Turning my computer off

Topic

New Reply

Hi everyone,

I wanted to know if it is ok for me to leave my computer on for weeks-on-end before turning if off for the night?

Thanks for any guidance you can give me on this.

Reply | Quote

Replies

First of all I wondered how long your day is; did you mean “or turn it off for the night”?

You’ll get about 50% of people here saying it’s OK to leave it on and the rest saying better to switch it off. A lot will depend on how you use it and what your requirements are. Personally I do switch it off at close of play, but I have left it on in the past. Neither has any particular advantage/disadvantage for me.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

Reply | Quote

If it was XP, I recommend turning it off each day. With Vista, Windows 7,8,10, you can safely leave it up for as long as you like. The only concern is power usage which is minmal with the normal settings.

Jerry

Reply | Quote

Hi everyone,
I wanted to know if it is ok for me to leave my computer on for weeks-on-end before turning if off for the night?
Thanks for any guidance you can give me on this.

Unless your PC is one of those specially designed “Servers” that cost up in the $3000 to $5000 range, then it’s made with Hobby Grade components that were never designed for 100% duty cycle. By leaving the PC on 24×7, you’re greatly shortening the life of your PC. And you’re also taking a greater chance of something adverse happening while you’re not at the PC. Damage from power surges or even fire are possibilities.
There are also things, like re-writing the Registry to the Hard drive that are only done during a full shutdown.

I’d rather play safe! When I”m not at home, to monitor my PC, it’s OFF…..not just OFF but the power to it is also shut off at the power strip it’s plugged into.

Be SAFE, not SORRY.

Cheers Mate,
The Doctor

Reply | Quote

It’s not often I can offer anything but if I am asleep or away my machine is off- unplugged off – and that includes the router. I don’t know how it is with other folk but I found out the hard way that it’s no good having fast trip protection on the power line when lighting strikes the phone line – fried router isn’t even edible!

Reply | Quote

It’s not often I can offer anything but if I am asleep or away my machine is off- unplugged off – and that includes the router. I don’t know how it is with other folk but I found out the hard way that it’s no good having fast trip protection on the power line when lighting strikes the phone line – fried router isn’t even edible!

Yeah! Have attended quite a few customers who had their computer and router powered off but lightning struck phone lines and fried router at least. And sometimes also fried LAN adapter on motherboard. No fun.

After reading about all the many (mostly illogical or otherwise obviously mistaken) reasons given for leaving computers powered-on 24/7 I am not inclined to change my attitude. I power off all computers and other electronic equipment before I go to bed each night. Apart from the ever-present risk of a power-strike, why leave such devices powered on for hours on end when they aren’t being used? Unnecessary risk of malfunctioning electronic equipment overheating and catching fire.

Reply | Quote

It’s not often I can offer anything but if I am asleep or away my machine is off- unplugged off – and that includes the router. I don’t know how it is with other folk but I found out the hard way that it’s no good having fast trip protection on the power line when lighting strikes the phone line – fried router isn’t even edible!

That leaves me wondering if leasing the router is better than owning it. I think for home use leasing it is more common here, since it is typically supplied by the service provider. It’s everything else in the system I’m worried about.

Reply | Quote

It’s not often I can offer anything but if I am asleep or away my machine is off- unplugged off – and that includes the router. I don’t know how it is with other folk but I found out the hard way that it’s no good having fast trip protection on the power line when lighting strikes the phone line – fried router isn’t even edible!

I use a remote switched Isobar but unplugged is with out doubt SAFEST 1

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

Reply | Quote

@Doc,

Baloney on the sweeping generalization about shortened life. I have a 16 year old Dell XP desktop machine that is rarely turned off. It will be decommissioned very soon but has worked well for a long time. I have another 7 year old Dell desktop that has been upgraded from xp to vista to 7 to 8 to 8.1 to 10. It too is almost never turned off. I know many other people who leave their PCs on 24×7. I also know many who turn theirs on and off more than once each day. I’ve seen servers, desktops, & laptops all have hardware issues and seen them all run for many years being left on almost constantly. My generalization is that if the device is not DOA and does not have a hardware problem in the first 30-45 days it is very likely you’ll have many years of service with normal treatment regardless of turning it off daily or not.

Joe

--Joe

Reply | Quote

Thank you everyone for your responses. They were very helpful.

Reply | Quote

@Doc,

Baloney on the sweeping generalization about shortened life. I have a 16 year old Dell XP desktop machine that is rarely turned off.

Joe

I have read that XP went RTM in 2001. Mathematically, that shortens its life right off the bat.

