Good to Keep Your Computer On?

[Vaskez]

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...

[Cerek]

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.

[Thoran]

Originally posted by Vaskez: 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...

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

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

lol

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

[Thoran]

Originally posted by Dace De'Briago: Well, unfortunately I only have 7 PC's in my bedroom.

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.

[Morgeruat]

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

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... [/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))

[Morgeruat]

Originally posted by Cloudbringer: 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.

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.

[Morgeruat]

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

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.

[Thoran]

Originally posted by Morgeruat: 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.

[Klorox]

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

[LennonCook]

Originally posted by Vaskez: quote: Originally posted by wellard: quote: Originally posted by LennonCook: The arguments for: The electromagnetic radiation from the wires can supposedly cause cancer, so it is better for you not to have the computer on too often.

WTF 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 [/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! [/QUOTE]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.