I was told that every time a computer is turned on or off, it puts a lot of stress on the computer. Also, I was told that leaving a computer on constantly would be better for a computer than turning it off every night before going to bed. So my question is, what would be the best thing to do? I tried leaving it on for about 2 days in a row before and it never got hot(although my monitor will get hot if it's kept on for a whole day)

somewhere in the middle. booting the computer pushes alot of electricity and heat through an otherwise cold system. The process takes much more power that running the machine normally.

Putting the machine to sleep overnight, and then waking it in the morning, uses much less electricity than booting it every morning.
If you are not going to use the machine for more than a day and half, or so; it should be shut down. A sleeping computer still uses a little electricity to keep the data in RAM stable, and this will add up over many days.

Also, even when the computer is OFF, it is still using a little electricit to keep the clock battery charged. If you want a machine to use no power at all, you have to physically unplug it from the wall. Doing this often is not recommended, though, because it will kill the clock battery which will need to be replaced sooner.


I tend to leave my computer in sleep mode, the monitor turned off, if I'm going to use it the next day. Otherwise, I turn the machine off. I only unplug it if I'm going away for a week or more.

I wish I could leave my system on when not using it, but my friggin tornado fan is too damned loud, lol. Each time I do something in my room, the thing is just too distracting so off the computer goes, heh.

- N

I personally wouldn't leave a normal PC on over night purely because of the wear and tear factor. While you leave your PC running it's fans also have to run to keep it cooled, now that might not seem a problem but slowly the fan can collect dust until one day it might stop turning.

At least with booting it up you can tell when the fan stops.

Although you could dispute also that running the system causes it to drag more air from the room through the box and therefore subjects the inside of the computer to higher levels of dust collection.

I just clean my pc from dust now and then,
but haven't shut it down for more than a restart for about 3 years now (ok, not counting times when I replace hardware or do other inside job).
Besides I don't have a RAM problem on Linux,
often find out (when I bother to look) that I haven't restarted in weeks.

The myth could have something to do with the days when hard drive technology was less advanced. You could loose a lot o f data if the computer wasn't shut off properly. A bad startup could also cause harddrive failure.

Nowadays, computers - the quality ones - are built just like washing machines were in the 1930's. Its perfectly safe to turn them on/off. But a lot of geeks still take pride in having the greatest 'uptime'.

Fans are pretty cheap, so if you need to replace them its worth the convenience of leaving the computer on 24/7. Otherwise, turn your computer off and help the environment. By the time it wears out you'll want a new one anyways.

The myth could have something to do with the days when hard drive technology was less advanced. You could loose a lot o f data if the computer wasn't shut off properly. A bad startup could also cause harddrive failure.
Like I had a few weeks ago. Lost data on two partitions.
Alas, it was partially my fault.

Putting the machine to sleep overnight, and then waking it in the morning, uses much less electricity than booting it every morning.
Do you know of any actual data to back up that claim? I disagree, if you're not going to be using your PC for a few hours switch it off and do the environment a favour. I used to leave my linux box on 24/7 but 400W at 8+ hours a day doing nothing is a waste.

Actually mentioning the Harddrive is also a good point, It was mentioned that if you do leave your computer on to place it into "Sleepmode". If you don't then your system will constantly be using the Harddrives pagefile for "Dirty writes".
(This is basically a method to keep information thats running on the system "remembered" and was really imployed when there wasn't much RAM resource.)

"Dirty Writes" are a sure way of failing your harddrive over time. In fact it was unreleased (and potentially unfounded) however I've seen a couple of older harddrives not survive Windows XP due to a mixture of the pagefile mechanics, the restore function and the Sleep mode (which takes the contents of your RAM and saves them to the harddrive).

In fact three seperate older drives with only about 10Gb on them either couldn't handle XP's installation (Not enough Heads/Cylinders?) or failed shortly after it was loaded.

As also previously mentioned too, power consuption isn't just an environmental problem since it can cause brownouts as a whole.

