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

[Danny 0]

I'd say its not good. Unless you rest it atlest 1-2 hours a day. You should shut down before sleep

[thejestergl 0]

Well other than electric bill I dont see how it would be bad. However! If the temperature of your computer is extremely hot on the outside when you are done using it I suggest turning it off. The only time you shoudl keep it on 24/7 is if it is properly cooled. Ventalation is a big thing because if you leave it on and it is extremely hot, even though your programs are shut off the fans and such will still need to run. This may cause it to over heat which is extremely bad. Things inside your computer could fry which is never a good thing !

[anders 0]

We have 4 computers in our house that are always turned on. Never experienced any trouble, but you may be right that the electrical bills are getting big because of this. Then again, since I live in the utterly cold place known as Norway, the heat generated by the PCs is often very welcome :-)For me it is a matter of convenience. I check mail/news many times a day; when I wake up, when I et home from university and many other small occasions when time is critical :)I believe the future is a PC that conserves energy, in that it is so fast that it can boot in a second or so. I guess we will need this if the planet is supposed to sustain "everyone" having their own PC.

[ROL 0]

it's good to leave it on the whole day and close it at night. that's what i do. it can save your electric bill. and when it's on during the day, you can use it whenever you need it.

[Yacoby 0]

I leave my computer running most of the time, although I put it onto standby overnight, as I don't want to kill the electric bill. It does get a restart once a week to give it a refresh.I mainly do this because it seems to take ages to start up.I have never managed to get a virus via the Internet, so I don't view that as a major problem, and if I was worried I could just disable the connection while I sleep

[darran 0]

It is perfectly alright to leave your computer on. I have been to a server room, and basically there is a computer left on the whole day, 24/7 365 days a year. The ventilation is very cooling though and stepping into a server room is no different from stepping into a freezer. However if you want to leave your computer on, make sure that it is properly cooled, a solution would be to have a cooler. So far, I have not encountered a problem with leaving the computer on for too long, I try to keep it on for less than 24 hours though

[Zero Ziat 0]

My brother keeps it on all the days and nothing bad goes on, in fact, I love laptop, and he uses the old 256 RAM computer (EEEK).I shut down laptop and he just leaves desktop computer on, downloading random stuff. It is noisy and I can't sleep. : /-Zero Ziat

[ishwar 0]

Why leave it on , when you are not using the computer, I always hibernate my computer, because I am too lazy to close the hundred programs I open.I also have a fast computer , so it doesnt take too long to come back from hibernation.

[tydes 0]

dont leave computer in on condition, its very dangerous, yaour data can be hacked by another users!!!!!!

[Voidless_Shadows 0]

I leave my PC on most of the time, I don't think it's good at all for it, but I turn it off for the night and most of the morning, so that counts, right? Anyways, mine's still new and runs faster and will run faster than anything I've had before for years upon years even if I never turn it off, and they ran things just fine so...

[hype 0]

I'm using a laptop so obviously I'm not leaving it on 24/7... However, I have lots of friends who left their pc on 24/7, and they left their messenger on as well, but their computer are still in working condition.. And some of them left it there to download things that are as huge as a few GB and thus with moderate connection its wise to leave it there throughout the night... And I always would recommend others that bought a desktop to leave their pc on for the first day they bought it, and that if it survive the first day then it should have no problem with the remaining..

[special 0]

I got servers running here, basicly we have highest electric costs there are in the netherlands. I pay about 40 euro per month on the electric bill. Normal home pc is 15/20 euro asuming 350 watt.I leave my servers on 24/7 and sometimes the free hosts pcs for my mmorpgs or 20 hours a day. Is it bad? YES it will make your pc shorter? YESwhy? basic fact of powercabels and microships they basicly give up after a whyle. Also most home pc users never use correct cooling in there systems and yust go buy a random pc in some shop. Thats a killer bad cooler will make your lifespan of your pc verry short. Also most videocards coolers are those weak plastic thingys there utherly useless. I replace them with my own coolers i dislike them and after a whyle they make noises wish is terible anoying.

[theaverageidiot 0]

Depends on the type of person you are. 80% of the time I turn it off at night but it's on 90% of the day. I know people who leave their's on all the time, even their laptops. I've got a laptop that's practically a desktop computer, it's massive ($3000 gaming laptop lol). So I don't have too much trouble but it needs to be shut off at least once every 3 days and it's fans need cleaning at least once every 3-6 months at the least to keep it running top-notch. If you go into IRC a lot you'll see a lot of people have it on 24/7. You'll see a guy with a name "John". Then it'll go to "John|SHOWER". Then "John". Then "John|EATING". Then "John|SLEEPING". Then once again "John". If you don't go into IRC and don't believe me, try a few IRC channels yourself, I swear it's true .

Edited October 7, 2006 by theaverageidiot (see edit history)

[tehyev 0]

I keep my desktop on all the time because my desktop acts as a server, but I never keep my laptop on 24/7 because after a while the charger will get hot.

[rahul_rules22 0]

well personally I never used to think that leaving the computer turned on for more than 48 hours at a stretch was such a good idea. However, now I have started thinking differently with the comp being on for about a week or so but rarely more than that.