Do you leave you computer on 24/7?

[bryanl]

Many feel (and I agree) that repeatedly powering a computer on/off causes the components to undergo more stress than simply leaving it on. Think about it -- once a PC is on, the component temperatures will stabilize (outside of heavy load use, which wouldn't generally be happening in the middle of the night) and will remain within a few degrees of that temperature, whereas when you power on a computer, the components can quickly go from room temp to a heated state in a few minutes. That can introduce greater expansion/contraction on the board and components as opposed to just leaving it on.

Do you have failure rate numbers for power cycled vs. constantly on equipment?

 

[piasabird]

Computer will go into sleep or hibernate, the monitor will go black and it will use almost no power. Why turn it off? Turning computers on and off all the time ware out more components than leaving them on.

This is assuming they are working properly. Even my TV can turn itself off.

If you want to turn off your computer feel free. It is up to you.

 

[Sheep221]

Computer will go into sleep or hibernate, the monitor will go black and it will use almost no power. Why turn it off? Turning computers on and off all the time ware out more components than leaving them on.

This is assuming they are working properly. Even my TV can turn itself off.

If you want to turn off your computer feel free. It is up to you.

From technical side and power cycle wear, hibernating and sleep are same power on cycles as powering on and off via button, the only difference being that RAM is not disconnected from power source so it retains information(sleep mode), while for hibernate mode, the computer completely shuts down as you would turn it off manually, just it only saves the progress on disk which OS will read again on the next boot. These functions are not doing anything differently in terms of electrical wear.

 

[mfenn]

Considering that over half of one's utility bill is in "connection" and other fees, the extra usage is still better than having gas AND electric hookups! Electric heat doesn't feel as nice, but it is quite efficient overall. Having a hot computer (or plain old light bulbs) contribute to needed heat is a good tradeoff for those in the cold.

I wish that by bill was low enough such that flat fees were a big part of it. NYC metro electric rates suck. How I long for the days of Central PA $40 electric + $40 gas.

 

[Red Squirrel]

There's a certain hospital I used to frequent. They would lose power, and the 12 bay external drive enclosure would come up after the RAID card. So the RAID card would mark all the drives bad, and I would have to force them all online. Never lost any data, but they were down until we got there. Only happened a couple times, and only a couple drives lost in all. They were more than willing to get a UPS, just didn't happen fast enough. Big ships turn slow.

Ouch! That would suck lol. Would make me nervous every time. :awe:

 

[GMasonDragonDad]

Main machine.. always on. most days, it gets used multiple times day and night, so not really worth it to turn it off. secondary machines get put to sleep.

I put a Kill-A-Watt on my A64 clawhammer and it idled at 130 watts. Mr Wolfdale around 70, my Phenom II X4 around 70. i7 about 40.

My A64 was a mess with WinXP and needed constant reboots. My wolfdale (went five years 24/7) would crash or hang after 6-7 days of my normal usage between reboots. My Z220 went 14 before I powered down to do something to it. (usually updates).

I keep the same idea of uptime with my different phones too. I am just a little weird.

 

[Harlan211]

nope, I turn it off when not in used! this is my way of helping the world conserve a little
energy for the future generations!

 

[HOSED]

Personally I set my Sager to hibernate after 20 minutes. Sleep/hibernate does not work on the Dell with Bodhi so I power down.