Is it better to leave PC on all the time?

[vegetation]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: vegetation
An old myth that may have been true long ago but not anymore. What kills hard drives, aside from obvious design flaws, is heat and just the drive spinning around. That's why it's best to have the drive power down when inactive but windows has a long way to go to get this working better -- for instance, i often want to just power down one out of two drives, not both. No can do.

Actually, the majority of the wear of modern FDB-based drives is on startup, at least as far as main-motor bearing-wear is concerned. Spinning HDs down/up often is probably the worst thing in the world that you can do to them, save throwing them in a freezer/fire or tossing them off of a building.

I disagree. Heat is what kills most people's hard drives prematurely. By keeping your system on all the time, you increase that risk. Granted, some people build systems to ensure the drives run cool but let's face it, the majority do not. Motor wear is hardly an issue unless you plan on keeping your drives running for twenty years from now, which of course is just plain silly since by that time it will be so much obsolete you wouldn't want to run it anyways.

 

[newParadigm]

I leave it on all day and turn it off at nite. I'm always dling sumthin with Overnet/ed2k.

I'll leave it on at nite if i'm downloading a super big file, like UT2004 or sumthing.

I don't use the sleep mode thing, it turns off the harddrive and therefore doesn't download at all.

I also do SETI and Prime95 when i feel like giving aways clock cycles.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: vegetation

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Actually, the majority of the wear of modern FDB-based drives is on startup, at least as far as main-motor bearing-wear is concerned. Spinning HDs down/up often is probably the worst thing in the world that you can do to them, save throwing them in a freezer/fire or tossing them off of a building.

I disagree. Heat is what kills most people's hard drives prematurely. By keeping your system on all the time, you increase that risk. Granted, some people build systems to ensure the drives run cool but let's face it, the majority do not. Motor wear is hardly an issue unless you plan on keeping your drives running for twenty years from now, which of course is just plain silly since by that time it will be so much obsolete you wouldn't want to run it anyways.

While I agree that thermal issues are probably more of an issue than motor wear - let me ask you this? Have you heard the "whine" of a worn-down ball-bearing HD spindle motor? Spinning those drives up and down increases the wear, which would most likely cause the "whine" to become noticable in a shorter period of time.

I don't see how running the drives all of the time increases the risk of failure due to improper cooling. If anything, it tends to keep the drives at a more constant temperature, lowering risk from thermal expansion/contraction issues. That is, *as long as the drives are properly cooled*.

I completely agree, that most systems probably don't have proper cooling on the HDs. IMHO, active cooling for 7200 RPM drives is a wise idea, and a must if you have more than one sandwiched on top of each other.

 

[nageov3t]

I don't leave it on just for the sake of it being on... but if I'm downloading something or am going to be away for less than 4-5 hours.

pretty much, unless downloads are in progress, I shut it off when I go to bed and when I go to work.

 

[tweeve2002]

I started turning off my system at night when I first got my tornado, then I got a fan contorller, and lowerd the speed of the fan, but the light from the fan contorller kept me awake, so I would either find some way to cover it or just turn it off. Now days I just trun it off at night when im down using it, dont use the tornados any more, upgraded to high output 120mm fans I have cats who sleep at times on the keyboard, nothing worse than waking up to the computer going crazy with beeping noises and thinking that the computer just had a MAJOR crash or something, when its only the stupid cat.

 

[0roo0roo]

windows power management f*cking SUCKS. it never even holds the settings to turn my LCDs off,much less hard drives.

]


really? set the drives to go off in 10-15min in bios. that never fails.

Originally posted by: White Widow
To string this out even more, I found this info which might shed some more light on the issue:

According to tests conducted by IST, Hardware Support, tests showed the following. On a Pentium 4, 1.7GH machine:

* during boot power in watts is close to 110w
* during idle, no power management,. close to 60w
* during full power saving, no hard disk spin, machine in sleep mode, 35w

A Sony 17? monitor consumed 75w when in use. When power-saver mode kicks in (and the monitor goes black with a yellow indicator light) the power consumption is negligible to the point that our test equipment did not even register any power use.