Reply | Quote

Beat me to it Joe. There are also people that will say that constant turning the PC off and On will stress the components and shorten their life. This is equally not valid for a modern computer that survives its first 30 days as Joe has stated. Do whatever you are comfortable with.

Jerry

Reply | Quote

Beat me to it Joe. There are also people that will say that constant turning the PC off and On will stress the components and shorten their life. This is equally not valid for a modern computer that survives its first 30 days as Joe has stated.

Years and years ago, when a lot of people were using computers built from components, the power supplies were not the best and turning them on and off was probably worse for them than leaving them running. Also, that tended to wear down the circuitry as well. But unless you had either a UPS or a good power regulator, the current fluctuations and surges could be equally bad for the electronics so it was pretty much a wash.

I used to have a good Dell server in my office and it ran Novell then later WinNT and pretty much stayed on all the time for 7 years. The only reason it was finally replaced is that the power supply got glitchy and it was more bother than it was worth to replace.

Reply | Quote

Beat me to it Joe. There are also people that will say that constant turning the PC off and On will stress the components and shorten their life. This is equally not valid for a modern computer that survives its first 30 days as Joe has stated. Do whatever you are comfortable with.

Jerry

Once Upon a Time before surface mounted components and massive integration when chips were pressed into sockets the heating and cooling could ‘eject’ them from their sockets. It may be true that W7 + machines don’t need a reboot as XP seemed to. I like to disconnect my computers from power when I go to sleep. Maybe I only save a few pennies but it make me feel all green all over.

:rolleyes:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

Reply | Quote

I was wrong, it’s currently 3 – 1 to the no problems either way.

I believe that what Jerry and Joe are describing used to be called (and may well still be) the bathtub curve. Failures tend to occur when the equipment is new, or at end of life. The former is easy (when you git it!), the latter is less so. So if you start getting glitches and problems, then it’s probably at end of life. But as long as you backup, backup, backup, you’ll be fine.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

Reply | Quote

Most of my routine maintenance is done by Task Scheduler in the wee hours. My desktops only get turned off during a power failure or when an upgrade requires a reboot (which is not actually turning it off). About a year ago I bought a UPS for my main desktop, so reboots for software upgrades are all it ever sees.

Bottom line, it’s a two-step decision process: what do you want to do? Do it. It will be irrelevant to the PC.

No need to try to justify it, either way.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

Reply | Quote

Let’s review in another five years?

Turn computer off or leave it on after use?

Reply | Quote

Let’s review in another five years?

Turn computer off or leave it on after use?

Answer because all hard drives have a life span and can do only x number of spins before they wear out. Why leave them running and wear out the hard drive before its time?

Reply | Quote

The one thing most people who support leaving the machine on 24/7 forget about is the dirt and dust etc that the fans pull into a computer even in the cleanest of houses and offices.
My computers get a good internal clean every six months and always needs it. The CPU fans often need replacement because of crap buildup which I blame on nicotine addicts (nicotine closely resembles damp glue). Cooling and CPU fans are cheap preventative maintenance because a lump of crud coming off and causing local overheating has unpredictable costs and consequences
Having had a power spike take out my whole system (all internal and attached external hard drives as well as the mother board) when I was doing a backup means I am now a firm believer in turn it all off and unplug it from the mains, phone and the network when not in use.
Yes that wastes ten seconds per cycle but I can promise you the time you lose if you are connected when a power spike occurs, regardless if it is a lightening strike or some mental cripple trying teach his/her car to climb a power pole, is infinitely greater.

Reply | Quote

The one thing most people who support leaving the machine on 24/7 forget about is the dirt and dust etc that the fans pull into a computer even in the cleanest of houses and offices.
My computers get a good internal clean every six months and always needs it. The CPU fans often need replacement because of crap buildup which I blame on nicotine addicts (nicotine closely resembles damp glue). Cooling and CPU fans are cheap preventative maintenance because a lump of crud coming off and causing local overheating has unpredictable costs and consequences
Having had a power spike take out my whole system (all internal and attached external hard drives as well as the mother board) when I was doing a backup means I am now a firm believer in turn it all off and unplug it from the mains, phone and the network when not in use.
Yes that wastes ten seconds per cycle but I can promise you the time you lose if you are connected when a power spike occurs, regardless if it is a lightening strike or some mental cripple trying teach his/her car to climb a power pole, is infinitely greater.

The computer hard drive is made to spin because it turns millions and millions and billions of times on the disk which is supported on steel bearings which is what enables the spin. When the bearings wear out and fail, thats the end of that hardrive that you never shut off.

