turn on or off

[judd]

do you leave your computor on 24-7 or off at night?
if left on all the time doesnt the fan burn up (wear out)

[DJofSD]

This is a long running debate. And, it's like a lot of other things, the answer being it depends.

I think now a days the components are not as vulnerable to stress brought on by thermal changes and the stopping and restart.

Just from the cost savings of the electricity, I'd say turn them off. Besides, Windows still does have problems that it can not absolutely eliminate memory leaks. Best (only) solution is rebooting, so, by turning the PC off when not in use will prevent your system from becoming a viction of a memory leak.

[chickenhead]

Unless the computer is not used for days at a time, I see no reason to power it off. In my opinion (after spending the last 12 years repairing electronic circuity), only bad things come from cycling power.

[JustRalph]

Unless the computer is not used for days at a time, I see no reason to power it off. In my opinion (after spending the last 12 years repairing electronic circuity), only bad things come from cycling power.


Right on!!

[098poi]

No harm in keeping it on but rebooting periodically is something I do so Windows can put everything away that it's not using and everything can reload fresh. If you are going away for any length of time not a bad idea to shut down and unplug the power and any phone or cable connections you have. Just in case a storm or power outage hits and you are not there to take care of that in person.

[PaceAdvantage]

Forget on and off (I personally used to leave it on, now I turn it off).

The single most important thing you can do to prolong PC life, in my opinion (especially HDD) is to purchase a quality UPS (uninterruptible power supply) battery backup.

[Marshall Bennett]

I know less about computers than probably 80% of the folks here . I will say my old compaq which died a few months ago lasted 7 years and I rarely ever shut it off . Only when I left town or a bad storm blew through .

[njcurveball]

do you leave your computor on 24-7 or off at night?
if left on all the time doesnt the fan burn up (wear out)


I work at a place with lots of computers and people who leave them on. If we are talking about a Laptop, then you can be pretty sure you are reducing your battery and hard drive life.

For a desktop, I would say you are giving yourself a 20% chance of a hard drive crash in 2 years or less leaving it on all the time. And the percentage goes up to 40% or more after 3 years. Still leaves 6 out of 10 people who will tell it will be fine. Just make sure you avoid the people who lost valuable data.

Not counting the monitor life and other components, it makes absolutely no sense to leave it on. The potential loss is much worse than any gain. And it even costs extra to leave it on.

It isn't 100% wither way. We have some people who have left their PCs on for 4 years straight and have no problems. Kind of like smoking, in the sense that the longer you do it, the higher percentage you will have problems.

[robert99]

If computer is in a place with any appreciable dust then leaving it on, particularly if large fans fitted, will coat the insides within a couple of months and cause possible major failure of motherboard, graphics card and PSU.