OK to leave PC On All The Time? 2

[peterv3]

I have been told that it is OK to leave the PC on all the time as shutting it down and bringing it back up again only causes damage to the hard drive? Is this true? I have been leaving it on mostly because I have Virus scans scheduled for 3:00 am or earlier when I am not using the PC. Any feed back would be greatly appreciated.


Peter Vaicels
Flanders NJ USA

 

[ozyus]

It has been my experience that leaving pc's on all the time is fine. However regardless of the operating system you are using, it is a good idea to reboot once and awhile. This helps to clear cache and kind of restores things. I’ve never heard that rebooting or shutting down causes damage to a hard drive, but I can see where the power surge might cause long term problems. However hard drive manufactures expect that computers must be shut down at least every now and then so I’m sure its detrimental to them. In closing… my PC has been on for 8 days with out a reboot or a shutdown. I simple kill the monitor at bed time because of its power consumption.

 

[Tarwn]

I agree. Up until a couple weeks ago my computer had been a little over 8 months with monthly reboots and did not suffer at all. The only reason I have not continued to leave it on recently is because I keep taking everything apart to rewire and mod And leaving it plugged in while I am doing that would be a little bad for my health as well as the computers. Leaving it on would be rather problematic without it being plugged in, so I turn it off...
You would be amazed how empty it makes a room feel for the computer to be turned off...

I'm thinking about getting some 80mm fans and mounting them to the wall dso that when the computer is off I won't actually notice :b

-Tarwn

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[edfair]

You are taking the lid off a can of worms, you know. Everybody knows best, but nobody gives the same answer.
Drives don't have any problem anymore with spinup, some in fact spin down when idle.

Trade offs:
Shut down saves power. Causes power up surges on components when powered up. Heat cycling (on and off) on boards can create cracks in circuit paths.

I always power down when leaving a machine for 4 or more hours, but that is my personal preference. I used to do it whenever I left for 2 hours, but with changes of components feel more comfortable at 4.


Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[EddyB]

I leave my home pc on but I shut down all internet activity via my firewall just to be on the safe side. I also turn off the monitor to save $$.

 

[phpdude]

Rurning the PC on and off with cause damage to your mobo/fans/drives/ as your heating then cooling has a good chance as causung dry joints also spliting them as the components expand and so on.

 

[cdogg]

I agree with edfair. The damage sustained from turning the PC off/on is almost unmeasureable.

We have over 500 old Dell Optiplex PII workstations still in use in one of our departments where I work. Every single one gets rebooted autmatically on a weekly basis by powering off/on - some on a daily basis. Over the past 5 years, only a handful have had power failures that may or may not have been associated with the forced restarts. More than likely, the cause was a faulty power supply or hard drive which was consistent with the numbers produced.

It's a matter of opinion, but I personally feel that it was an old way of thinking that may have held more truth back in the pre-Penitum era. Since then, new formfactors like ATX and advanced power supplies have alleviated some of the problems in the past.




~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[Comtech]

4 machines running 24/7. Never a problem. Shutdown maybe once every 3 months for a serious internal cleaning is all.
ACPI/APM work wonders ;-)

Cheers,
Jim

http://members.cnx.net/reboot/

 

[JJDinsay]

I use a DELL OPTIPLEX desktop as my server for my MP3s and movie clips. I have never shut it down for as longs as it's been my server - for over 2 years now - except 3 separate times when I moved it. There hasn't been a problem yet - knock on wood. I did read somewhere that bringing a PC from a cold to state to warm state takes the life off it by one day.

 

[flashmedia]

Shutting down regularly, is the best thing you can do for a PC, especially those running Win98, those running 2000 Server and XP are in a seperate category, but still a good idea.(except for servers on a UPS)
The problem is well known with 98 - memory leakage...
Try it... Cold boot your Win98 PC, then check the available system resources .. you will find a healthy PC will have about 85%+ free resources.
Now, run a program, such as MS Word, and open a document. Then toggle to the system resources and see how much that has chewed up, probably about 5-10%, now run Excell and open a file, and toggle to the resources and see how much that has chewed.. maybe another 5-10%, you can now see that each program you run will take system resources away, until you run so many programs and files that the available resources fall to 55% or less, at about 45-50% the system will crash, because there is no more resources left.
Before it gets to that stage, close all the programs and files you opened and see if the resources return to the original 85% or whatever you had from a cold boot.. it won't, and that's memory leakage.. it just dissapears, until you reboot and refresh the memory again.
If you don't shut down or restart your 98 PC after a few weeks or even days of this leakage, you will eventually get to a point of STARTING with only 60% available resources and then the act act of running only one or two programs will cause it to crash, thereby refreshing the memory and the whole process starts over again. This is one reason why it's always been a good idea to shut down Win98 boxes every day..
I recommend all my clients to shutdown workstations every night, 1) so the server can back up overnight and there are no files in use on an open workstation, and 2) in case there is a power failure over night, the workstation will be safer than if on. (The server always has a UPS)
This business of dry joints and heat and switching is really very minimal, doesn't happen in practice, and certainly not in my 20 years experience. Todays components are far more robust than that.. and as for APM... enough said, the only thing that causes more problems than APM is the screensaver. Switch off and save. (I've also seen capacitors in PSU's and for that matter UPS burst into flames, bad news if you're not home or in bed)