Reply | Quote

Fellow Loungers,
Have I missed it? I usually leave my PCs on, but I also have my power settings options set for my HDD to power down after 20 minutes. One’s HDD does not need to run 24/7 just because the PCs power is “ON”. Also, I heartily agree with those with surge suppressors and UPSes. I use both. The UPSes are plugged into surge suppressors, plugged into the walls’s outlets, for my electronics — including the TVs. And, I have underground AC power to the house.

Reply | Quote

The UPSes are plugged into surge suppressors, plugged into the walls’s outlets

Biddlelc,

Every UPS I’ve ever owned stated “DO NOT to plug it into a surge suppressor“. You might want to check your manuals. HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

Reply | Quote

If everyone saved as much electricity as they could we would all be better off.

cheers, Paul

Reply | Quote

…. if it is ok for me to leave my computer on for weeks-on-end before turning if off ….

yes

Reply | Quote

yes

This is a very bad idea. I run my PC Win 7 with hibernate enabled automatically so that it does not run when I forget to turn it off. Very minimal power usage with hibernate. The problem with letting your system run all the time is that every hard drive ever made is good for only a certain number of spins or revolutions. They all eventually wear out! Duh! Why nobody has spoken to this I don’t know.

Reply | Quote

……………………………………. every hard drive ever made is good for only a certain number of spins or revolutions. They all eventually wear out! Duh! Why nobody has spoken to this I don’t know.

Conceptually true……but……not all hard drives last as long even within a model range.

I use Acronis Drive Monitor ( a free download ) to keep tabs on mine.

I’m posting from a computer with ~16000 hours on it’s drive and reports on it are excellent, same as when new.
I also have a standalone computer seldom used that has <300 hours and it's already red flagged for failure, even though there are no outward signs showing the distress.

Hard drives are consumables and fuse length is likely associated with manufacturing quality and type of usage.

Reply | Quote

They (hard drives) all eventually wear out! Duh! Why nobody has spoken to this I don’t know.

Well, my overly long posting was cut short because I had to leave.
Nothing is so cut and dried. While I’m sure hard drives must “wear out” from spinning so long, I’ve never heard of it personally. I have heard of and had lots of failures, but they always seem to be related to power failures, surges, plain old power-up, head crashes, viruses, etc. I would put my money on the lifetime of a hard drive running non-stop in a UPS-protected system against the lifetime of a hard drive running unprotected and shut down every night. And “surge protectors” don’t count as protection. Most of our systems run in a part of the country with very dirty power. I used to have lots of hardware failures even with surge protectors. One day my VCR blew up (literally – capacitor filaments all over the place) during a thunder storm, but my computer on a UPS was fine. After that I put every piece of hardware on UPSes. At home and at our business. And not on the “surge-protected” side, on the “battery” side. Not just the computers, but printers, network equipment, etc. I have UPSes that are just for plugging in random stuff (barcode scanner, USB hub, receipt printer and credit card PINpad, at one cash register, for example.) They don’t have to hold a charge for long, just long enough for the UPS to power down its output side gracefully. Before that I generally replaced equipment because it died. Since then I have replaced equipment because it gets too old and slow or because I need some new capability or the like.
Rarely a UPS will die. Not the battery but the electronics. Probably taken down by a power spike that its own surge protection couldn’t take care of. I wish I could find more robust ones that aren’t gigantic “enterprise” equipment, but there apparently isn’t a market for them. In any case, it is better to lose the UPS than the computer.

Reply | Quote

Every Update Tuesday at least one reboot is required.

Reply | Quote

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (as in the early IBM mainframe days) a service engineer admonished me to not touch the Power button – that is, leave the system running. I’ve taken that advice to heart and I now never turn off my machines.

I’m currently running a 10 year old desktop that has been migrated from Win XP to Win 8.1 (with all of the stops in between). I built a server in 2008 which is currently running Windows Server 2012. I have a small netbook running Win 8.1. There is a older Lenovo W500 and two very late model Lenovo T series laptops as well. With the exception of the netbook, these systems are never, ever turned off – well not “never”. The desktop and server have been upgraded and moved occasionally which does require a power off/power on cycle. The laptops, of course, have batteries and the server and desktop are both connected to a UPS so power outages are never a problem for me.

Of course, there is a concern (or used to be a concern) about charge recycles for the battery powered units that are plugged in and charging. I’ve found that the intelligent battery circuitry and the Lenovo Power Manager installed on the 3 Lenovo units do a fine job in keeping the batteries healthy.

So, I would suppose the the almost 50 year old advice about not powering down is still valid – unless you are concerned about your electric bill.

Reply | Quote

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (as in the early IBM mainframe days) a service engineer admonished me to not touch the Power button – that is, leave the system running. I’ve taken that advice to heart and I now never turn off my machines.

