What does more damage?

VeZ

Member
Sep 5, 2004
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Leaving a comp powered up for 2-4 days or so, or turning it off each night?
 

Cook1

Diamond Member
Jul 11, 2004
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Originally posted by: VeZ
Leaving a comp powered up for 2-4 days or so, or turning it off each night?

Mine hasen't been shut off for over a month now.

So to answer your question...B

*edit*

Wait I lied, I bought a new Video Card and TV Tuner Card and had to power it down to install those a few weeks ago.

 

Sid59

Lifer
Sep 2, 2002
11,879
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unsure. but my computer isa rareley turned off. it goes weeks and weeks without reboot. And it's been like this fora year plus.
 

Mik3y

Banned
Mar 2, 2004
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i hear that turning it on and off a lot does more damage, just like flipping a light switch too much.
 

Cook1

Diamond Member
Jul 11, 2004
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The intial shock to your system on power up is worse then leaving it on.
 

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
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I doubt that its really calculable. Its probably more likely to be killed by user error or being struck by lightning than to die early due to either method.
 

NewBlackDak

Senior member
Sep 16, 2003
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uptime for 45 days now, time before was 92. I've only rebooted for kernel upgrades since I installed my 9800 and reservior.
 

techwanabe

Diamond Member
May 24, 2000
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The more heat up and cool down cycles, the worse it is on components. That causes thermal expansion and shrinkage (right guys? ;) ) That puts the most stress on components.
 

bacillus

Lifer
Jan 6, 2001
14,517
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do remember that the pc also uses electricity so if you're not actively using it then you're wasting money by leaving it on.
 

VeZ

Member
Sep 5, 2004
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well i leave it on at night, do a little bit with it in the morning, go to school come back and use it from like 3-9 then again it goes idle
 

PhoenixOrion

Diamond Member
May 4, 2004
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Ah, the chicken or the egg debate.

Depends on what component and who you ask.

Some say that on/off is detrimental on hard drive spin-up/spin down. Others may disagree. (Both don't have any long-term results to back up arguments)

Some say that continuous stress on cpu and memory can be alleviated by power-down. Others may disagree. (Both don't have any long-term results to back up arguments)

Like somebody mentioned, system is more vulnerable from outside factors than power on/off effect or long-term stress.

Definitely power down during lightning storm.
 

NewBlackDak

Senior member
Sep 16, 2003
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If mine's off, it's not compliing. Any time I get up(and usually while I'm there too) there is something building in the background. Wether it's work, or emerge kde it had something to do.
 

jthg

Member
Nov 11, 2003
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If its a desktop, it probably uses more than 100 watts of power. If you don't mind having to boot it up everyday, then save some money and shut it down at night...

p.s. I turn my comp off night cus I think the fans are too loud...
 

yelo333

Senior member
Dec 13, 2003
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As neither opinion has been proven by anybody AFAIK, I'll just say what I do...

Turn it on right when I get up, and power down when I go to bed. If I have a reason to leave it on, I leave it on. Note that for some people, it might make sense to leave it on, since their time between bed + get up is so short, anyway ;).
 

wpshooter

Golden Member
Mar 9, 2004
1,662
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If you want to leave your computer on all the time, the please consider going to www.grid.ord and consider using your computer to aid in finding treatments and/or cure for CANCER.

This research program runs in the background and can be setup even using a dialup connection to 'AUTOMATICALLY" (without you even having to be there) retrieve and send computational work units to and from the www.grid.org server. There is also an addon automatic dialer program which can be downloaded and installed to perform the dialup function.

I currently have 5 computers working on this 24 x 7. If you consider doing this, I highly recommend having a good UPS on all of your systems, so they can be properly handled when you are not at home.

As someone else said, if you are going to leave it on all the time, why not make some good use of the CPU processing power.

Thanks & good luck.
 

dug777

Lifer
Oct 13, 2004
24,778
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just hibernate every nite- thats what i do cos my fans are rather noisy- takes literally 10 secs with a 7200rpm drive and 512mb RAM, and not much more to boot up.

Components are tough enuff 2 take that for two- three yrs at least- thats long enuff for me :)
 

thermalpaste

Senior member
Oct 6, 2004
445
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My athlons on for 3 months now...........I have a seperate powerbox for the extra cooling fans, and I switch them off at night....
 

skene

Member
Oct 15, 2004
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Theoreticaly turning it on and off does more damage, but in reality, your going to end up replacing the components YEARS before they get to the point where they start behaving badly. I'd say don't worry about power cycling and turn it off if you want to save some power and not hear the fans. If you leave it on though, get cool'n'quiet working on it, that'll save a decent amount of power and keep the fans spun down.

ps. I've got the same setup as you, but with double the ram...damn that thing is fast!
 

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
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Originally posted by: skene
Theoreticaly turning it on and off does more damage, but in reality, your going to end up replacing the components YEARS before they get to the point where they start behaving badly. I'd say don't worry about power cycling and turn it off if you want to save some power and not hear the fans. If you leave it on though, get cool'n'quiet working on it, that'll save a decent amount of power and keep the fans spun down.

ps. I've got the same setup as you, but with double the ram...damn that thing is fast!



Just leave it on if you want. It wont hurt. I got my Athlon 64 2800+ running 1.2 volts, so it is nice and cool 24/7.