The total power consumption of a typical PC and monitor does not consume more than 175 Watts of energy at its highest rate, and typically closer to 125W during normal full-power operation. At night time when your PC is ?sleeping? it only consumes 35 Watts.

Math - 35W * $0.10.kwh * 10 hours = 3.5 cents for overnight Hibernation

Important -

1. STANDBY mode is not the same a Hibernate or Sleep. In Stanby, the PC consumes almost as much as during normal operation.

2. Screen savers do nothing to conserve power.

how does one get to actual sleep mode. do system fans stay on during sleep? in windows power management it only allows me to select suspend? so far when i hit sleep button it just spins down hd's it seems

i leave my comptuer on when its busy, otherwise it goes off. better solution now is to leave laptop on. its suspend mode always works to boot. with wifi and all, damn convenient and well, laptops suckdown very little power right?

 

[White Widow]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

but if you are going to use Sleep or Hibernate, which spins down the HDs and powers off the monitor, then why not just Shutdown instead?

The only reason to use Hibernate is so you can come back to Windows faster. I have to admit, though, that I actually used a stopwatch to compare how long it takes to boot fully into Windows vs. how long it takes to come back from Hibernate. I'm sorry to say you only save a few seconds (less than 10) by using Hibernate, so I guess it's basically a toss-up.

Also, please tell me more about the "design bugs" with Hibernate in Windows. I use it on my laptop all the time and never seem to have any trouble. Are these bugs potentially damaging, or just annoying?

How to HIbernate in Windows XP

1. Click Start and Shut Down
2. Hold down the SHIFT key
3. A new hibernation button appears, replacing the STANDBY button.

Weird.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: White Widow

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

but if you are going to use Sleep or Hibernate, which spins down the HDs and powers off the monitor, then why not just Shutdown instead?

The only reason to use Hibernate is so you can come back to Windows faster. I have to admit, though, that I actually used a stopwatch to compare how long it takes to boot fully into Windows vs. how long it takes to come back from Hibernate. I'm sorry to say you only save a few seconds (less than 10) by using Hibernate, so I guess it's basically a toss-up.

Also, please tell me more about the "design bugs" with Hibernate in Windows. I use it on my laptop all the time and never seem to have any trouble. Are these bugs potentially damaging, or just annoying?

How to HIbernate in Windows XP

1. Click Start and Shut Down
2. Hold down the SHIFT key
3. A new hibernation button appears, replacing the STANDBY button.

Weird.

Whether hibernate is truly useful depends on how you use your machine. If you're in a habit of shutting down open windows when you get up it probably doesn't make much difference. If, however, you do development work or need seesions active as soon as possible, then hibernate is for you. Hibernate also works in general terms because it powers down your box after a user defeined interval of no use, which saves power.

There's only one design bug I've noticed: It isn't consistant.

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Windows XP if that is what you have will constantly look for updates and can be set to automatically download updates and even install them for you, but you need to leave it on at night. This helps to protect you against known vulnerabilities. If you leave it on 24 hours continually, you may actually be safer.

1. Not everyone runs XP

2. How many security holes are there in the OS that they don't know about.... yet? Generally, these security holes are exploited well before a patch ever arrives on the scene from Microsoft, or third party software vendor. The same could be said for Linux as well.

So your statement may present the best practice for attaining updates as soon as they are out, but still leaves your machine accessable 24/7 to other exploits, and ones that you potentially have no way of knowing your machine succumbed to.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: WackyDan
2. How many security holes are there in the OS that they don't know about.... yet? Generally, these security holes are exploited well before a patch ever arrives on the scene from Microsoft, or third party software vendor. The same could be said for Linux as well.

So your statement may present the best practice for attaining updates as soon as they are out, but still leaves your machine accessable 24/7 to other exploits, and ones that you potentially have no way of knowing your machine succumbed to.

