Leaving Your Computer On? - is this good for it?

[FirefoxRocks 0]

I leave my computer on every other day.Electricity bills, you don't need to worry about that a lot.If you use CRT monitors, turn them off! If you use LCD monitors, it is also a good idea to turn them off also. Other accessories and hardware include speakers, printers, scanners, modems, etc. Those should be turned off as well.Ensure the room is open, don't block the fan and turn on air circulation if necessary.Don't leave yoru computer on during thunderstorms, etc. Power outages will damage the computer.Antispyware, disk maintenance programs, virus scanners can work at night.I leave my computer on for scientists at [Folding@Home]. It performs calculations to cure diseases, etc. Maybe this might help one of you later on. Who knows? If you leave your computer on, install F@H. It helps!Remember to restart your computer every so often!

[TripleH13 0]

i keep my computer on sometimes all night. But i notice that when i come in, in the morning it just shutsdown on its own. But most of the time i will turn it off when i am not going to be using for a day or something. So i wouldnt suggest leaving it on day after day without turning it off at all.

[NegativeCreep 0]

For the electronics it's good to keep it on all the time as cutting power and giving power to it constantly wears out the electronics.But, for the software, its better to turn it off once in a while.

[Hakkera 0]

I normally leave it on for about 72 hours, then give it a rest for a while. My computer needs sleep. The electric bills are an issue, but everything is turned off in my office but the computer. Cooling is not a problem becuase of the trusty water cooling

[Jesse 0]

I dont know if I would personally say it is good for a PC to be left on 24/7, but my PC is on an average 12 - 15 days at a time without a restart.With the type of things that I run online and am involved in it is not a wise thing for me to constantly shut down my computer. After about 12 - 15 days I do notice that my PC begins to slow down a little bit, so then I restart and before long it is back to full capacity.I personally would say that it would all depend on what type of PC you are running. If someone is running a Pent. 2 or 3 for example, I wouldn't recommend it. But that is just my personal opinon.

[Jimmy 0]

I use a rather big laptop for all computer stuff and find that, for most of the time, it remains on for 2 days at a time. Its just easier to leave it on. ( ( ( If you have problems with virus / stuff get urself a network button! - if the internets not being used I just press the button to turn off the wireless card. ) ) ) Its extremely handy and is probably the main reason my comp still works.Main problem with leaving it on is heat. the two main fans on the laptop are on the bottom / right hand sid at the bottom. It helps to just jut up one side on a book or something... Thats how I do it I hope to get a desktop soon which will negate the need for me to use the big book of guiness world records to stop my area of the house burning down :blink:I've almost burnt myself on the keyboard the other day so i think I'll be turning it off more than usual from now on...The only real problem is fires... the only answer is to just be careful with what you block up fans with and to turn it off once in a while.

Edited April 18, 2006 by Jimmy (see edit history)

[arcticsnpr 0]

hahahahaha!! wow! this may suprise you all, but ahh.. thats me, the poster of this. I posted that like a looong time ago, very shocked it's still here!! alot of replies! daang... yes, I'm nickmealey no lies

[Csshih 0]

I do not think that keeping your computer on for extended periods of time is a good thing. One time, I kept my computer one for about 1.5 days and the fan went haywire, and stopped working for a few days. However, it also depends on the quality of your fan. If the CPU fan burns out when you are not there, you could overheat the CPU causing serious problems.

Edited April 21, 2006 by Csshih (see edit history)

[springbok 0]

Running computer 24/7 is not necessarily bad for it. Hardware wise components are designed to run for thousands of hours. If for example a processor is expected to run for 30000 hours (very modest amout by today's standards) then it can run continuously for 1250 days (158.57 weeks, 3.43 years), even for that modest number I doubt very many people let their go for that long without powering it off. Also most of us woud upgrade our processor by that time.

Estimated hours taken from this website: http://www.overclockers.com/overclockings-impact-on-cpu-life/

If one looks at servers which are designed to run 24/7 then we can see that so long as the temperature is kept low then there should be no problem at all. They do however require the occassional reboot as processes hang or conflict.

There is of course the electric bill to consider and possible component failure. Virus attacks and hackers can be kept at bay with AV and firewalls, to some extent.

Down to the individual really.

[virus_lx 0]

If computers servers may be run 24 h 7 days in the week 360 days. Whay not be your Computer

[Bad-Boy 0]

I also left my pc 24/7 , but nothing happen , some one is talking about electricity bill but ' who cares about it. If i not do this with mine pc then i have to do the same thing with mine TV

[grnjd 0]

I just read that even you are not afraid to kill your eletric bill, then leave your computer on all the time since shuting it down and turning it back on is bad for you computer. But logically, so is leaving your computer on on a hot day and not restarting it every once in a while

[good-baby 0]

Leaving your computer on for 24 /7 .... i think so that is not good for atleast my computer....Beacuse there are certain reason for what i said...Leaving your computer on for 24/7 means to..Welcome Worms and other virsus to your system.Kill of electrcity as well as interest in the computer.And this makes you lazy ...

[elrohir 0]

as was mentioned early in this thread, and later on, computers take quite a lot of energy to operate. This is not just a matter of paying the bill - it is also about the environment. It may seem a little weird, but just think of all the power one computer - especially running a monster like windows - uses in one day, then one week, one month and finally a year. That's quite a bit. Now multiply that by a couple million. That would be the amount of energy saved by americans who are guzzling fuel yet complaining about high petrol prices.Just think about it...

[trace-uk 0]

even putting your tv on standby wastes alot of electricty. if everyone stopped using standby mode and just switched the thing off the planet would be much much cleaner.