So, I would suppose the the almost 50 year old advice about not powering down is still valid – unless you are concerned about your electric bill.

In the early IBM mainframe days there was no such thing as a PC, you would have been in a (computer) clean room wearing a white lab coat (subject to the standards of a computer room of the day, and not to be confused with a manufacturing clean room wearing a bunny suit, or a hazmat room, or on the moon, or in that galaxy far far away, wearing ever more specialized haberdashery to suit the opera), and I’ll BET he told you not to touch the Power button.

Shutting down a mainframe! Was that you who turned the lights off?

The majority of PCs today are laptops, and they are a commodity. They are easily replaced at what for most is an affordable price – just keep them backed up. They are also getting better all the time, and past practices are often inappropriate. Buying new often makes more sense than repairing a blown whatchamacallit. Setting up can be a nuisance, but troubleshooting can be worse by far. There. I’ve just convinced myself to replace the computer that blew the other day.

Reply | Quote

In the early IBM mainframe days there was no such thing as a PC, you would have been in a (computer) clean room wearing a white lab coat (subject to the standards of a computer room of the day,

I guess IBM was special. The UNIVAC 9000 I used to work on was in the basement of a former WWI morgue.

Reply | Quote

I guess IBM was special. The UNIVAC 9000 I used to work on was in the basement of a former WWI morgue.

You wouldn’t find its big brother the Univac 1100 series in the basement though… :rolleyes:

Jerry

Reply | Quote

Certain components, i.e. “The Hard Drive”, will keep spinning when constantly on. Each hard drive has a MTTF (Meantime to Failure) rating. It’s simple, the more you use it the closer it gets to possible failure. Secondly, many operating systems are not good at cleaning themselves up so you start to get slowdowns. Rebooting will clear out memory. I’m sure many of you, that leave your computer on most of the time, reboot at least everyday if not every other day. If you have to reboot you are defeating the purpose of leaving it on. You may as well shut down when you are finished using your computer.

Most importantly, electricity is costing more and more these days. We also have to be conscientious in the amount of electricity we are using. Therefore, it only makes sense to shut down your computer everyday.

Reply | Quote

You could leave it on for a few days , but an overlooked advantage to a turn off is the cold boot , if you made any changes to the computer lately a cold boot does minor registry connections and settings if required at each turn on so if you do changes this is a useful feature .

Bob the tech

Reply | Quote

Leaving the computer running as long as possible offers the following benefits:

* Reduced wear and tear on hard drives. Every cold bootup places a large amount of stress on mechanical drives, as the platters spin up to speed and the heads get moving. I’ve personally gained more years of use out of hard drives by keeping them running all the time. This is becoming a non-issue though as SSDs slowly take over. Power supplies

* More effective caching. During Windows startup, Windows has to load a lot of processes, and caches data to memory (RAM). As you use Windows over time, much of your frequently-accessed data and apps are cached, meaning they are kept in memory for much faster access (no need to place additional wear and tear on storage drives, too). The longer you use Windows in a given session, the more effective the caching is. When you reboot, it’s all gone.

* Immediate use. Who wants to wait for Windows to load every day? Coming out of ‘sleep mode’ only takes a second or so.

The main disadvantage is electrical consumption, unless you use ‘sleep mode’. Also – some poorly-written apps have memory leaks and will slow your system down over time, in which rebooting will resolve. (The better solution is to just restart those apps or better yet, get updated ones.)

I leave my system on all the time. But I also run server apps and surveillance so I pretty much have to There’s only a negligable difference on my electric bills as opposed to turning the system off each night.

Reply | Quote

This is the advice I have used…

http://www.tweaking.com/articles/pages/should_i_turn_off_my_computer_%28most_commonly_asked_question%29,1.html

Reply | Quote

Hey Trev, don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

Reply | Quote

My XP machine was on from when I built it (2003) to about ooh, 2-3 years ago. And my previous machine several years before that. I liked to have it instantly available, but as my lifestyle has changed somewhat (I’ve retired) I now switch it off every night.

I can’t say I’ve noticed any difference in reliability or cost either way. It’s never gone wrong apart from a fried video card when the fan fell off; and I suppose I must be saving money now, but I haven’t noticed, that’s the point.

So I’m saying it really is up to you and how you use it – one answer doesn’t fit all.

Reply | Quote

There are people who have smoked all their lives, don’t get lung cancer, and even die normal deaths. Then there are most people. Heat is one of the biggest threats to computer components. Especially cheap ones. If it’s hot or not well ventilated where your computer is, turn it off when you’re not using it. I agree with Dr. Who, better to be safe than sorry, and you save some money unless you’re on solar and “off the grid”. Even then I’d turn it/them off, helps keep the dust cleaning job down too!

