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How long do you leave your PC on for?

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How long do you leave your PC on?

  • 24/7

    Votes: 56 72.7%
  • Only while I am awake (turn it on when you wake up, shut it down when you go to bed)

    Votes: 15 19.5%
  • Only when you need it (do what you got to do, then kill it)

    Votes: 6 7.8%

  • Total voters
    77

Vendor Defendor

Out the window
Joined
Nov 25, 2002
Messages
3,537
A couple people have told me that it’s a good idea to leave a computer on 24/7... And others say no.

Arguments I have heard for no:

It wastes electricity.

Arguments yes:

Friend one: (computer engineer for the FAA)

1. "you use more electricity turning a light bulb on then you use leaving the flashbulb on for six months." he says the same thing applies for computer.
2. He also said that for the hard drive and processor to start up, slow down, heat up, cool down, that it does damage over time.

Girl Friends dad: (computer engineer for IBM)

said that there is an 'oil' applied to the hard drive that after time 'gunk’s' up, and when you shut down the computer, it can lose its viscosity (sp?) and stop the hard drive from spinning when you start it up again, meaning no more hard drive. He said it doesn’t happen too often too much in PC's, but it does happen sometimes and in big computers.

So, what do you do? I leave mine on 24/7

So please vote, and explain your reasoning.

Thanks
 
AT work I don't give a hoot & leave it on 24/7 it is a POS anyway.

AT home we fire it up in the mornng & shut it down late at night.

I don't really think there is a right & wrong way.
Hard drives have come along way since the old days (that would be a week back in computer time :D)
 
Mine stays on 24\7 only time I restart it is when it starts getting slow or freezes. Did same thing with my old computer and I had no problems for the 5 years I had it.
 
We have always left ours on 24/7 until we start having problems and then shut it down for a night.

I have found that lately, it seems to perform best if shut down once a week overnight.

If you do leave it off for a time, check to make sure you don't have any scheduled maintinence that will occur during the off time - that way it isn't missed.

Vic
 
I leave mine on 24/7. I have for years. The firewall and AV are doing their thing. I do have to reboot sometimes, thanks to Bill Gates. I have this thing tweaked for better performance and reliability. One program I like is a RAM boosting program. Does the trick in keeping everything running smoothly and fast.:D
 
I have an old 486 computer that came with some graphics software as a package deal. Has a whopping 140 meg hard drive in it. Got it in 1991, and it gets used nearly every day...mostly just for disk copying, but it still works like a charm--for a 486! (still got 56 megs left on the hard drive!)
---It gets turned on every day, and turned off every night...

Have another computer we got in '96 with an engraving machine, still running win95, 4 gig harddrive (only half full), it gets used virtually every day, it does ALL my graphics and drives 2 of my engravers. I've had to change the power supply in it once, about 2 years ago.
---Turned on every day, off every night.

My home computer is a supposedly POS e-machines, it's over 3 years old, and it works great! (when viruses aren't f***ing it up!)
---on every day, off every night.

I have a 2 year old home-built computer that I've had to change the motherboard in once, and I've added a larger hard drive to it, and it too has been a victim of viruses...
---ditto!

While I've had more than my share of bad luck with computers, 99% of my problems have been software related, usually due to viruses. I've also had a few floppy drives die, but I've never had a hard drive fail. (okay, I HAVE had 2 NEW harddrives fail, but I don't think that counts for this discussion!)

After running one PC daily for 13 years and another daily for 8 years with virtually no hardware problems, I can safely say that turning them off works for me!
 
i have about 10 comps in my house

we have around roughly 10 comps in my house and they are basicly on all of the time......my sever (win xp pro) has a uptime of 6 mouths xxx days ect. ...... i personly have 3 comps in my small tight room on all the time the only thing that i dont like is all of the noise that comes from a total of 18 fans lol it sounds like a 747 in my room.... i just leave net radio stations streaming all the time lol



i personly think that it harms the processer more to turn it on and off all the time because they tend to really heat up more then

as long as it runs cool you should be fine

just my 2 cents
 
On in the morning/off at night. I do use the Power Management deal that puts it in sleep mode until you move the mouse. Don't know if that really saves electricity or not but with my power bills every little bit helps I guess.
 
I have a laptop and one home built desktop. Before that, I've always had one computer. Unfortunately, in this apartment, the best and only place to put my computer is in my bedroom. I have a office/desk space in my bedroom.

