Leave computer on 24/7 or turn off daily?

[MedicBob]

I leave all of mine on. They are doing Distributed Computing on 2, plus 2 servers, etc. They others automatically get Windows upadtes from 1 of my servers, AV, Backup, etc. so those stay on too.

 

[Amaroque]

My computers are on 24/7. In standby with the monitor off, they use about as much electric as a night light. If ~7 watts of power consumption is going to put you over your monthly budget, then shut it off... :roll:

It's pretty much a moot point (computers become obsolete too fast). You put more stress on your components, going through thermal shock every single day, as opposed to just leaving it on.

 

[daveybrat]

I turn mine off when i go to bed at night. No sense in allowing my computer to pull in more dust than it normally does.

 

[Kevin1211]

depends... if i have to upload/download something to my ftp server i leave it on all night.... but otherwise, i turn mine off every nite

 

[jjsbasmt]

On 24/7. Only off to clean interior every 4 months. Use good cooling and good power with a UPS and you'll have almost no hardware problems.

 

[eplebnista]

Originally posted by: jai6638
I leave it on 24/7... restart it once in 2 weeks..

 

[bowserjs]

hit enter to fast

 

[bowserjs]

turn it off at night or work

 

[Bassyhead]

I always leave it on

 

[Jeff7]

If I know I'll not be using it for several hours, it gets shut down. Any other time it's left on, I've got Folding@Home running, or else the CPU is busy doing video encoding.

 

[Laputa]

I leave it off just to lower the bill. Had left one server on 24/7 and what turned out was a total data lost one day when both mirrior drive dies without warning.

 

[sindjelic]

I turn it off only if I am out of home for 2 or more days.

 

[Paperlantern]

TO answer helo7050's question posted way up there...

Originally posted by: helo7050
leave it on during the day and off during the night. . I just can't sleep hearing the fan during the middle of the night. ...

What i would like to know is about leaving your Monitor On. My LCD monitor after i shut off the PC goes into some powersave mode. I never really turn the power off on the monitor. Will that casue problems??

No, it wont cause any problems, its designed to do that, allows for faster on time, and really, with LCD's, only retains settings, because LCDs are virtually instant on's anyway, no tubes to heat up, no capacitors that drain, just thousands and thousands of pixel sized transitors that come to life in a matter of milliseconds and a light to flip on, thats all. No worries, manufacturers know its easier to turn on one item, not two, so they have that SLEEP mode on 99.9999% of all monitors now (youd be hard pressed to find one that doesnt have it) to wake the monitor when theres a video signal present, wonderful isnt it?

and to answer the threads question, i leave it on as long as i'm home and awake, if i'm sleeping or at work, its off. I too have a loud enough fan to cause sleep problems, plus, wtf, its like a light on in a room your not in, you aint using it, turn it off!

Now to completely contradict my last statement, the work PC is on 24/7 (mind you its an office PC, needing updates everyday at 3 am), locking the workstation, or logging off when i'm not there, its a PIII 500MHz with 256MB RAM and a (now upgraded) 40GB Drive, WAS 6GB, that one finally gave up after... lets see, that thing is circa 1999 ish, so 6 years, running more or less 24/7 makes it run 2,190 days, or 52,560 hours, or 3,153,600 minutes before the ole 6GB drive puked... all other components are still running A OK, not bad considering HDD is MOST likely to fail in any system. =)