Which is why you augment your security with added precautions such as AV, AT, FW's, routers, etc. If one is willing to take these extra measures, learn how to use them effectively and use safe-computing practices, using Windows (or Linux) doesn't have to be an excercise in fear/paranoia.

 

[rickon66]

Shut it down when you won't be using it. Would you leave your car running 24/7 just because starting it is hard on the starter and battery to start it every time you want to use it?

 

[sisooktom]

Originally posted by: rickon66
Shut it down when you won't be using it. Would you leave your car running 24/7 just because starting it is hard on the starter and battery to start it every time you want to use it?

Not a very good analogy, an automobile is way more of an energy hog than a PC. Not to mention I don't want my car stolen. And last time I checked, it didn't take me upwards of 1 minute to get moving in my car.

 

[stickybytes]

I turn mines off when im done using it for the day.
However i can see pratical reasons why you would want to leave it on such as your own ftp, server, etc. For those tasks, a cheapy sub 500 dollar computer can do. No need to waste your primary rig on such easy cpu tasks.

 

[ShawnD1]

Won't using a crappy computer use more power? An Athlon 2500+ running at 10% probably takes less power than a 500MHz P3 at 100%.

 

[StrangerGuy]

If you want to use the PC, switch it on. Once you are finished switch it off. Leave the PC on if you are off the desk for less than an hour (e.g tea-break, lunch whatever).

That's my recommendation, since the PC is sucking precious (from an economic point of view) electricity even if you are not using it so I suggest switching it off when you not using for more than an hour but switching it on/off too much is kinda stressing for the system on the whole.

However some people need to have a computer 24/7 on all the time as they run servers, distributed computing tasks etc. Some simply just prefer to have a always-on system.

 

[konakona]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
If you want to use the PC, switch it on. Once you are finished switch it off. Leave the PC on if you are off the desk for less than an hour (e.g tea-break, lunch whatever).

That's my recommendation, since the PC is sucking precious (from an economic point of view) electricity even if you are not using it so I suggest switching it off when you not using for more than an hour but switching it on/off too much is kinda stressing for the system on the whole.

However some people need to have a computer 24/7 on all the time as they run servers, distributed computing tasks etc. Some simply just prefer to have a always-on system.

well i work on my share of my energy conservation by refusing to have a car. fossil fuel based vehicles consume way more energy than any computer ever could

 

[n7]

I leave one of my PCs on almost 24/7 since it's my download/upload server.
The other one i will leave on if i am going to be using it within hours of leaving it, but if not, i turn it off, not so much because of wear, but since i pay for my power.

 

[Wolfsraider]

All my rigs run 24/7...unless there is a power outage...been this way for 5 + years...
Does it hurt my systems? possible but my PCs are used 24/7 running dc projects....
currently on lifemapper but there are many flavors to choose from...
I'll leave the "debate" to everyone else ...
instead I'll keep helping science and medicine make advancements
simply by using my computer's spare cycles.

and yes i am a proud member of TeAm Anandtech D.C, and The Rebel Alliance

our motto "TeAmMates Advancing Science...One CPU at a Time"

seems very fitting....come on over to the "dark" side lol

mike

EDIT>oops I forgot...in case you are looking to find us we will be in the Distributed computing forum :beer::beer:

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: HardWarrior

Originally posted by: WackyDan
2. How many security holes are there in the OS that they don't know about.... yet? Generally, these security holes are exploited well before a patch ever arrives on the scene from Microsoft, or third party software vendor. The same could be said for Linux as well.

So your statement may present the best practice for attaining updates as soon as they are out, but still leaves your machine accessable 24/7 to other exploits, and ones that you potentially have no way of knowing your machine succumbed to.

Which is why you augment your security with added precautions such as AV, AT, FW's, routers, etc. If one is willing to take these extra measures, learn how to use them effectively and use safe-computing practices, using Windows (or Linux) doesn't have to be an excercise in fear/paranoia.

