Okay to leave computer on in summer?

[SparkyJJO]

I do

 

[Oyeve]

Well, my work PC (HP DC5000 SFF) had its HD kick the bucket over the weekend. I leave it on 24/7 and in my office on the past weekend with the main AC off and being in the 90s saturday and sunday I am pretty sure the office ambient temp was over 100 F. I came in yesterday and the system was still running but was extemely slow. I mean x386 running xp with 64megs kinda slow and its a P4 3ghz with 2 gb ram. So I shut down and the HD never came back. Took the lid off and when touched the HD and PSU I nearly burned myself. So now I shut down my PC for the weekend, but during the week the office AC is on so it should be ok.

 

[bob4432]

my home server pc runs 24/7 x years. it is a modest setup - nf2 biostar m/b, xp2000 with a copper hs and 92mm fan, a 120mm intake fan blowing across all the hdds, a gpu that is passively cooled, a 80mm exchaust fan and a 350W antec true blue psu with 2x80mm fans. i bought the xp2000 when they were brand new and "fast" so it is more than a couple years old. it only gets rebooted when a windows update needs, current uptime is ~30days. and yes it on a upc that will shut it down if the power is out. the monitor on it is never on as i use vnc to control it. i am not using any special hdds, 1 30GB Maxtor, 1 60GB IBM and 1 120GB WD, and all work fine. my computer rooms stays about 80-85 in the summer and 70-75 in the winter.

my rig in sig usually stays on for 12-15hrs/day

also, what do you guys think atms are? they just use regular off the shelf components and are basically pcs. they are outside and where i live in phx az, it will get to 115F often in the shade in the summber, actual direct sunlight temps are probably 140F+ and the work fine.

 

[T9D]

The best thing you can do is stick a fan on your Hard drives. Keeping them nice and cool makes a big difference. Keeping everything else well ventilated too is going to make everything be a lot more reliable.

 

[archcommus]

I have two 80mm intake fans below my HDD, is that a good position?

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: archcommus
I have two 80mm intake fans below my HDD, is that a good position?

can you have one blow directly over them? all my cases have the ability, or i mod them and put in even a 70mm fan in there to blow over them, it drops the temps quite a bit

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: archcommus
I have two 80mm intake fans below my HDD, is that a good position?

can you have one blow directly over them? all my cases have the ability, or i mod them and put in even a 70mm fan in there to blow over them, it drops the temps quite a bit

That might be easily done if I just put the HDD in a lower slot.

Odd, as I figured the only part that would really need cooling would be the exposed underside.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

why run 24/7 ?

Is it doing something worthwhile? Do you like giving the power company money for free? Geez!

 

[furballi]

1. Technically-challenged people believe that the PC will last longer if it is running 24/7.

2. People are too lazy to wait 25 seconds for the PC to boot.

3. People are poor $ manager. Paying $ to the power company is no different than paying interest on your credit card debts.

My last PC was still purring after 6 six years (at least five ON/OFF cycles per day). An individual would save at least $100/year in power bill by turning OFF the PC for 12 hours/day.

 

[Powermoloch]

If you're not worrying about electric bills and making money like mad. sure, leave it on. Make sure you're PC is not over heating due to bad ventilation.

 

[Mark R]

Originally posted by: archcommus

BTW, my Seagate 7200.7 series has an MTBF of 600,000 hours, or about 68 1/2 years. But obviously you couldn't expect the drive to run that long, so what does this really mean?

It means each year that there is a 1 in 68.5 chance that your drive will break down.

This assumes that you replace your drive when it reaches 'old age' (probably 3-5 years for an desktop drive, 7 years for a server drive).

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: eLiu
Mine idles at 51C, lol. My room temp is reasonable, but my dorm has steam heating so the floors are warm year round... and the box sits on the floor ><

Still, no problems.

Edit: ehh the 7200.7s are extremely reliable drives. StorageReview lists a huge number of people who own it, and the failure rate is really low. They're slower than the newer Seagate drives, but I still buy them for the reliability.

You think MORE reliable than the 7200.8s, 9s, or 10s? That'd be odd.

More reliable than a 7200.8 I guarnatee you. look at SR's 7200.8 reliability database. TERRIBLE. I've had 7200.8s break down, and I've read too many complaints. Seagate themselves has even admitted to a "smooth chip" problem with the 7200.8. I believe they corrected some problems with the 7200.9, but it's quite similar to the 7200.8. I replaced my 7200.8 w/ 7200.9 because Seagate was nice enough to bump me up after I complained about multiple 7200.8 failures. I will have to see how this runs.

7200.7 was very reliable, and if you look at the reliability index, it's more reliable than the Raptor =) But that said, it's a slow drive. Slower than the Hitachi 7K250, which is my backup drive so no need to get a slow drive for me....