Turn PC off every night or leave it on 24/7? (Discussion)

[Red Squirrel]

I keep my computers on 24/7, especially my server equipment. I find when you have electronics that are generally always on, it's best to just keep it that way.

We had a 4 hour long power outage last summer. When I powered my main server back on after the outage I lost 2 drives. At the end of all that fiasco I ended up replacing the raid controller, all the drives (did not trust em) and the two backplanes. There is still something not right with that server as it occasionally crashes in a really weird way. I've seen it a lot in the business world too, where you have a piece of equipment running 24/7, it gets turned off for an extended period, and never comes back. I find this situation is YMMV. Maybe it's only like 5% of the time that you'll actually have an issue, but I find if it's kept running 24/7 and the temperature is stable, it's the most reliable scenario. Also people always think the server room has to be like a freezer. You can get away with like 20-25C, just keep it stable. Cold is actually a much worse enemy than heat depending on the equipment.

 

[Subyman]

I sleep my computer when its not in use. I mainly do this so the WC isn't running all the time. My radiator intakes through 3x120mm fans, which would build up a lot of dust if left on 24/7. Also, I try to conserve energy. My computer probably idles at 100W, so that's about 9 dollars a month if I kept it on all the time.

 

[Zaap]

Depends on the computer for me.

At work, my computer is shut down every day, and auto-started each week day morning.

My home desktop computers that are used for work and web get shut down right after use, always. I've never been one to leave my main systems running.

Laptops in our house tend to be in sleep mode once the lids are closed, rarely fully shut down.

HTPCs are in hibernation if not in use- a scheduled recording brings them out of hibernation, a set inactive time puts them back into it.

The main household NAS server stays on 24/7 usually. Sometimes I'll hibernate it also if I know we won't be using it for some time.

 

[pandemonium]

Simple solutions for every scenario:
-If you're worried about leaving it on 24/7 due to electrical storms, unreliable electricity or whatever, get reputable protection or unplug when not in use.
-If you're worried about energy costs, sleep or turn off when not in use.
-If you're worried about longevity of mechanical components being worn due to constant power cycling [and would prefer to leave it on], make sure ample cooling is functioning and maintain a regularly scheduled cleaning routine to amply manage the inflow of hair, dust, dirt, etc...

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I leave it on 24/7 because I run folding@home.

 

[C1]

BTW,

From time to time we see posts concerning computers blowing up and/or starting on fire.

Here is one that is current titled "Suddenly Need a new Mobo" submitted by PhoenixEnigma
(check out the OP):

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=33074772#post33074772

Again, a good reason for not leaving a home (ie, non-commercial) system running unattended 24/7

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

BTW,

From time to time we see posts concerning computers blowing up and/or starting on fire.

Here is one that is current titled "Suddenly Need a new Mobo" submitted by PhoenixEnigma
(check out the OP):

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=33074772#post33074772

Again, a good reason for not leaving a home (ie, non-commercial) system running unattended 24/7

That's because he was running a power hungry Phenom II X6 CPU on a 4+2 phase motherboard. It's his own fault for not doing research.

I could leave my CPU running for three years straight at 100% load and nothing would happen (assuming power doesn't go down and the system shuts down, that is).

 

[Red Squirrel]

BTW,

From time to time we see posts concerning computers blowing up and/or starting on fire.

Here is one that is current titled "Suddenly Need a new Mobo" submitted by PhoenixEnigma
(check out the OP):

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=33074772#post33074772

Again, a good reason for not leaving a home (ie, non-commercial) system running unattended 24/7

That's very rare though. Do you unplug all your kitchen appliances and entertainment stuff? That can happen with those too, even on standby, it's just that it's a very rare occurrence, and normally the fire will be contained because of the metal case. Though that does have me convinced to never build a wood case. Having fire monitoring is not a bad idea, too, so at least you'll be notified when something is not right and you're not home.

 

[bruceb]

I power up my desktop pc in the morning and around 10AM or so, I put it into standby mode. Turn off the monitor and speaker. It is then ready for use anytime later in the day with just about a minute or so of wait time.