Being 20 something in the 70's was so much better than being 70 something in the insane 20's

Reply | Quote

I leave mine on all the time, for three reasons:
1. For convenience — it is instantly available at any time.
2. So that updates and virus scans can run overnight, rather than during the day.
3. So that the temperature remains constant. Since the components inside are made of different types of materials, they will shrink and expand differently everytime the temperature goes down and up.

Since I’m never at home in the middle of the day during the week, I could do my updates at that time, thereby negating #2.

Windows does sometimes need to be shut down and restarted; you can do that AND maintain a constant temperature simply by doing a restart rather than a shutdown.

As far as components wearing out due to continually being hot, I think that will take many years to happen, if at all; and by that time, you’ll probably be wanting a new computer anyway.

I’m not discounting anything anyone else says; this is simply what works best for me.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

Reply | Quote

I leave mine on all the time, for three reasons:
1. For convenience — it is instantly available at any time.
2. So that updates and virus scans can run overnight, rather than during the day.
3. So that the temperature remains constant. Since the components inside are made of different types of materials, they will shrink and expand differently everytime the temperature goes down and up.

Since I’m never at home in the middle of the day during the week, I could do my updates at that time, thereby negating #2.

Windows does sometimes need to be shut down and restarted; you can do that AND maintain a constant temperature simply by doing a restart rather than a shutdown.

As far as components wearing out due to continually being hot, I think that will take many years to happen, if at all; and by that time, you’ll probably be wanting a new computer anyway.

I’m not discounting anything anyone else says; this is simply what works best for me.

No sleep mode?

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

Reply | Quote

For people who need the convenience of having their computer ready and have Win 7 or later, I think Sleep mode works very well. My Win 7 machine comes back from Sleep mode in a few seconds which I think is great. Now if a thunderstorm with lots of lightning is coming, all my electronic equipment gets turned off. I don’t trust surge suppressors.

Being 20 something in the 70's was so much better than being 70 something in the insane 20's

Reply | Quote

I tend to let my Win7 computers ( 2 ) in my home office run all day and turn off at night.
However, I have a Linux powered computer in my living room that stays on 24/7 for convenience. It boots from a DVD and has no hard drive so current draw ought to be low. All low priced components that I assembled about 8 years ago. Still dependable.

Reply | Quote

No, no sleep mode.

I definitely don’t want sleep mode to be the default, because then it is difficult to do a clean reboot. However, I am open to manually doing sleep mode from time to time.

An issue with sleep mode which isn’t often spoken about: if you are logged onto something (with a username and password), and you go into sleep mode, it is likely that that session will be ended when you wake up the computer. This means that drive mappings, printer mappings, etc., which depended on the session not ending will be terminated, and you’ll have to reestablish all of that stuff.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

Reply | Quote

I have a main server, which has all the centralised files such as photos, music, email files etc. etc on it, my PC which I run dual booted with a double head, a weather station computer running headless, a MythTV box, a Kodi server running OpenElec on a Raspberry PI 2, a NAS server and VOIP server plus a Ethernet connected printer.

I also have a test server for testing updates to web sites I maintain and PHP and MySQL updates, 3 laptops, and various other test computers.

The former group stay on 24/7 except for update reboots (not the printer of course) primarily because overnight is when all the backups happen, but they are all interlinked saving each others data and also copying it to the NAS and other external storage (my life would not be worth living if I lost the 12+ years of digital photos plus the scanned paper ones!!).

The latter are switched on when and if required. Any difference in the groups, not that I have noticed, they all perform as expected whether it’s Windows of various flavours of Ubuntu.

As has been said it is a matter of choice, components nowadays (apart from some hard disks!! hence all the backups) are built to last, provided as has already been stated they get past the first 30 days.

More important in my opinion than switching a computer on and off is have you got a backup? It always surprises me the number of people who sail on without them and then have a fit when the hard disk fails!!

Reply | Quote

I have been leaving my laptop on but in a Locked Mode for the past several years. I travel with a different device that allows me to Remote back into my system. My company pushes Windows Updates on Wednesday out to the user base so that is the day I tend to reboot the system. I have had no problems. I also leave a fan on in the office so that air is circulating over the machine to help with heat displacement.

Reply | Quote

The first time I joined in a conversation on this topic was around 1988… it was conducted over FidoNet message groups. It was also precisely as conclusive as this one. Bottom line, there is no right answer. Examine your power source (UPS, surge suppressors, etc), your various other connections (overhead or underground wiring, phone, cable, etc), your conditions and needs (instant on, noisy fans, relative temperature, power use, etc.) and make your decision. Everything else is anecdotal, and may or may not apply to your situation.

