsoft stuff... well mainly because I have an MSDN Universal subscription at work, and besides beeing a cool geek toy, doing this stuff at home has a learning aspect to it also. Even though I'm not a IT guy (nor will I ever be), I find as a Project Engineer I do a lot of PC Work, buying, configuring, applying, etc... so the more I know about the system the better a job I can do. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 03-07-2005, 05:37 PM: Message edited by: Thoran ]

sounds like a SWEET setup Thoran you lucky GEEK :D

Well, unfortunately I only have 7 PC's in my bedroom.

Some of them sound like jet engines, so they are turned off every night. My main system is pretty much silent, so that gets left on every night (I do like my IRC chat logs :D ).

Hmmm. I've been told that turning the PC off and on repeatedly can damage the components, but you would be very unlucky to have that happen to you. PC's that are left on would be more prone to power surges, so I guess it's a catch 22 situation as to which would nail you first.

Thoran is my new hero.... :D

I've got almost as many machines (although I'm down to four active ones, with two back on the shelves), but your setup with the server and storage is much, much better than what I've got with my Linux box.

Only thing I've got more of is operating systems (Win98, 2k, XP, and Red Hat Linux).

Tsk you guys have more money and time than sense. 4, 7 PCs what's the difference? I only have 1 (big surprise) and have never felt the need for more. This life of decadence won't have any positive outcome...

<font color=plum>I used to leave my PC on constantly - especially when I was downloading and sharing P2P files. But some of my college buddies (who know MUCH more about computers than I) suggested it was a bad idea to leave PC's on 24/7. IIRC, it had to do with re-setting the registry, which lessened the chances of viruses. Could be wrong about that, though. I just remember being told it wasn't a good idea to leave it on all the time.

Now that I FINALLY have a DSL connection, I definitely turn the PC OFF when I'm not using it. My system was infected with an extremely nasty trojan just a couple of days after getting DSL and I JUST got it cleaned and back from the PC shop. I have more firewalls installed and use Mozilla Firefox as my browser now, but I'm still not taking any unnecessary chances of getting infected again.</font>

Yea but a life of geek decedance isn't as unhealthy as say... a life of sexual decendance. :D

Sadly... it's not as much fun either. :(

lol ;)

[ 03-08-2005, 09:44 AM: Message edited by: Thoran ]

I dunno... could have some upsides:

7 PC's means that even on a cold night, you could turn the heat off in your house and your bedroom would stay at a nice and cozy 50c or so.

If you snore, you can leave them running to provide white noise... without having to spend money on a white noise generator (use that cash to get another computer!)

If you're a lan gamer... you can put the cooler of beer on the middle of the bed and everyone will be able to reach it without getting up.

<font color=skyblue>We were required to turn our machines off every night at work and were fussed at if we did not.
I can't remember why exactly...</font> </font>[/QUOTE]interesting, the network admins must not have pushed any software out at night then (ours push out anti-virus updates, software updates, security updates, etc at night so that they can have the machines restart once the software is on the computer without disrupting users) (we log out for the night and leave them on (with the monitors off))

One thing that I don't think has been mentioned yet is some operating systems, namely windows 9x (95, 98, and ME) NEED to be restarted fairly frequently. I had a problem with my 98 box not releasing RAM it used for my screensaver, and in order to keep my entire computer from running off of virtual memory (slowest type of RAM) I had to restart to free up the clutter. Usually every day, or every other day, with Windows 2k/XP I haven't noticed any issues.

LCD monitors (and TV's) have a set lifespan, a number of hours they will last, this has gone up significantly un recent years, it's a good idea to turn them off when not using the comp.

Right, the point is that they last a long time... in my experience they are at least as reliable as good quality CRT Monitors (NEC, Mag, Viewsonic, etc...), and much better than the cheap CRT's out there (CTX and others).

The backlight is the most likely failure component on an lcd panel, so having a 10 minute inactivity shutdown is a great way to optimize the lifespan of your panel.

I find my computer starts to lag if I keep it on for too long.

WTF :eek: assuming lady Z computer is at best 400 or 500 watts then the world is in a whole lotta pain if what they say is true ... Sorry Lennon but I would place this story in the bin, right along with the magnets in your hard drive that cure cancer BS :D </font>[/QUOTE]Hehe yeah I had a good laugh at that one [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] The power leaked from the cables intuitively shouldn't be enough to give cancer to an ant with its head next to the cable for 10 years! </font>[/QUOTE]<span style="color: lightblue">That's what I try to tell my mother every time she mentions it. Yes, I think it's utter crap aswell (hence 'supposedly')... but my mother is generally paranoid.