what's your opinion?

[nooyawkah]

I'd like your opinion of this:

http://www.ckcs.org/topfifty/4.html

[jAkUp]

your computer lasts longer if you dont turn it off and on. wear and tear is caused by turning it off and on... because of the heat, it causes the components to expand and contract, expand when warm, contract when cold... which in turn damages the parts over time. standard cooling helps this a little, but no one is safe from it... if you leave it on all the time, it pretty much stays the same temp.

[Gator]

having your PC last longer is silly anyway in some respects because how much longer are we talking? Or better still, if you DO shut off every day, then whats the life expectancy? The reason I ask is how often do most of us do a major upgrade anyway, basically creating a new machine. Once every year or two? As great as my PC has been, I don't plan to use an AthlonXP1700 forever. It's just like people that overclock, sure it cuts the life of the CPU but who cares your gonna upgrade sooner or later anyway ;)

What do I tell people to do... do whatever is easier for you. For me, my computer is in the room I sleep, so keeping it on would be flat-out annoying. But during the day I keep it on. By the time it does break (if ever) then I'm probably due for an upgrade anyway.

On a side note: up until a few years ago I still had a working 1984 IBM XT that was shut on and off VERY often for years and was still working fine until I finally sold it off in a garage sale. Shorten life span? pfft! :rolleyes:

[Riptide]

I leave my systems on pretty much 24/7. The 10K RPM+ SCSI drives I'm using are enterprise class and I would think that turning them on/off frequently is not a good thing since they were designed for servers and hence extended uptimes. So far I've not had any noticeable ill effects from leaving the machines up all the time.

We did have a real bad run last month of power outages: 3 times in one month. I suppose if I had been turning my PCs off they might not have dropped like they did but as far as I can tell none of my hardware was damaged by these power events.

I also process SETI@Home work units on my systems as well which is another reason to pretty much keep them running all the time.

[VeritechK7]

I'm forced to shutdown every night but i'm still trying to determine the actual cost of leaving one computer on in a month span.. .for electric bill reasons. Although I do have a friend that leaves his computers on 24/7 unless an upgrade is in order. The main thing that takes power is the monitor as that draws direct power whereas the computer psu [at least from my understanding] is converting the ac energy to dc energy so the 500W or so is only reserved for inside the computer use. At least that's what i think

[DaveW]

Originally posted by madthumbs

-I have yet to see anyone post any conclusive evidence that this would be a bad thing! I went with on 24/7 for ~8 months without firewall... It was the most stable time my PC has ever seen! No crashes caused by firewalls, and no ill effects from "hackers". Infact, the only reason I use a firewall is to keep riaa, mpiaa and such out.


Same here :)

[PsychoSy]

I'm forced to shutdown every night but i'm still trying to determine the actual cost of leaving one computer on in a month span.. .for electric bill reasons. Although I do have a friend that leaves his computers on 24/7 unless an upgrade is in order. The main thing that takes power is the monitor as that draws direct power whereas the computer psu [at least from my understanding] is converting the ac energy to dc energy so the 500W or so is only reserved for inside the computer use. At least that's what i think...

Correct. The PSU will only take enough juice it needs from the wall outlet to make the AC/DC conversion and applifies the wattage to power only the gear inside the case. The largest energy "waste" in leaving a computer on 24/7 is the monitor, but since every monitor on the market today conforms to DMPS and EPA power saving standards, you configure the OS to turn the sucker off after a period of time. At this point, the monitor only uses enough juice to trip a relay to power back on and, in some cases (depending on the features of your monitor), keep the CRT or LCD screen happy enough to light up quicker.

If your OS is configured to put the monitor and other peripherals in hibernation after so many minutes of idle time, the electrical costs of leaving it on 24/7 are about the same as leaving a 40-80 watt lightbulp on for a month. That would probably ammount to about $5-7 extra on your bill. This is assuming your just an average computer user using IDE harddrives and such. If your running 10K RPM SCSI drives that are designed for large ammounts of uptime, energy consumption shouldn't really concern you.

If you can afford SCSI, you can afford electricity! :p
Right? :D

Other than that, Madthumbs hit the other nails on the head. :)

[VeritechK7]

yeah but my case was dirt cheap scsi :D. thanks for the input. And btw i found all the more reason to hate 98SE .. I was on this computer just some minutes ago at school. and when i tried going to hard forums.. bam general protection fault errors :rolleyes: I've been taught day one that an electronic device fails more on the turn on than the turn off. That has been ingrained in me for the last 3 to 4 years i've been actively in the computer gig. also if something's been on for six hours, leave it on the rest of the day.

I'm running my thing on standby.. my dad would give me this argument that the IT staff where he works [he's on a navy base] says to turn off their computers everynight . I'm thinking my dad doesn't know what's going on behind the scenes. My thinking tells me that these people replaces parts without the workers knowing at least that's my assumption

[Riptide]

Monitors definitely pull the most power typically. Another reason to switch to an LCD?

[VeritechK7]

that would probably be a compelling reason to do so also ninfragile[sorry if I messed it up] really likes his LCD [something i'll be looking for ]<good for intranet games at people's houses as it will be lightweight (anything lightweight is good :D)>

[digitalwanderer]

I get a LOT more problems on systems I shut down every night than on the ones I have running 24/7....and win98se is on all my rigs.

If windows is hogging your system resources, then you ain't got your win98se install tweaked properly. May I suggest cacheman 4.1 (NOT 5!) for win98se and setting your system to "Power User" would fix up that problem.

I don't know about the hacker bit as I use a DSL/router that supposedly has a built in firewall thingy...but I haven't ever had a problem with someone hacking me boxes. I think I'd notice the difference in performance considering how much I bench my systems. ;)

I'd also highly suggest you check what proggies are firing up when windows boots. Much of that "sluggishness over time" is actually spyware/BS programs that are set to auto-load with windows by a lot of programs...but you don't need them and they just bog down your rig more. Type "msconfig" into your run box and click on the "StartUp" tab to see what I mean...if there's more than 5 or 6 proggies in there you're probably running more than you need. (I have 7 out of about 31 checked, but I know what everyone of them 7 does and I want them there. :) )

[VeritechK7]

I'd just say it's lazy IT workers ;) It wasn't me, it was the one - armed man.. .:D