NEED ADVICE: should I keep my computer on 24/7 or no? and why?

[Soccerman]

". I assume that my computer uses 150 watts an hour which gives me 1.6602 cents an hour to run it."

EDIT: I calculated it for me, I estimate about 120 watts an hour (doing RC5 doesn't use your video card, or your harddrive, much) including the monitor (if it's on). half the day I DON'T have the monitor on anyway (at night), so that takes more money off.

but without taking off the monitor I get 120 watts an hour, and I get 7 cents per Kilowatt, so I spend .85 cents an hour with the monitor on. I leave it on 24/7, and get 604.8 cents, or about 6 dollars of electricity.

now I don't know for sure what power draw my computer uses, so I can't tell you for sure if this is accurate. my K6-2 400@420 doesn't consume much power (like 11 watts, maybe less), let alone my hard drive, video card, and monitor...

 

[abovewood]

I turn off my PC when I don't use it for an hour or more. I don't like the noise (not that bad) when I am sleeping or studying. It takes like
20 to 30 seconds to boot and 5 seconds to shut down anyway.

If you have DSL and have the PC on all the time, it might also increase the chance of your PC being hacked into.

 

[Warrenton]

my system it rated at 308W with monitor. I have a BackUPS 300, and it lasts about 4 minutes.

 

[4xu]

Maverick,


Why would you keep it running??? What is the benefit from that?? Turning your pc on and off doesn`t harm it, I`m sure.

If you turn it off however:
a) you safe electricity
b) you safe the envirionment

 

[zetter]

I keep mine running 24x7x365, monitor goes to power save after an hour, I don't worry about powering down hard disks or anything else. Hey, by the time they've worked enough to wear out the bearings etc, they'd be way to old to be useful anyway.

PIII700@855, stays around the 32C mark so there's no heat problems, and all the fans are monitored, so if one fails, then just wang a new one in there, hey they're cheap anyway.

 

[Dramor]

I leave mine on all day monitor is on power down 15 mins inactivity. I turn it off at nights cause i just do and well i dont like fan noise.

 

[The Mutha]

From a durability standpoint, its just about same leaving it on 24/7 than turning it off once or twice a day.

While leaving it on 24/7 will reduce the risks involved in heating/cooling the components (thus, expanding/contracting them); you also increase the "usage" of your components leaving them on 24/7. Hard drive spindle rotor's ball bearings will wear off more, and Electrostatic Migration (is that how you call it)... will also wear out the aluminium/copper paths in your processor more than if you turn it off.

Needless to say that the adverse affect you might get from EITHER of these will only probably be felt after quite a few years. (However, I tend to think that leaving it on 24/7 is more likely to gimp up your hard drive than any other component - but that also depends if you have power savings on or not, and whether your computer, will be accessing the hard drive a lot during all those 24 hours of the day).

What is really comes down to, IMHO, is whether the extra costs spent on electricity will be worth it in leaving your computer on 24/7. You have to take into account that a computer uses a maximum of between 200W and 300W of power (probably less than that unless you are accessing all your components all at once and you have, say, lots of SCSI drives in your system).

I'd say unless you are really PICKY about your electricity bill, you shouldn't have a problem with your computer on all the time for RC5 or SETI, or anything else which won't require your monitor being on for that matter... on average I think your computer will spend as much electricity as two 80W lightbulbs.

... don't forget computers are DESIGNED to be on 24/7 (unless you are buying some parts from a REALLY CRAPPY manufacturer)

 

[Mem]

All my computers & friends are turned on & off all the time,as to components wearing out ,well most people change there parts well before the life expiry date of any hardware,so you do not need to worry about what will stop working.
Next too many people on this planet like wasting energy when you don`t need to,I personally have been turning computers on & off since the commodore 64 days & have yet to experience a hardware problem due to on & off switching.

I have had only one printer (hardware wise)develop a fault since I`ve been using computers.Too many people thing there computer will explode or something if you turn it off.The bottom line is there is nothing wrong in turning your computer off & on,that is what that on & off button is for.

 

[Doggiedog]

One reason I don't leave my PC on 24/7 is because I have an always on DSL line.

Have any of you ever used Zone Alarm and looked at the number of times your PC has been pinged from the outside? One time, in a span of 15 minutes I must have been warned I was pinged 500 times (the limit in Zone Alarm) by random PCs.

I just don't want to be one of those unlucky guys with a zombie PC DOSing the Pentagon or the White House (Amazon I could care less ;p).

 

[NakaNaka]

I keep mine on and what it does is after an hour the monitor shuts off but it still runs SETI in the background.

 

[Maverick2002]

thx guys

 

[FrontlineWarrior]

Is it bad to have components go into sleep mode? Like I have several options... turn off just the monitor, just hard drive, standby mode etc etc etc... is it better just to keep everything on 100% all the time including my monitor, or is it better for me to turn my monitor to standby every 15 minutes... even though I keep turning it back on and off?

 

[Shudder]

I never put things into sleep mode. Well, I didn't, but I do now with the monitor. Normally I would just turn it off manually because a monitor will suck up a decent amount of power. The thing I hate most is at work, especially in the summer, it gets hot as F in here because everyone leaves their monitors on and if they're not there they're running something stupid like a screensaver. Best screensaver IMO is a blank screen.

Only time I ever turn my computer off is if I leave for the weekend or during a massive storm. My hard drive just died, but that's just a bad drive from WD. A compaq I've had for over 2 years (and we know their quality components) has been on non-stop pretty much that whole time and is still kickin'

 

[Maverick2002]

well thx for the info, i guess ill do whatever the situation requires

 

[Doggiedog]

I've also heard from a lot of my friends in the IT business that monitors tend to conk out regularly after 3 years of use.

I've had a 17" Philips monitor for nearly 7 years and still works fine. I always turn it off if I'm going to be away from the keyboard for more than an hour.

 

[Doggiedog]

I've also heard from a lot of my friends in the IT business that monitors tend to conk out regularly after 3 years of use.

I've had a 17" Philips monitor for nearly 7 years and still works fine. I always turn it off if I'm going to be away from the keyboard for more than an hour.

 

[EmperorNero]

maverick2002, can you PM me your email address? I read that you go to UC and I wanna ask you a few questions about it since I'm considering either UC or OSU.

 

[Soccerman]

I turn my monitor off, at night, becuase it doesn't matter much lifetime wise, but it does suck power..

 

[Soccerman]

quad post... grr.. stupid forums!

 

[Soccerman]

quad post

 

[Soccerman]

I turn my monitor off, at night, becuase it doesn't matter much lifetime wise, but it does suck power..

 

[jinsonxu]

Anyone tried the Buffer in Memory only option in RC5? Cause i want my harddisks to spin down while running RC5 24/7.

 

[bolomite]

Why on earth would you waste electricity unnecessarily? The real cost of excess and wastefulness is not a monetary one, it's an environmental one. How do you think electricity is produced? We exhaust other resources to generate it. Our ravenous consumption of power will ultimately be our undoing. Conserve energy, dammit!

 

[BoberFett]

Read my post here: My electricity usage for 5 comps 24/7

 

[Doomsday]

If you have decent cooling you won't have to worry about component damage. And if you're cracking RC5 or OGR I recommend keeping it on, just to crack. With RC5 or OGR you can tell if you have heating problems, because you will begin to get "the blue screen of death" and unknown freezing up problems. If that's the case make sure you have a good conductor from your processor to your heatsink, and plenty of ventalation/circulation in your case.