 

[C1]

Just a warning. Dont leave the kitchen stove burner on or a furnace motor running 24/7. Have you ever felt a Phillips DVP642 DvD player that was running continuously even for a couple hours? They get so hot that they notoriously fry the PS capacitor (#C316).

 

[PsiStar]

That's very rare though. Do you unplug all your kitchen appliances and entertainment stuff? That can happen with those too,
.
.
.

My ex-wife's entire family was all about unplugging the toaster & a few other appliances. A couple of her brothers and she even raved about how they each had to turn around from various short trips to make sure the toaster was unplugged. I asked "what about the refrigerator, the stove, the washer/dryer, the garage door opener, the TV (actually some did unplug the TV) ... that family was not compatible with me or they with moi.

 

[Modelworks]

I've always read that spin-up and spin-down of HDDs incur the most wear, so leaving them running 24/7 leads to a longer lifespan.

The spin up of a hard drive is the hardest on electronics. The platters are at rest and to get them up to speed the motor controller has to send a fairly large burst of current , objects at rest tend to stay at rest type of thing, to get them moving again. As they start to spin the controller starts pulsing lower amounts of current through coils until the target speed is reached and then it only has to maintain speed which is fairly low current. Whenever you see blown parts on drive circuit boards it is usually on the motor control area where it overheated.

Stopping is actually not as bad if the drive just has power removed, the drive just slowly spins down and the heads will auto park without power. Controlled shut down is a bit harder on the drive. The motor doesn't turn off suddenly and instead slowly brakes the platters by timed burst of current opposite the fields that make it spin up, that again is a high current situation.

 

[Net]

how many decades is he planning on keeping his computer? does he keep his calculator on 24/7? lol. j/k. just having a little fun here.

the only thing to be concerned with is the cost of electricity that is being spent.

 

[Net]

His comparison argument was burning out the filaments inside a light bulb from turning the lights off and on to damaging your computer by turning it off and on. He stated that since he goes to a tech school that his comparison remained valid whereas I attempted to reason with him that light bulbs are not electrically wired like a computer's power supply.

#1 don't compare light bulbs with semiconductors

#2 fail on pulling the tech school card

that's very silly that he is pulling his tech school card to be right. i studied electrical engineering and i'll tell you that what you learn isn't today's technology. current technology is too complex, they start with simple dumbed down versions so the students don't get lost in complex details.

 

[imagoon]

BTW,

From time to time we see posts concerning computers blowing up and/or starting on fire.

Here is one that is current titled "Suddenly Need a new Mobo" submitted by PhoenixEnigma
(check out the OP):

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=33074772#post33074772

Again, a good reason for not leaving a home (ie, non-commercial) system running unattended 24/7

Looks like the power bar and likely the PSU's overload did what they were supposed to do and killed the power. When electronics go they tend to spark off and smoke, cause a short that triggers the protections. So unless you had 3 inches of dog hair inside the computer it would have burned out and as he woke up, returned to a dead computer.

 

[Chiropteran]

A powered off computer can't mine bitcoins, and as such is worthless from my perspective.

Just a warning. Dont leave the kitchen stove burner on or a furnace motor running 24/7. Have you ever felt a Phillips DVP642 DvD player that was running continuously even for a couple hours? They get so hot that they notoriously fry the PS capacitor (#C316).

A couple hours? DVD player only good for watching 30 minute sitcom episodes one at a time or something?

 

[C1]

A couple hours? DVD player only good for watching 30 minute sitcom episodes one at a time or something?

Honestly .....
http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t367463-philips-dvp642-problem-nothing-works.html

 

[sys-eng]

We did a study of this at BellSouth once upon a time (>5 years ago) and determined from a power savings & power-cycle damage perspective that PC's/workstations should be powered off if not used for more than 8 hours.

The sleep and hibernate modes in Windows 7 are much better than Windows 2000 and XP; therefore, utilizing those power saving tools are very good substitutes as the computers use very little power in those modes. It is still a good practice to reboot the computer at least once a week to close processes and free memory that was not handled properly.

Many disk drives use soft-start features to prevent damage/wear to the disk drive electronics. The biggest problem that I have seen with PC's left on all the time is dust. Most computers become terribly nasty inside within 90 days of continued running.

