Keeping A Computer On>?

Status
Not open for further replies.
U

ULVER

Joined
Sep 21, 2004
Messages
502
Location
Atlanta, Ga.
I have one bud who turns his computer off after every session. Turn off, go out to eat, go to the grocery store, come back 5 hours later and turn it back on.

I have another friend, who leaves his running unless he is going out of town, or thunderstorms are forecast. Basically on 24/7.

I know I have had my old Sony tube TV on for literally years, with very few turn-offs. I have a Lasko room fan, that has been on since the new year, with less than a dozen turn-offs.

Just curious what's harder on a computer: Start and stop or being left on?
Thanks!
smile.gif
 
More power cycles of the computer means more start/stops of the hard drive. Heat expansion also occurs. Both are probably detrimental given that traditional hard drives are mechanical in nature.

I leave my computer on forever. I have a battery backup as well.
 
IMO that is always an argument. Time at temperature is a determinant, as are thermal cycles.

Voltage on capacitors would cause them to degrade, power supplies should have enough storage in them to overcome a blip of a cycle, so unless power is real noisy, can't see how it would create a real problem.

I generally put my equipment to sleep, but with SSDs and browsers that remember sites last viwed, hibernation and/or reboot seems to me to be the way to go.
 
My XP goes in standby after 1/2 hr. idle.
Goes into Hibernate at 3 hours

I shut the computer off overnight and I never use active / hyper wallpapers or screen savers. I use "quiet" seasonal or sports backgrounds and have my screensaver disabled.
 
Good question. I have a desktop I leave on all the time. I never go out of town so the only time I turn it off is when I blow the breaker or restart it every few days. It runs fine and besides being a little slow cause of small amount of ram and its major defect of costing 200$ brand new but does fine.

I have a really nice custom built one that has a bad hard drive and I got this one to feed my internet hunger. But that one was treated the same way. I dont think the hard drive failed cause of that since it was corrupted not physically damaged.

We also have a nice laptop that gets used once or twice every two or so days and it gets turned off and put away in a nice bag. It as well runs mint.

The one thing i will say is that the machines left on all the time are very very dirty. My bad HD one was cleaned the other day and I was really shocked. I went through 4 cans of air duster.
 
IMO it's a wash if it's hard or not on the computer. If I'm going to be gone more then a few hours from the computer it's getting shut off. I don't like giving the power company anymore of my money then I have too. Even it it's in sleep mode, she's still sucking power.
 
In the old days I'd say leaving them on makes no difference, and starting / stopping hard drives will wear them out much faster.

But with today's computer generating lots of heat, low quality capacitors, hard drive heads flying lower than ever, I'd say turning them off as soon as you are done will make computers last much longer.
 
I've left mine on 24/7 for at least 6 years. Lost some chinese capacitors in my monitors and lost one power supply. Otherwise flawless performance.
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
In the old days I'd say leaving them on makes no difference, and starting / stopping hard drives will wear them out much faster.

But with today's computer generating lots of heat, low quality capacitors, hard drive heads flying lower than ever, I'd say turning them off as soon as you are done will make computers last much longer.


Definitely the quality of components factors in this decision.

My PC is ten years old now generally over that time I have it on for 12 hours (when I'm around to use it) and then off for 12 hours.
 
Mine stays on 24/7. Pretty much has to. As my computer is acting as our NFS it would be rather inconvenient for it to be off randomly. I hardly even restart it. I think last boot up was 30 days or so. Currently at 9 days now.
Also, it is a PAIN to get it to fire up.. I have a hardware PCIe RAID card and it is not always recognized properly on boot with the result being either no video or no raid. 2 years later and I still have not figured out why its so random but one thing is for certain; leaving it on reduces my stress level and also power cycles. It can take as many as 7-8 failed boot ups before it will catch correctly. With each failed attempt resulting in a hard shutoff at the PS switch.
 
I think it's the biggest waste of energy. My roommate leaves it on just because he doesn't want to wait 3 minutes for it to boot up.

But he's pretty lazy on everything environmental. Yesterday he put only 3 towels in the washing machine and set it it on high load/hot water and poured in full dose of detergent......all for just 3 towels. What a waste.
 
Originally Posted By: OldCowboy
As an IT professional, I can unequivocally say that computers have much fewer problems if they are left on 24x7x365.


Same here, with the caveat power is never cut off to the unit. A battery UPS is critical for those times when the power blips for without a UPS, you're at risk for losing hard drives and other components much easier.

Then again, the tried-and-true story of one system:
"Server 54, Where Are You?"
http://www.informationweek.com/news/6505527
 
I never shut either of my computers down unless I'm going on a trip out of town or a storm is brewing.

The laptop goes on standby where as the desktop stays on constantly...even though the HDs and monitor shut down....it stays on.

Both computers are over 5 years old.
 
I use my computer daily and I turn it off and on multiple times a day since 2004. I never had any mechanical failures. Maybe it would be safer if you had servers or something but for people who use computers for internet, gaming, and light work, leaving it on doesn't make sense.
 
Last edited:
It is not a fair comparison between low cost consumer hardware and carrier grade servers.

For a low cost consumer PC with low cost components (i.e. 3 phase power circuit on motherboard with Chinese capacitors), it would wear out a lot earlier if you leave it on 247 vs shutting them down when done. Sleeve bearing cooling fan would also wear out sooner running 247. Don't even get me started on the cheap power supply.
 
When I was supervisor of an engineering group of 12 AutoCAD users in the early '90s, I had half the employees leave their computers on 24/7 and the other half turn them off at night. These were cheap 486 PC clones running DOS and did not have suspend modes.
After four years the only difference (other than the obvious waste of power) was that several fans failed on the PCs that were powered-off at night. I replaced them myself and they were all sleeve bearing types.
 
Suspend mode is so fast, it makes a lot of sense to put the cpu into power save. My only issues are:

1. for my linux machine: suspend rarely ever works for me given some computer and linux install. late at night i use sleep xxxx; pm-hibernate often at night to have the computer automatically power down after some hrs.

2. sleep on my windows desktop and windows in general works flawlessly almost on 100% of the systems. The only issue is i forget to turn the computer back on in the morning, which is only an issue because i run a magic jack phone on it.

Anyways, in the summer and non heating season i'm pretty mindful about turning the computer off at night.

In the winter, not so much. I get almost 40% of the 'wasted' electricity back deducted off my gas heating bill I believe, since all the heat goes to heat the house, and I estimate that even counting losses at the powerplant, heat via computer is almost 40% as efficient compared to my low tech 80% eff gas furnace. (Plus, I run BOINC distributed computing when it goes idle, which is another bonus to justify leaving it on overnite in the winter.)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

D
Can an Ethernet cable be shared with a TV and computer?
2 3
Replies
45
Views
2K
daves66nova
B
Bought a "Trash Can"
Replies
8
Views
1K
bunnspecial
A
Voltage drop on battery when headlights are OFF, fine when they're on
Replies
19
Views
867
tiger862
OVERKILL
DNS and Secure DNS
Replies
15
Views
2K
hammerniski
Jdeere562
Ever been to a snapping turtle feed?
Replies
17
Views
513
y_p_w
Back
Top