 

[wmccall]

Several good responses. I'll admit that people who know more than me are on both sides of the issue. I like Edfair's response best because it probably matches mine. That said, its your call. I always turn my off when I am away for more than a day. At work, I force my users to reboot daily. (They are sitll primarily win98)

 

[tviman]

I agree with flashmedia & edfair. My office (8 pcs, 1 notebook all running win98SE) is in Las Vegas, NV. In the winter I leave them on 24/7. Reboot about once or twice monthly to take care of the memory leaks. In the summer, I turn all but one off (server) every day.- the server gets backed up after hours. I place two small desk fans near the server to help with cooling. I feel that the heat in an uncooled office (easily over 100 degrees) is an unnecessary burden for any computer. BTW, all machines are Dell of various ages - been doing this for 5 years without a single problem. I also make it a point to keep the insides as clean and dust-free as possible.

There's always a better way...

 

[ceh4702]

The older a PC is the more dangerous it is. I have seen monitors start to smoke in my college computer lab. A power supply can go bad at any moment. This is more common with cheap or generic power suppies. The more you turn anything on and off the faster it wares out. Some power supplies have also been known to blow up or burst into flames.

Remember your mom telling you not to play with the light switch??

If you use windows shutdown program you send a message to the powersupply on an ATX system to tell the power supply to shut down. The power supply quits supplying a lot of power but there is still power to the motherboard. It kind of goes to sleep. Most people do not know this. Then when you press the power button on an ATX system, you are actually sending a message to the power supply to start back up using a Momentary switch. The ATX power switch is not a real on-off switch; it just sends a signal momentarily telling the power supply to turn back on or wake up as it is.

Most motherboards have a small battery that keeps the BIOS/CMOS current. The longer they are turned off the faster it runs out. The battery should last 5 years, so this should not be an issue unless you have really old equipment.

The ATX power supply is on until you disconnect power to the PC. This is one reason to completely disconnect power to the PC before you work on it. It may look like the power is off, but if you start disconnecting wires, you may short out non hot-pluggable items like a parrallel printer port or a PS2 mouse or keyboard port or worse even, an IDE Port.

There is some danger that a computer might burn up or catch on fire or just smoke a little. A CPU Fan or a chipset fan can decide at any time to give up. Older monitors can burn up also. Normally fairly new hardware (up to 3 years old) will not have any problems being left on. I often leave my computer on overnight; however, you are taking some minimal risk to keep a computer on overnight.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[braddds]

I personally have had a computer (ftp) running for several years. I reboot it 2 - 3 times a month for antivirus and other updates. Twice a year I unplug and clean. This system was first a win98se and now w2k. I've noticed no degradation in the system or preformance in all the years. This system is mostly used for my personal ftp and backup for my two other pc's.

My personal pc is set to "suspend" after 2 - 3 hours. This isn't usually turned off unless cleaning or modifications are required. My other (wife's) pc is off more than on. I have never been bothered with probelms or failures unless I'm monkeying around in-side...usually trying to fix someone else's problems for them...you know a buddy has a HD problem so you put it in your system to have a look! Despite all this my pc's have performed flawlessly (as long as I leave well enough alone).

In my experience I'd say do what ever you feel comfortable with!



Cheers

 

[ANFPS26]

I leave 'em on. They are just another appliance to me. I don't turn off the fridge or the PC.

Jim

 

[pfizzle]

Think of all the energy we would save (as a nation) if we just turned off all our computers.

Summer time heat waves...brown outs, soaring energy costs.

By the time your PC wears out it is way overdue for upgrade anyway.

I turn my equipment all the way off at the surge protector.

I don't think people realize how many appliances they have that are using wattage even when the are turned off. TVs, VCRs, stereos, monitors, wow so you have to wait a few seconds longer for your TV to come on. It all adds up.

 

[teknikal]

Bottom line:
You're not going to notice much of difference, except maybe in your electric bill at the end of each month!

People do it both ways, and neither way is more correct.

If you turn off your PC often, especially when it's not in use, you save other components like the hard drive from excess use - like periodic disk writes notorious in OS's like Win98.

If you leave the system on all the time, you save the ATX power switch and perhaps less wear on the motherboard if any. I doubt there's hardly any more benefit than that.

 

[Metaliczombi]

I leave my 2 win98's on all the time till they crap out on me but that's because I don't really have anything on them that is critical to save. they are mostly used to access read-only network files so whether it's running fine or a victim of the memory leak nothing gets lost. a pain when it comes time to print though and it ain't happening unless they are rebooted. They usually last about 4 days maybe before I have to reboot. they are also in a dusty environment so the build up on the inside is rather thick and that get's it hotter and hotter over time. Gotta love someone else's money.

 

[slaughterftw]

I agree I leave my computer on almost all the time with only the occasional re-boot after install. I currently have had it on and downloading and running programes for about 3 months. The only warning I would give is make sure espacally with an amd system that everything is properly cooled I.E. adaquate system fans. My sys. temp used to creep up on me after about 3 or 4 days running untill I added several system fans.

 

[BionicJohn]

I leave my PC at work on all the time - it's the only way to ensure a connection to the Novell server when there's more users than the licence permits.

Iechyd da! John
0!:02 29/05/2003 BST