Another good practice is to set the screen saver to "blank" instead of some picture or random graphic. Since I turned off my giant NEC 21" CRT, I do not power off LCD monitors manually.

Some here have mentioned damage caused by power outages etc.. You really need a UPS. With the advent of disk drives over 500-GB, UPS protection is very important. Trying to recover damaged data on a terabyte of data corrupted because the drive suddenly lost power can take weeks.

Some have mentioned fire hazard and that is very real. I have worked on several computers that burned. The PSU in my main computer smoked up my office 2 years ago (a really stinky smoke too). Fortunately, the fires are usually contained within the metal case and no outside damage is done except for smoke. Laptop computers area different story but are just as safe as long as they are used on a hard surface. Laptops usually die an early death if used on soft surfaces such as beds, couches, blankets, etc. anyway. In an effort to reduce weight and costs, many new laptops have very small power adapters that get VERY warm because they use very small wire and do not have enough internal heatsink. Be careful where you place those too.

 

[pandemonium]

You just pointed to a lot of the practices that I've been utilizing and have tried to get others to do.

Well said, sys-eng. Thanks for your input!

 

[Matt1970]

The biggest problem that I have seen with PC's left on all the time is dust. Most computers become terribly nasty inside within 90 days of continued running.

Good point about the dust.

 

[Dude111]

i shut off everything but my server which runs 24/7

I shut down mine as well and i usually cut the power also.... (Turn power strip off)

Why waste power and your resources??


Do you leave the stove on WHEN YOUR NOT USING IT??

 

[wirednuts]

The spin up of a hard drive is the hardest on electronics. The platters are at rest and to get them up to speed the motor controller has to send a fairly large burst of current , objects at rest tend to stay at rest type of thing, to get them moving again. As they start to spin the controller starts pulsing lower amounts of current through coils until the target speed is reached and then it only has to maintain speed which is fairly low current. Whenever you see blown parts on drive circuit boards it is usually on the motor control area where it overheated.

Stopping is actually not as bad if the drive just has power removed, the drive just slowly spins down and the heads will auto park without power. Controlled shut down is a bit harder on the drive. The motor doesn't turn off suddenly and instead slowly brakes the platters by timed burst of current opposite the fields that make it spin up, that again is a high current situation.

i disagree about the fact that starting up and stopping regularly is harder on the drive. in my experience, drives left to spin all the time will wear out much faster. the bearings go, and then the motor cant even spin the drive up properly, causing a fatal error.

its best to turn your pc off at night, if you can.

 

[sys-eng]

i disagree about the fact that starting up and stopping regularly is harder on the drive. in my experience, drives left to spin all the time will wear out much faster. the bearings go, and then the motor cant even spin the drive up properly, causing a fatal error.

its best to turn your pc off at night, if you can.

You both are correct. It really depends on the disk drive. I have some 60-GB IBM DeskStars that some people nicknamed DeathStars that have been runing since the drives were first released and never had a failure. There are some models of disk drives with well-known problems with the electronics, some have bearing issues, some have faulty head/actuating arm assemblies, and others have platters that delaminate.

When you consider that modern disk drives marketed to consumers (not enterprise or SCSI) are made so cheaply, these devices are very reliable. So often, people want a terabyte of storage that will last 10 years without failure and cost less than $150. I want gasoline for $1 per gallon too.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Another good practice is to set the screen saver to "blank" instead of some picture or random graphic. Since I turned off my giant NEC 21" CRT, I do not power off LCD monitors manually.

Monitors have practically no boot up time, so normally it's easier to just shut it when not in use. That's always what I do.

Some here have mentioned damage caused by power outages etc.. You really need a UPS. With the advent of disk drives over 500-GB, UPS protection is very important. Trying to recover damaged data on a terabyte of data corrupted because the drive suddenly lost power can take weeks.

In my case, I have a UPS, but most <$1000 UPSes will only last 30 minutes at very most on brand new batteries if all the planets and galaxies align properly. They wont save you from extended outages, and those are the ones that are bad as everything has time to cool off. In my case I lost lot of hardware after a single 4 hour power outage.

But yeah a UPS is a must, it will at least save you from power blips and short outages.

 

[zephxiii]

My monitors automatically go into standby...so I don't have to push any extra buttons!