I'm guessing that if you were to compare the data from 3 decades of computer purchases, with the data for the energy consumption (and the data of how many people leave their computer on over night) you would end up with probably a conclusion that geeks seeing how long their *nix box can stay up are causing those brownouts (With no L0pht hacks involved)

I loves my boxen :p Loves it 24/7 :D

I use the "standby" mode to power it down but not completly off. i find this mode to be better than Off or sleep.

i live in nigeria and such kinda trials is not at all possible in a place like this ...

NEPA - National Electric Power Authority SUCKS big time - big time power mismanagement !!!

Mine gets turne off everynight. It's too loud to sleep with it on.

Mine gets turne off everynight. It's too loud to sleep with it on.

Do you have Windows XP for the operating system? If so try the standby mode, there's no noie and all you need do is pres the power button and it is on to your desktop.

Do you know of any actual data to back up that claim? I disagree, if you're not going to be using your PC for a few hours switch it off and do the environment a favour. I used to leave my linux box on 24/7 but 400W at 8+ hours a day doing nothing is a waste.


The key is that the 400W measurement is a maximum for the power supply. The machine, running or asleep, averages much less than that.

While booting, however, it will use pretty close to the full amount possible. Also, during games, the video card might being pushing the upper limits of the power draw.

I did electrical pull measurements back in college, but that was for a room of Beige G3 towers; the numbers most likely wouldn't apply today, even if I could find them.

FREEMASON : Hidden Power
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

I find that even with Windows XP an occasional reboot is a good thing. It doesn't have the same issues as Windows ME with memory leaks (as far as I know) but I do know that if you leave it running constantly, it does tend to slow down over time and strange things sometimes happen.

Now. Before anyone goes off about viruses or trojans or spyware or blah blah, I can pretty much guarantee that none of these are the problem.

It's just that Windows still has a ways to go before you can call it a rock-solidly stable Operating System. It needs a reboot to clear out the fuckups it's made during the time it's been operating (my theory).

Dean,
Generating links across the forum isn't going to get your point across. For one the topic that you are dealing with isn't exactly in alignment with the topic of this thread.

If you want to discuss your views and beliefs then I would suggest creating a post in the Pseudoscience section that explains your thoughts (rather than just a long list of hyperlinks) for discussion by the masses, that way people will be more acceptant of what you suggest or at least are willing to discuss.

It's just that Windows still has a ways to go before you can call it a rock-solidly stable Operating System. It needs a reboot to clear out the fuckups it's made during the time it's been operating (my theory).


Once every two weeks I defrag and restart into the Error Checking mode. That way I keep everything from getting messy inside my HD and check it out for any screw ups it might have, which could be a few.

This is a nice thread....

I always turn mine off at night. It has caused no damage so far. You should at least restart it every once in a while to clear out the RAM. I once left mine on for a few days straight, and it really bogged down. I restarted and it was fine.

I think it probably wears out faster to leave it on. The hard drive and the fans would probably go out the fastest. Probably the difference is negligible. After a few years of leaving it on for long periods of time, or shutting it down every night, you still need a new computer, simply because technology changes.

I once left mine on for a few days straight, and it really bogged down.
Hummm, let's see.
$ top
top - 12:58:52 up 13 days, 3:40, 1 user, load average: 0.30, 0.62, 1.42
Tasks: 108 total, 2 running, 106 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 15.3% us, 3.8% sy, 9.8% ni, 70.1% id, 0.8% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.1% si
Linux pwns ^_^

Leaving it on is a waste of electricity
More expense

Theres several sides to this. Electronic components "like" to be left on, they are under less stress that way, things like capacitors etc are less likely to leak if they arent power cycled, turning things on and off stresses them more. But on the other hand mechanical things will wear out when being left on, although they too are stressed more on starting and stopping. Modern hard drives arent really arsed, they supposedly have a lifespan of 100,000 hours (which is about 12 years), can you really see yourself using the same drive for that long? Even oldish hard drives have a similar life, some 386's had to be replaced at my dads work because they were getting unreliable after about 12 years.

With modern hardware it doesnt matter either way. I tend to leave mine on as i am fannying around on the net, or downloading stuff. The whitish noise from the fan makes me sleepy too.