Good point... But now we are talking about a practice of behavior, not technology... and that is the weak link.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: WackyDan

Originally posted by: HardWarrior

Originally posted by: WackyDan
2. How many security holes are there in the OS that they don't know about.... yet? Generally, these security holes are exploited well before a patch ever arrives on the scene from Microsoft, or third party software vendor. The same could be said for Linux as well.

So your statement may present the best practice for attaining updates as soon as they are out, but still leaves your machine accessable 24/7 to other exploits, and ones that you potentially have no way of knowing your machine succumbed to.

Which is why you augment your security with added precautions such as AV, AT, FW's, routers, etc. If one is willing to take these extra measures, learn how to use them effectively and use safe-computing practices, using Windows (or Linux) doesn't have to be an excercise in fear/paranoia.

Good point... But now we are talking about a practice of behavior, not technology... and that is the weak link.

Painfully true. However, since we haven't gotten to the stage where we can view a PC is an appliance, we all have to do better in terms security. As an example of how naive (and sometimes very arrogant) some people are about security issues: A guy at INA told me one time that he didn't bother with ANY security measures because he didn't have anything of value on it and that he didn't mind if his machine was infected and couldn't care less if his machine was used for things like DDOS attacks. That's all well and good, but he had the audacity to suggest that I should feel the same way.

Whether the topic is behavior OR technology (which go hand-in-hand to create a secure PC, BTW), you have to wonder about people like this.

 

[techwanabe]

I read in a technical book that the worst thing for a PC is more frequent heat-up and cool-down cycles. This causes expansion and contraction of components and places the most stress on them. They recommended it is better to leave the computer off or on for longer periods of time. I tend to leave mine on and put it in sleep mode.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: techwanabe
I read in a technical book that the worst thing for a PC is more frequent heat-up and cool-down cycles. This causes expansion and contraction of components and places the most stress on them. They recommended it is better to leave the computer off or on for longer periods of time. I tend to leave mine on and put it in sleep mode.

Well, back in the "bad old days", turning your computer on and off a lot (which causes thermal expansion/contraction, even today), could actually cause chips to come loose and pop out of their sockets enough to cause problems with the PC. Granted, this was back in the day of 640KB memory, that had a DRAM array populated by like 32 seperate DIP chips, and another 8 EPROM DIPs for the BIOS. Ugh. I'm glad that, for the most part, we no longer have to deal with things like that.

It should be noted, that heating/cooling cycles of the CPU and attached heatsink and thermal material, can actually cause "pump out" of the thermal grease, in some uncommon cases, which is one of the reasons that AMD will only warranty their retail CPUs when used with the phase-change "pad" attached to their retail heatsinks. That's about the only real issue with thermal expansion/contraction that I can see with modern PCs that I can see, and you can always take the heatsink off and re-apply paste after a few years if temps rise too high.

 

[Vernor]

I've had CPU fans suddenly start spinning very slowly.

So I don't leave the PC on if I'm away from it for more than 1-2 hours.

 

[yhelothar]

I leave mine on 24/7...
I like the ability to access my computer's files remotely whenever I'm on another computer through FTP, it's very useful for me.
I have the monitor to shut down by itself after 30 minutes.
I usually have around 20 things open at once, so it's a big hassle for me to open and close them.

 

[Technonut]

Originally posted by: shuttleteam
The thermal stresses from turning it on and off the most stressful.

There is very little inrush current from starting a modern PC. The design of the ATX power supply is that it's always in a charged state. Now if you turn off the switch on the power supply, that is another matter.

This why you hear an inital "crack" when you insert the power cord into a PS or may see lights briefly flicker. Large value electrolytic capacitors have a rather low resistance (similar to a cold tungsten filament) and account for this brief surge.

Dust can certainly be a factor when your fans are running continuously. You want to keep this under control. If you cannot identify parts on your peripherals you have waited too long! :Q

Cheers!

This is true, and the reason I leave my rigs on 24/7.... Thermal expansion/contraction is very stressful on components.