Poll: Do you shut down your system or just use standby??

[IamDavid]

I was told yesterday its not good on my machine to have it in standby when I 'm not using it. I was told its better to turn it off overnight or any other time I will not be using it for a few hours.. The guy who told me this is a manager of a very large network so I kinda want to believe him but I have never heard anything bad about standby.. So please answer the question.

 

[fluxquantum]

i leave my system on 24/7.

 

[Mavrick007]

Some machines will not "awaken" out of hibernation or standby because of either the chipset or other peripherals, such as USB mice. My machine would have problems with standby and my USB mouse, but a standard PS/2 mouse was more reliable.

 

[IamDavid]

Originally posted by: Mavrick007
Some machines will not "awaken" out of hibernation or standby because of either the chipset or other peripherals, such as USB mice. My machine would have problems with standby and my USB mouse, but a standard PS/2 mouse was more reliable.

I have both a USB mouse and keyboard and have no problems.. I just push my power button to enter and exit standby..

i leave my system on 24/7.

My main rig is in my room so the noise would drive me nuts if I did that.

 

[bacillus]

Shut down

 

[GTaudiophile]

I put in on standby when I sleep, otherwise it's on.

 

[sechs]

During the day, when I'm using the computer, it is set to go into standby. At night, when I'm not using it, I hibernate it.

 

[Mem]

I shut mine down each night.

 

[KF]

>I was told its better to turn it off overnight or any other time I will not be using it for a few hours.

Did he say what bad thing was going to happen?

Mostly what I have heard is that it is better to keep it on 24/7. They say it is mainly the thermal cycling (hot to cool and back) that stresses the components, leading to failures. Some say to not let the HD power down.

The only failure in my system though is fan bearings, and I'm quite sure running them less will make them last longer.

24/7 will run up your electic bill some. Let's say the computer uses 200 watts. I don't know what it really uses. There are 720 hours in a month. That makes 144 KWH. At 7 cents a KWH, that is $10.

 

[Wolfsraider]

all on 24/7 for the last 5 years:Q

i never turn off the monitors either

no screensavers ever

 

[krackato]

24/7. I've got a 300w powersupply. I've always wondered how much money I'm spending on electricity to help the Seti@home project.

 

[aircooled]

I either leave it on or shut it down. I dont like stand by or hibernation.... I think they are both flakey.

 

[RalfHutter]

Mostly I shut it down, it only takes about 40 seconds to boot up (XP). During the weekends I usually leave it on 24/7.

Hibernation and standby are usually somewhat flakey. If you have to end up hard-resetting to get it to start up, what's the benefit over just shutting ot down in the first place?

 

[Dulanic]

I used to Suspend to RAM which is awsome, basically a full shutdown but it leaves power to the RAM so you dont have to reload your OS... its really toucy on wether it works or not tho, some systems it does, others it doesnt.

 

[IamDavid]

Originally posted by: KF
>I was told its better to turn it off overnight or any other time I will not be using it for a few hours.

Did he say what bad thing was going to happen?

Mostly what I have heard is that it is better to keep it on 24/7. They say it is mainly the thermal cycling (hot to cool and back) that stresses the components, leading to failures. Some say to not let the HD power down.

The only failure in my system though is fan bearings, and I'm quite sure running them less will make them last longer.

24/7 will run up your electic bill some. Let's say the computer uses 200 watts. I don't know what it really uses. There are 720 hours in a month. That makes 144 KWH. At 7 cents a KWH, that is $10.

He really didn't say much and I didn't want to sound like an idiot asking him what he was talking about. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about but I guess the people at Best Buy talk the same way too.

 

[BatmanNate]

I leave mine on 24/7 because it contains the majority of my HD space which is shared via samba to my ftp/web server. I've always left all 3 of my machines on 24/7 and haven't had much in the way of problems. If you cycle off and on a lot, I've heard that it can stress some of the sensitive components thermaly, and can cause extra wear on bearings and whatnot. My main system keeps the HD's consistantly powered, but turns of the monitor after 20 minutes.

 

[XBoxLPU]

Run both of computers 24/7. No screensaver. Turn off monitors once I leave my pc

 

[Floydian]

I shut down, but sometimes leave it on to d/l stuff

 

[Sundog]

Shut down.

 

[Tab]

On some of the older machines, some times if they are sleeping. If they happen to be on a network and have the 'wake on lan' feature enabled. Sometimes if they are waken up by another machine or someone it won't work properly. On the newer mobo's it seems to work though. For LCD Moniters, there backlight will only last so long. I think that even if you have it on 'sleep' the backlight is still on.

 

[ElFenix]

24/7, just like vegas

 

[MrPhelps]

Shut down

 

[DanFungus]

Do you shut down your system or just use standby??

no

 

[tweakmm]

Originally posted by: DanFungus
Do you shut down your system or just use standby??

no

only sometimes for me

 

[PHiuR]

leave it most of the time... sometimes i turn it off.... i dunno depends if im lazy or not.. if im lazy ill leave it on.... but i usuually turn the monitors off (3 comps running in my house)