How long do you leave your PC on for?

[Ken87GN]

I've always wondered about this also, I usually put mine in standby during the day if I'm not using it and hibernate overnight. My brother (who services and builds computers) leaves his on 24/7 and told me to do the same. I was always under the impression that the electric bill would be through the roof leaving it on 24/7, now I know it's probably worse always shutting it down or hibernating. I just always feel that my fan is going to die during the night and overheat my computer..

I guess mine's a full timer now!

 

[ttypewe4jim]

Originally posted by Ken87GN
I've always wondered about this also, I usually put mine in standby during the day if I'm not using it and hibernate overnight. My brother (who services and builds computers) leaves his on 24/7 and told me to do the same. I was always under the impression that the electric bill would be through the roof leaving it on 24/7, now I know it's probably worse always shutting it down or hibernating. I just always feel that my fan is going to die during the night and overheat my computer..

I guess mine's a full timer now!

most of the time u got more then 1 fan lol besides i wouldnt worry about it like said before if it goes it was probely time to upgrade lol

 

[Axle]

Mine is sort of on when I'm away from it for an extended period of time, but it's not really off. I basically put it on snooze and when I wake up in the morning, I just hit random keys or move the mouse and the computer just "wakes up" and loads right away. I found this to be the best solution because loading windows EVERY morning gets annoying real quick and leaving it on all night, I don't want to hear the hard drive buzzing along all night long. Also, by hitting the snooze button, it doesn't automatically turn off and close all programs I had running, it leaves them be and when I wake the computer up, the program is still open. This is especially nice after cranking out a college paper after hours of work and just hitting snooze instead of having to save, go to start, find shut down, click it.... it's just a big hassle. ...and no, I don't know why some people say I'm lazy.

 

[Nick Micale]

We have a couple unique problems here in the desert that seems to affect computers, at least mine. Lots of dust in the air and of course the summer heat. Even with A/C, it is still hotter than desirable where the computers are located.

The power co. supplies crummy power in the summer as "brown outs" and power failures are common especially during a very hot spell. Maybe an aux. power supply would help, but I have gone through a few power supplies and cooling fans each year.

Shut down every night on my newest computer seems to give me the best service.

 

[SilverSleeper]

I have a 2yr old Dell at home.
it generally runs 24/7, with a reboot every week or so.

All my computers at work run 24/7 and we havent had any failure in the 2.5 years they have been going. They even recovered perfectly after the power failue here in the northeast last fall.

Heck, I took my old NEC 486 machine thats about 10 years old now into work, just to do some extra small stuff. Its on 24/7 and has been for as long as I can remember. That thing is a tank. I did replace the 486/66 with a P1 years ago, and added 2 more drives to handle the storage, but its run like a champ.

 

[2QUIK6]

The main reason you should either shut them off or reboot is to free up memory which most Windows based software does a very poor job at doing once it's done with it.
That's why your Windows based PC become slow after extended use. So what that said, mine are usually turned off at night, but for server machines, about once a week is good.

Also, with it running 24/7, that cause the fan to circulate more air thru the case, and allows it to collect more dust in the case, causing cooling problems and eventually hardware failure.

And if connected to the internet, it just gives hackers more of a chance to hack in.

But, turning it off and on is hard on the hardware too, so, damned if do and damned if you don't, take your pick.

 

[Bens87tr]

Run it till it freezes. Then re-boot and run it again.