whats the general feeling on leaving your comptuer on...

[novowel]

i've heard some say it wears down your cpu, ram, hd, psu. and others say, no, it doesn't. it's worse turning on/off your copmtuer each night.

what do you think, and why?

 

[Confused]

I leave all my computers on 24/7.

The only time they go off is to overclock some more, or to add/change/remove hardware.

I run Seventeen or Bust on all of them, helping out Team Anandtech.

Turning them on/off all the time causes the components to heat up/cool down, and therefore expand and contract. This can cause things to go wrong with them. Also, hard drives lives are measured in on/off cycles, yet another reason to leave mine on all the time. My drives aren't set to idle either. All i have set power management wise is to turn the monitor off after 15 mins.

I like being able to just turn the monitor on, wiggle the mouse and be able to do anything. Who wants to wait for a couple of minutes for a computer to turn on, when all you want to do is check the TV listings before a program starts, or look something up on Google? I love the availability of leaving the computers on 24/7

After about 3 days, I had got used to the noise of the fans, and it's actually quite soothing now, and I can't sleep without the noise of the fans!!


Confused

 

I run mine 24/7 runningg Seti when not in use. I would not worry about the stress on a system from shutdown. By the time the system is damaged from it, it will be obsolete anyways

 

[Lord Evermore]

There's no hard data either way. Do what suits you best. If you're worried about a few bucks extra in power each month, or you live in an area that charges 5 times as much as others, then you might want to turn it off. If the fans are loud and it's right by your bed, turn it off. If you don't like waiting for a bootup, leave it on. In many cases, using standby or hibernation is a good idea since it means not having to wait for a bootup. The only time that you wouldn't use it is if you have some application constantly using the network or something like that.

All your hardware has a mean time between failure (MTBF) rating. If it's active continuously, on average that part will fail after that time. However most of your system isn't active constantly. Hard drives can be set to spin down (and are designed to last years even just idling, which is what they mostly do on most systems; as confused mentioned, the on/off cycles, meaning spin up/down, is how drive life is measured -- whether to let them spin down or not depends on whether the power savings and lifetime extension would be greater from allowing it to idle or allowing spindown, which would depend on how often it would be starting up). Integrated circuits (chips) and other solid state parts have lifespans measured in decades. All the terms thrown around like electron migration refer to effects that are taken into account during design. They won't likely cause premature failure just due to the system being powered on all the time. Most every effect that's used as a scare tactic to stop overclocking is actually just an effect that happens normally, but is somewhat accelerated by higher voltages and frequencies, and would eventually cause failure even in non-overclocked systems.

There are some who think that turning computers on and off can cause mechanical failure due to expansion and contraction of parts from heat. Again, no hard data to prove this affects the average lifespan of a computer. It's not likely that you'll be using the same machine by the time anything like that causes damage to the point of failure or reduction in performance.

 

[KhoiFather]

The only thing I worry about when I leave my computer on over night is those a$$holes that try to send that stupid backdoor trojan virus. I get so many of those things, and luckily my firewall stops it all, well hopefully it does.

 

[PowerMacG5]

I also leave my computers on 24/7. My computers have all been running with minimal downtime since I built them (maybe a total of 10 hours on the workstation, and 1 on the server). My workstation was built back in March 2002, and my server was built in september. I am also with Confused on that it is hard to fall asleep without the noise. Some scientific studies actually say that it is easier to fall asleep with white noise than it is to fall to sleep in a silent room.

 

[pmailloux]

Leave all mine on 24/7, I use the analogy of a light bulb doesnt burn out when its on, they always burn out when you turn them on, such is electronics.

 

[aceO07]

I turn off it at night, or when I go out. I do it to reduce electricity bills.

 

[thorin]

If you live in California people will HATE you. If you live anywhere else then no big deal (the Electric company will love you ). I leave mine on 24/7 unless I'm going on a long vacation (more then 4 days). It's on a UPS and the HD/Monitor are set to power down after 30 mins (maybe and hour ... I don't recall off the top of my head) of idle time.

Thorin

 

[filmmaker]

Originally posted by: aceO07
I turn off it at night, or when I go out. I do it to reduce electricity bills.

 

[cchen]

I leave it on all the time, just for the convienience. The computer uses minimal power compared to other electric devices so electriticy cost isn't an issue

 

[Schadenfroh]

i have not shut mine off for over 3 months and my athlon runs at over 160 degrees when idle, my v/c and cpu are o/c to the extreme. so far it has not burned my house down.

 

[compudog]

I leave mine on 24/7. If I am out of the house for more than 36 hours I shut all but my main one off. I would probably shut them down if I wasn't running SETI for the TeAm, but I know my wife loves the ready-availability of her computer 24/7.

 

[Mallow]

Originally posted by: pmailloux
Leave all mine on 24/7, I use the analogy of a light bulb doesnt burn out when its on, they always burn out when you turn them on, such is electronics.

tis true

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Mallow

Originally posted by: pmailloux
Leave all mine on 24/7, I use the analogy of a light bulb doesnt burn out when its on, they always burn out when you turn them on, such is electronics.

tis true

Yes, they do burn out when they are on. They just prefer to do it with the initial surge they get when the switch is hit. They also burn out if the arm light fixture's cheap plastic base snaps, and the lamp falls onto the desk.


As for the PC's - yours actually have power switches? I don't know of any need for them. I do have an "upgrade time" switch.

 

[spanky]

i always leave mine on... but i really should turn it off when i am not home. it used to be that i hate to wait for my pc to boot... but now, since pc's are so fast... and win xp has a nice and short boot time... i really have no other excuse to leave my pc on all the time. i am just a lazy bastard.

 

[Sid59]

24/7 .. actually been thinking about shutting down for 2 days or so. Just to get it down and get away from the computer. Prolly a good idea if i cleaned out the bunnies collecting inside. I'm still yet undecided if im gonna keep it on this summer. Heat, California energy usage, won't be home 80% of the time. I'll decide.

 

[Hardtarget]

there is no real reason to turn them off. they are designed to be on so its' not a big issue. Monitors too.

I keep mind on 24/7 for y'know.. a couple years straight basically lol. (actually one of them is having a break over the summer since it is in a box in storage *cries*)

no meltdowns yet

 

[deerslayer]

I run Seventeen or Bust on all of my computers. They never get shut of, unless i'm upgrading or adding/removing hardware

 

[bgeh]

i leave them on. however, my parents will usually turn them off

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: bgeh
i leave them on. however, my parents will usually turn them off

I've got mine trained to leave them on

It took a few weeks, but they gave in eventually. Also, I think now that they have discovered how good it is to just sit down and turn the monitor on, they don't want to wait for it to boot


Confused

 

[DAPUNISHER]

24/7 F@H here, Why not get into a DC project and use your idle cycles to help cure cancer, search for intelligent life in the universe, develope new drugs or encryption technology. Heck you can have your own simulated particle collider I think.

 

[stonecold3169]

As someone said earlier, with electrical failure it's most likely to be damaged when it is first turned on as you are going with the biggest condition chage, from idle to active. Stress levels rise, and things are most likely to blow out.

 

[bgeh]

Originally posted by: Confused

Originally posted by: bgeh
i leave them on. however, my parents will usually turn them off

I've got mine trained to leave them on

It took a few weeks, but they gave in eventually. Also, I think now that they have discovered how good it is to just sit down and turn the monitor on, they don't want to wait for it to boot


Confused

i've been doing it for 3 months and they still relent. they will always ask "who else does this?"
they want a example from their circle of friends

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Typically I leave my computer(s) on all day. Every now and again I shut them off when I sleep, just so I can't say I leave them on 24/7...