I usually turn my computer off (hibernate) at night when I go to bed and on when I wake up, simply because of the noise of the fans. It's not that loud, but several years ago, I was actually noticing ringing in my ears when I woke up in the morning and traced it back to that constant 'hum'. Since then.. hearing has been fine. Knock on wood.
 
I leave my laptop on 24/7. It's running Windows XP and hibernates when I shut the lid which is how it stays when I am not using it. MY computer at work stays on 24/7 except on the weekends when I shut it down.
 
All the machines at work run 24/7.

At home I'd do the same, but I'm a light sleeper and the noise keeps me up. Shut down at night.
 
Originally posted by gn85
I have a laptop and one home built desktop. Before that, I've always had one computer. Unfortunately, in this apartment, the best and only place to put my computer is in my bedroom. I have a office/desk space in my bedroom.

I usually turn my computer off (hibernate) at night when I go to bed and on when I wake up, simply because of the noise of the fans. It's not that loud, but several years ago, I was actually noticing ringing in my ears when I woke up in the morning and traced it back to that constant 'hum'. Since then.. hearing has been fine. Knock on wood.

i know exactly what you mean with the hum noise but why not just use a fan controler that goes into a floppy bay.... they can reallly cut down the noise my comp. runs at about 70 degress with the fans on high and about 75 with them on low ect for when the heats on in my house then its like 80 this is with a over clocked cpu also


hth
jim barnes
 
i shut mine off at night and turn it on when i get home from work so it stays off for about 15 hours a day. i think the biggest energy waster is the monitor.

the only real reason i turn my PC off is that damn blue light in the case. i am just to lazy to take it out. i left my old PIII on 24/7 and shut it down once a week and did the defrag and stuff on it then also..


no right or wrong way but i would not shut it down with each use.

Dathan
 
Since I use mine for work too, I start up in the AM and shut down late at night. Sometimes, I leave it on for a few days at a time. I was formerly a sys admin while in the Air Force where we left the PC's and Sun machines powered up 24/7 and I don't recall one ever dying on us.
 
Mine stays on 24/7, I am just too impatiant to shut it down after use and reboot it when I get on it.

I really don't care if something dies from leaving it on as I am sure it was time to upgrade it anyways. Just think, if a hard drive lives for 4 years (in 2000 a 20 gig HD was about the largest you could get) and dies, it gets replaced with one that is around 10 times it's size. Same thing with processors, are you really concerned with the lifespan of a 500mhz proc?

As for power consumption, I have my monitor set to turn off after 30 minutes.
 
I've got a year old Dell desktop that never has any problems. I leave it on for about a week at a time, then shut it down for a night. When i'm not doing stuff online, i'm downloading so thats why its on all the time.
 
One of the computer rags had an article on this a couple of years ago, and they quoted a guy from a Fortune 500 company who was responsible for over 5000 pc's on desktops. They spent some time tracking service problems and decided that you should only turn a monitor off if you won't need it for a few days (not sure how the EnergyStar monitor sleep mode would figure into this), and only turn the pc off if you won't need it for at least a week or more. You are balancing the extra stress of startup and warmup against the mechanical wear in disk drives and the general aging of the electronic components. Personally, I leave it all on 24/7.

As for the old tale of using more electricity to turn on a bulb than to keep it lit for some extended period, just think how much current draw that would require and how your circuit breaker never pops, and you will realize that as stated, that is bull. For example, for a turnon period of one second to equal one hour, the turnon current would be 3600 times the normal current draw and the breakers would flip. Shorter turnon periods would have even higher startup currents. Bulbs normally burn out at turn on so don't frivously flip the switch on and off, but otherwise go by your personal preference as to energy useage.
 
I work at Microsoft and Bill has personally told me that you should always just leave it on 24/7 because Windows XP is designed to be run without rebooting for several weeks at a time...

(just kidding on the Microsoft part)

I leave my computer on all the time usually...I have a custom made system with a 1.7 GHZ P4, 512 RDRAM, 75 GB HD...I leave it on at night because it's in the same room I sleep in and the 4 fans running actually help me sleep anyways...I don't like pure quiet time when sleeping
 
Have a couple at work i use--they run 24/7----365!!!!!!they haven't been shut off in 4 or 5 years----no problems----industrial firewall.
Home comp. gets shut off now and then just because the fan is so loud that it is annoying.

Geoff
 
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