Reply | Quote

The first time I joined in a conversation on this topic was around 1988… it was conducted over FidoNet message groups. It was also precisely as conclusive as this one. Bottom line, there is no right answer. Examine your power source (UPS, surge suppressors, etc), your various other connections (overhead or underground wiring, phone, cable, etc), your conditions and needs (instant on, noisy fans, relative temperature, power use, etc.) and make your decision. Everything else is anecdotal, and may or may not apply to your situation.

Wow that brings back memories. What was I using before that newfangled WWW came about ?? Bluewave I think. And of course Compuserve before it was slaughtered.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

Reply | Quote

I have always told people it is like this… When do you most likely blow a light bulb? When you turn it on. Why because over time the coil goes from instant cold to instant hot as the current flows through the coil. Over time it starts to break down that material and eventually breaks apart. However, if you leave that bulb on all the time it will last much longer than surging it off and on.

I liken this in the same manner to the computer. Overtime the surge of power within the electronics will eventually wear it down faster than if it had just been left on all the time. I have run all of my computers this way both home and office and have had very very few problems.

Reply | Quote

I don’t usually turn my computer off at all. I am on it most of the day except when sleeping and I want it to do things while I am not there. Since upgrading to Windows 10, however, when I am not on for a longer period of time, like overnight, the computer reboots which is causing me problems. As a result, I am being forced to turn it off. Has anyone else had this problem? I have it set to ask before rebooting for updates.

Reply | Quote

41798-LG-GGW-H20L-4

I turn my computers off at night: sleep, hibernate or complete shutdown. I manually use sleep mode (It only takes a touch of the keyboard or mouse for wake up in a few seconds), when I leave the room for a while: to save power mostly and keep those fans from sucking in more dust. Also, my PC’s generate lots of heat–not so good in south Texas 100 degree summers with the AC blasting. Nice though in the Winter.

Recently another motivator: a Blu-ray burner that burned up. This happened when I turned on the computer and noticed right away the PC was in trouble.

Man, did it stink up the house. I thought the Power Supply had failed but when I opened the case–it was this LG made burner.

I have it upside down in the picture to show the bottom of the melted power plug.

Another thought for those of you who think you should leave PC’s running. Do you leave your other electronics on when not in use: TV, stereo, gaming console, etc?

Reply | Quote

One additional contribution/inquiry. I have an old XP PC that, for reasons not relevant here, has been On continuously for several months, and sometimes untouched for several weeks. A couple of times, on returning to that PC, I have received an error message regarding memory. Checking Disk Management shows practically no free space on the C: partition of the hard drive. Reboot restores C: to over 40% free space. I just now rebooted it, and increased C: free space from 24% – 13GB to 33% – 18GB; some operation had eaten 5GB, and it has been much more at other times. Malware scans have found nothing to account for it other than normal operation. So if you leave a PC on all the time, you might be alert for that phenomenon. If anybody has any clues why that XP might have started doing that, I’d appreciate any tips.

Reply | Quote

(1) I would do a CHKDSK with both options checked. You may have a bad hard disk. WARNING: CHKDSK may cause a bad hard drive to become unbootable after the scan has been completed. In any case, backup your data ASAP.

(2) MSCONFIG: deselect startup programs except for AV or other obviously needed programs.

(3) Run Disc Cleanup. You probably have a large amount of TEMP files! Then use Control Panel to selectively uninstall suspicious or unused programs, especially, various “helper” browser Toolbars!

(4) Run DEFRAG

(5) Get a good AV program. Suggest ESET.

(6) Delete the hard drive partition. Reinstall Windows, drivers, updates, apps and restore data from backups. (This last resort method is for advanced users only and not for newbies).

http://www.thecomicstrips.com/store/add.php?iid=107979

Reply | Quote

My opinion, power and reboot cycles need to be based upon your priorities, and less so on the machines. I’m not convinced that the lifecycle considerations on the hardware are significant enough to worry about.

– the OS needs to reboot periodically. Windows software installs mandate this. Also memory leaks need to be guarded against. However I suspect there’s a lot of flexibility in how often this needs to be done. Personally, I like a full boot cycle at least once a week. On large, multi-user systems (non-Windows) I used to extend this to once a month;
– power conservation. This is a good thing. Maximum savings are only achieved by Power Off and Hibernate;
– faster startup and user convenience. I find this important enough to cater to it;
– system maintenance. This encompasses centralized inventory scans, patch application, content indexing, backups, disk & database reorganizations, etc. Ideally you want to do this stuff during off-peak hours and this is optimally achieved by automation. Of course the computer must be on in order to do this.

