Shut it down or leave it running?

[doniej 0]

This is really going to sound like a "BIG DUH", but I have a question. My nephew, who is very computer savy, says I don't have to shut my computer off at night, that it's probably harder on it to power it up every morning than to leave it on. I disagree. Could some of you clear this up for me? Which IS the best for my computer? ;( Please settle this for me! Thanks.

[jmmijo 1]

I leave mine main workstation/station on 24/7. This is because I'm usually doing something during my sleep time as well as I leave Outlook running all the time.

 

I also use a UPS so I don't really worry about it but really I think it's a personal choice now a days. Other then a CRT monitor, the electronics is pretty well protected from surges that always occur during a cold start but cold starts are not like the old AT days as the soft power off actually has some power still going to the power supply and possibly a few other components on the motherboard.

[Tomay 0]

I also leave my comp running 24/7. The only thing that the fans get noisy after a few years of non stop running. Maybe if I shut it down they wouldn't. And the hard disk spindle bearing has a limited time of operation too. If you really don't need your computer at night for more than a few hours turn it off.

 

Luckily I don't have my computer in the same room that I sleep in cos it's noisy and in the summer it really warms the room.

 

And don't forget that it's using power and someone has to pay the bill.

 

Let's say it uses 100W that's 2400W/h per day and 876.000W/h per year 8) I don't know how much is that in money but it sure sounds a lot.

 

EVERYBODY TURN YOUR COMPUTERS OFF AND SAVE THE EARTH!

[lorddraxar 0]

Well if you don't have a UPS I strongly recommend you do get one, the base models are inexpensives.

Unlike what most people think turning off the hard drive on a workstation is a bad idea. Most drives die because the motor starter breaks, the bearing at the center of the disk inside the drive isn't supposed to pose any problems before minimum of 5 years... 50 years in the more expensive disks... I personally never seen a drive die because the bearing was too much used.

I did however see many drives with starters broken. I just have 4 stacked in drawers, the data surface is perfect but they won't start anymore. (well they do if I try a lot of times, not very usable)

Your motherboard is also made of several circuits panel glued together. The current PCBs got 4 or 5 stages of circuitry. Big variations of temperature will tend to wear off the board.

But turning it on 24/24 also have some dangers which can be resolved. First make sure your motherboard will shut down if your CPU temperature gets too high. Life expectancy of your fans are the lowest. Unless you are on a very tight budget, it's a good idea to replace the fans every year.

Also watch your temperature sometimes, a good rise of temperature usually predict trouble with your components.

[clutch 1]

Yes, it is harder on your system if you keep shutting it down. In many systems, you have a ton of disk activity during startup which causes mechanical wear. In addition, every application you launch causes more activity on the first pass, and then every subsequent launch has much less activity (due to caching if you have large amounts of memory). Also, many high-end audio shops tend to encourage leaving amplifiers on all the time due to powersupply cycling and keeping the components warm (as opposed to stone cold where they have to warm up). This premise could be applied to PCs I imagine. The largest point of power consumption would have to be the monitor, and proper power management settings can be configured to have the monitor power down after a certain time of inactivity. Next, you can setup the harddrives to power down (or "suspend", like the monitor) after a while. In addition, more advanced systems will power down fans when they are not needed. More and more components are being designed to support 24/7 operation like this, and the equipment is getting better. Today, it is getting much harder to find an old sleeve bearing fan, but rather ball bearing fans are more common.

 

I subscribe to the belief that every start of the equipment is much harder on it than just leaving it running, and that all equipment really has only so many starts left in them. This is the case with modern H.I.D. (High Intensity Discharge) lighting systems that you see on upscale cars, where they have a long life of straight running time (much, much longer than normal halogen bulbs) but each start of the light reduces its life slightly (which is probably why you don't see them in high-beam applications as much, since they are so expensive and used briefly or for flash-to-pass scenarios). If you ask any of the more seasoned people on this board about run-ins with flakey drives, you will usually hear one thing: keep them running! When a drive is about to die, and you can't get everything you need off of it right then, it is usually best to keep it running until you can get back to it. Many times, if you shut off the drive you might have to go through several reboots to get it restarted. Again, this is why I feel that starting something many times is much harder on it than just letting it run and suspend via the OS.

 

HTH

[adamvjackson 0]

 

That's been my experiences as well, and I leave my main workstation and DC running 24/7.