86toyota

I've heard different things about turning on and off all the time. Constantely heating it up then cooling it down is bad. I turn mine off every night, and if it's on during the day, the monitor goes into standby after five minutes of no use.

jrallan26

I just turn off the montor.

Corey

iTrader: (1)

I voted yes, leave it on.
I use to leave mine on all the time, 24/7, and just turn the monitor off when going to work.
Now I leave it off while at work.

I know some who turn off their PC as soon as they get done checking their email or done gaming.
This way they may end up turning it on/off 10 times a day.

I feel it is better to leave it on all the time, or just turn it off once at the end of the day.

redfox435cat

I think this one entirely up to the user. I used to turn mine off at night since the freakin thing was so loud. Spent another 200 bucks for quiet PSU, cpu fan, a heat pipe for the video and a couple quiet case fan and now leave it on most of the time and is now silent
prop to these guys quiet

Course ever since the music industry started handing out law suits I've been leaving it off.


I still have lots of STOLEN music and share it as much as posable

TAKE THAT
whow whats up with that tangent

green91runner

well.. leaving it on or off wont affect the life of the cpu.. but it will definetely shorten the life of all the ballbearing fans.. typically (decent ones) last 50,000 hours, roughly 5 years (on 24/7).. if you use it half as much.. 10 years.. although, a 5 year old computer is a dinosaur. both desktops and laptops clog up with dust the more they are on, on my inspiron 5100 i just clean it out every 6 months, suggest the same of a desktop, less dust = more airflow = cooler temps, and a better all around cpu

az4x4runner

This computer has been on 24/7 since I built it years ago. Unless the power goes out or I go somewhere for a long period of time. I've gone through a few CPU, chipset, and gfx card fans.

Churnd

I leave mine on unless I'm leaving for the weekend or such. I hate waiting for it to boot, even though it does boot pretty quickly.

Nic

The last one I built, has stayed on and never goes off unless my electricity goes out. Its been running for about 3 years now. From what I have read, it is better to leave them running.

I do have it set to go to sleep and turn the monitor off after two hours. Haven't had any problems so far.

Scofco

I shut mine down to save on the electric bill.

It has a fast bootup time, so that's why. If it was a slow bootup, it would be another story.

Edit: to be more specific, I shut it down while I sleep, or if I don't intend on using it for a number of hours.

BT17R

I shut the computer down any time I leave even though I'm on a UPS with auto shutdown. I leave the monitor on all the time, though it goes into standby (5W draw) but stays warmed up for a quick start on reboot. I've read that Windows does self-checks and repairs at boot, another reason I power cycle.

Nic

I have my computer to set to turn off my hard drive and monitor after two hours.

I think about the hackers too, but any time I am not online, I use the standy button on my cable modem. That essentially turns the modem off preventing any access. Of course, a good firewall helps too.

yoda-g2

I leave all of mine on 24/7. I figure we have servers at work that have been running for years without any issues. I just assume that my rate of upgrading HDD's, Fans, etc will happen every couple of years anyways so the small amount of life that POSSIBLY might be lost is inconsequential.

hillbilly

The safest computer is a stand-alone or one that is off while not in use. Sure... run firewalls, anti-virus, spyware apps, etc. New hacks occur continuously, so its just a matter of time before your PCs had while your not present (or present).

If you must leave it on, I'd highly recommend you simply disconnect the Ethernet connect before walking away.

li_runner

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question328.htm

I agree with the above article for the most part. Wear and tear on the computer is really a non-issue. Your computer is made to last much longer than you plan on keeping it.

A computer does not draw a large amount of power when it is not in use. If you are concerned about power, you could look into hibernation. A typical computer draw is near leaving a few lightbulbs on all the time. Your better off paying much more attention to large draw items AC's, fridge things like that.

redplastic2p3t

everytime you kill power to the chip thats a day off the processors life!!! leave it running, its not that big a deal on the power bill, its like leaving a light bulb on all the time

DrBeau

It also depeneds on what OS your running. For Windows, anything bult on the NT kernel (WinNT, Win2000, WinXP) are meant to run 24/7. If its 95, 98, ME, etc. then you should powercycle it everyday or so, although with these OSes it'll crash aften enough for you to not have to do it manual ;-). Also, I'm sure anything built on a UNIX/LINUX kernel should be good to go 24/7. Hope this helps.

CynicX

My Pentium 4 2.0ghz has been on since Oct. of 2001. I will turn it off during lightning storms though. I have a good surge protector, but since the surger protector was 70 bucks I dont want to lose that if I can help it. Even when I go on vacation I leave it on since I've started running an FTP on it, unless its the summer time and there might be a lightning storm. I've had the processor fan start to go back I guess (it was getting noisey) and I've had a HD die just recently (that was more user error).....so in 4 1/2 years I've spent 7 dollars on a fan, and I'm down to one hard drive, the one I lost was only a 20 gig HD anyway, no biggy....

Either I've been lucky or its better just to let her run uhm or it doesnt matter

Mickdady

Redhat linux running 24/7 for 640days of uptime!!

I leave mine on because they are game/web/database/VOIP servers. The desktop computer I do turn off now and then because my office gets hot with 3 computers running.

Tofer

what about laptop computers? is the same feeling towards them being on 24/7 as it is with desktops... does it matter? cuz i leave mine on all the tiem..

Churnd

That's what I have, and I do too. Even worse, I leave mine in a docking station, which can make it even hotter. But I have a 3rd party BIOS utility that lets me control my fans to keep the temps as low as possible. Mine hovers around 50* C under a small load. A well cooled desktop usually hovers around 32* C under a similar load. Mine will go up to 72* if I'm gaming.

Reasons why I'd see it being a problem leaving any PC on 24/7:

• Heat
• Power Supply
• Power Consumption

That's why servers have such good power supplies, because they're more reliable. A cheaper PS might crap out on you if you leave it on all the time. But they're cheap enough to replace, so I wouldn't worry about it.

The heat can damage different parts of the PC, such as the processor, hard drive, graphics card, RAM, etc. Most PC's have adequate enough venting systems to keep it cool enough to run 24/7, but you gotta watch out for those fans going out on you.

And yeah, it's more expensive to leave it on all the time. But like mentioned above, it's about the equivalent of a light depending on what all you have running.