Reply | Quote

(1) Run CHKDSK with both options checked. You might have a bad hard drive. WARNING, using CHKDSK may cause a failing hard drive to become unbootable. Make a backup ASAP.

(2) Run Disc Cleanup. You may have a large amount of TEMP files and other stuff that you can delete.

(3) Use Control Panel to delete suspicious or unused programs, especially, browser “helper” Toolbars.

(4) MSCONFIG: uncheck startups except for AV or needed utilities.

(5) Run DEFRAG.

(6) Use a good AV. Suggest ESET.

(7) Delete the partition. Reinstall Windows, drivers, updates, data and programs. This is a last resort step for advances user only and for newbies.

http://www.thecomicstrips.com/store/add.php?iid=107979

Reply | Quote

There are more reasons than just component reliability to leave on or turn off. Here are my thoughts on the subject, First for turning off at night, then for leaving on. It boils down to “there is no absolute answer, make your own decision based on your own needs”.

An incomplete list of why to turn it off:

[*]Power consumption / heat. Unless you hibernate or something, you are going to be using power and generating heat. That costs money and may heat up your house in warm weather. We actually take advantage of the heat during the winter by closing the office door and turning down the heat in the rest of the house. Keeps us focused on our work, too! But we still turn off at night.
[*]Heat buildup inside the system. Unless you regularly clean the dust out of your system, the longer it stays on, the dirtier it gets inside and that prevents the air circulation that will keep the components from overheating.
[*]Safety. As demonstrated by that melted BluRay cable, if something does go wrong while you are sleeping you might (hopefully!) be awakened by the smoke detector.
[*]Reboot. Powering off starts the computer fresh in the morning. I know some people say they’ve had their systems running for years without a reboot. They are lucky. Ours become very flaky after a few days without a reboot. I suspect it has something to do with the number and quality of programs you have running.
[*]Noise. Fans. I hate them. And random little beeps or whatever might be happening when you aren’t looking.

Reasons to leave them on at night.

[*]Availability. I administer the computers in our store remotely from my office at home. I do this at night and in the morning because they are in use during the day. My wife, our buyer, has her own computer in the store with LAN access to our POS server. She is self employed and works until late at night and for hours in the morning before the employees arrive. Because of these two things, we leave the 5 computers on in the store full time. We access them via Remote Desktop and so they must be on when we want them. We do require that the employees restart all systems except for the buyer system at the end of every work day. They are all connected to UPSes and are only powered down if one of our frequent winter storms knocks out the power for long enough to deplete the batteries.
[*]Leaving your work open so you don’t have to figure out where you were while the coffee is still taking effect.
[*]Stability. Electronic components like stable voltages and temperatures. I used to severely test computer sub-assemblies at a company which made very reliable corporate computers and then worked with a component engineer to determine cause of failure and try to ensure better reliability of our products. If you think about Ohm’s law, you will realize that every tiny little component inside your computer is subject to a voltage spike and potentially infinite current at the instant that power is applied. This is very brief – notice I said at the “instant” that power is applied – and as you must realize, nearly every component survives it just fine. But a weak one will fail. “Chips” are made of glass. They expand and contract with changes in temperature. As do their packages and the boards they are soldered to. Most have no problem, but at the microscopic level they are all different and some have weaknesses which can cause problems. It might be just a slight increase in the resistance of one little semiconductor trace between two transistors inside of the chip. That can lead to one path through the chip being slightly slower than spec and race conditions which cause a crash at seemingly unpredictable times.
Components used to come in roughly four grades: hobby, commercial, select, and military. Each level was fabbed and tested to a progessively higher standard and priced accordingly. I am not in the business anymore, but market pressures are such that there certainly must still be a similar distribution. Hobby level components (probably “consumer” nowadays) may come from the same batches as higher level ones, but just haven’t been tested beyond consumer level specs. They may be good enough to be MilSpec or they may not even be good enough for Commercial. You have no idea because they weren’t tested to those standards. Same for each subsequent grade. As you can see, the computer on your desk is likely to be made primarily of the lower grade. So the person who says “my computer has been turned on for XX years” hasn’t really proven anything other than that s/he got lucky. The large majority of consumer grade computers die after a few years. Or at least one component dies and they get tossed out.

I could probably go on but I’m out of time. Basically, with either side of the discussion you pays your money and you takes your chances.

Reply | Quote

Components used to come in roughly four grades: hobby, commercial, select, and military. Each level was fabbed and tested to a progessively higher standard and priced accordingly.

But as we found out a couple of years ago MilSpec is not always MILSPEC.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

Reply | Quote

I almost never turn my computer off, for most of the reasons already stated. At night is when it does its virus scans and backups. I often run programs that can take many hours to complete (such as transcoding video), and so the computer needs to be on for that. Even when I’m away I leave it on, as sometimes I remote on to it to run some task.

I even skip Patch Tuesdays sometimes, which will surely raise the ire of some here. I’ve had multiple runs of 100+ day uptime.

Reply | Quote

And besides, get an SSD at commodity prices and improve your modern computer’s reliability even more.

Now watch me embarrass myself with a “help, my computer crashed!” message…

Reply | Quote

You never know, it was a big basement and was owned by the Navy which had money to burn in certain roles during the Cold War.

Reply | Quote

I’ll bet the OP is sorry he asked now

Reply | Quote

I’ll bet the OP is sorry he asked now

And my post #2 has turned out to be exactly what happened

access-ndb :wacko:

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

Reply | Quote

And my post #2 has turned out to be exactly what happened

access-ndb :wacko:

Quite. I said the same as you did and it seems we’re both vindicated; the answer is, of course, that all the pros and cons about switching off at night are all equally valid. What’s important is how users er, use their machines. Therefore it’s different for everyone.

Reply | Quote

Boy. this is a long thread.

I read pages 1 and 2, the skipped to the end. Don’t know if anyone has already shared my viewpoint.

My concern is not hardware longevity. Both at home and office, at the end of the day, I power down the computer.

And I watch as it powers down. At home, I watch for the update and restart message. As much as I can, I try to avoid this. If I see it, I restart and monitor the update, and then, the power down again.

For me, what’s most important is powering on and observing “normal” response and behavior. So for me, if I don’t power down everyday, I would miss the comfort of a “normal” startup everyday.

Maybe that’s some kind of urban Hawaiian Shinto.

Reply | Quote

I’ll bet the OP is sorry he asked now

I doubt it, as he asked the same question in 2010. See #11

Reply | Quote

I submit that if left unattended, the computer should be on a UPS – otherwise off. I believe most modern units suffer much more from external power and heat problems than internal issues -and a UPS is a great insulator against external power issues over which the owner has no control. My computers (3 Dells) run 24x7x365, and over ten years have had one hardware failure with a hard drive data surface that began to fail and corrupt data. No data lost, just the time to migrate to a new drive and restore the corrupted data from backups. (Thank you – Mozy). These units are free standing and always have adequate air flow – I think excessive heat is much more detrimental than excessive use.

Reply | Quote

“I submit that if left unattended, the computer should be on a UPS – otherwise off.”

Agreed. UPS replacement battery replacement can become expensive over time though. Been there done that. You have to weigh the potential risks with the total cost of ownership. I now run non-UPS and unplug during severe storms. Has worked well for years now. I’m saving hundreds of dollars by not using UPS and having to replace spent batteries.

Reply | Quote

When I worked in IT, many years ago, we had the same question. So, we tested it. We left five on, and turned five off at night for a long period, (I think a year but don’t remember for certain.) Both groups of PCs were in normal use daily. There was no significant difference in the repair logs for the two groups.

Reply | Quote

Not all UPSs are created equal!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply#Online.2Fdouble-conversion

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

Reply | Quote

I have been impressed at just how rugged Commercial, Off The Shelf (COTS) computer components can be. I served in the navy, and during the ’90s we had standard COTS desktops literally strapped down in small, Fast Attack Craft that spent lengthy periods at sea in the stormy waters off South Africa. The equipment was left on continually at sea and we never experienced failures, despite the severe pounding the vessels experienced.

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

Reply | Quote

@moon1130 – Did you get all this? You saved all this info. right?

Being 20 something in the 70's was so much better than being 70 something in the insane 20's

Reply | Quote

I’m concerned, but not as concerned about the hardware components. I’m more concerned about security, and the damage malware causes.

I’m thinking more folks would have fewer problems if the physical connection to the internet were shut down when they are not using it. Keeps things outside from getting in, and inside stuff from getting out. It limits the amount of time a botnet enjoys access to an infected computer, and thus power consumption to a greater or lesser extent too.

I regularly shut down the wireless card on my laptop when I’m not on the internet, even if I’m using the laptop for other things. Takes 20 seconds to reconnect. Perhaps it would be more helpful all around if people who don’t need night time access shut down the router or cable modem at night, and turned it back in the morning, or disconnected the network cable between modem and router.

Reply | Quote

I doubt much of anything gets past Windows firewall so leaving the PC on is moot. If it is in sleep or hibernation mode with a wake on LAN or other device/chip/OS timer it still is not particularly vulnerable. When people get infected they almost always are the ones who downloaded the malware or said “sure, go ahead and infect my PC.” Few are hacked.

Reply | Quote