At our company we all leave ours on all the time. That's on the order of magnitude of ten thousand PCs nationwide, running Windows 2000, upgrading one at a time to XP as the leases expire. Our leases are for three years so that's all the longer we keep the suckers running. But hardware failures are extremely rare, when one happens we all crowd around like a road accident.

PC should be only turned off once a day if you want it more strong and power!

Thank You Tom Welling!!!111

The key is that the 400W measurement is a maximum for the power supply. The machine, running or asleep, averages much less than that.
I thought that I had replied to this obviously forgot :o
Well of course but how would you know wether or not I'm maxing it out by running seti@home, folding@home & the like?

While booting, however, it will use pretty close to the full amount possible.
That would be for a very short time indeed.

I did electrical pull measurements back in college, but that was for a room of Beige G3 towers; the numbers most likely wouldn't apply today, even if I could find them.
I spent 3 years or so studying electronics at TAFE. I'm guessing you mean measuring the average power loads of the towers. That's gotten me thinking with the sensors we have on motherboards now is there software that can give an idea of a computers power load?

I horribly abuse my machine. I leave it running at full-power day and night. I don't remember the last time I turned it off. Maybe it was a month ago? Maybe more... I have no clue.

a computer will last longer if it has had a minimum of cold starts.
the reason being that a discharged power supply will generate voltage spikes when turned on, these over-voltage spikes will take their toll on your computer.
windows should be restarted every day, this is called a warm boot.

your crt monitor on the other hand is exactly opposite, it should be turned off or powered down when not in use. the reason is that the crt actually 'burns off' electrons to operate. screen burn is NOT a reason to power down your monitor although at one time it was a real concern, a lcd monitor doesn't have either of those problems

I was told that every time a computer is turned on or off, it puts a lot of stress on the computer. Also, I was told that leaving a computer on constantly would be better for a computer than turning it off every night before going to bed. So my question is, what would be the best thing to do? I tried leaving it on for about 2 days in a row before and it never got hot(although my monitor will get hot if it's kept on for a whole day)

Shut down your PC. My system got shut down restarted every day and sometimes more than that, with XP sometimes i would just shut down by pressing the button if i was in a rush and it rebooted fine everytime. This PC was retired after 7 years, mostly because it was too slow for XP.

Leave it on and that adds to wear and dust from the fans blowing not to mention the electricity being used. Heat is the real killer and with hd's it is the constant spinning....jmo

Trust me, leaving it running is an old wives tale.

i live in nigeria and such kinda trials is not at all possible in a place like this ...

NEPA - National Electric Power Authority SUCKS big time - big time power mismanagement !!!
I got a letter from one of your government officials. He said he had a few million dollars and just needed my bank account number to get the money out of Nigeria. For this service, I would get ten percent!

I decided against the scheme, but perhaps he could use his millions in Nigeria to fix the power?

PS I really did get a letter, about ten years ago. Nowadays, it's usually an email.

This is a nice thread....

that is a nice reply....

One other thing I forgot to mention sooo many months ago is that when you bootup/shutdown in XP your computer does do some of the maintainence jobs necessary keep things in working order. On some installations perhaps updates will be installed at shutdown.

So it's necessary for an XP system to be shutdown to continue it's functionality, however the same can't be said for Linux/Unix systems.

I thought that I had replied to this obviously forgot :o
Well of course but how would you know wether or not I'm maxing it out by running seti@home, folding@home & the like?

this is a good point. Of course, you don't get much folding done when the machine is off, do you? ;)



I spent 3 years or so studying electronics at TAFE. I'm guessing you mean measuring the average power loads of the towers. That's gotten me thinking with the sensors we have on motherboards now is there software that can give an idea of a computers power load?

Given your training i'll have to defer to you on this topic, then. As far as MB Watt sensors, I'm not sure. I know you can pull temps off the MB, but can you get power draw?
My logic equation was specifically (average wattage while in standby*# of hours) VS. Wattage needed for cold-boot, with some rough adjustments for impact on overall machine life from cold-booting regularly. I estimated that with sleep mode pulling <20Watts (is this still acurate?), it made more sense to sleep the machines overnight than it did to reboot them every morning.

Why do people keep mentioning Fans and hard-drive wear from leaving the machines on? Does anyone's machine not stop both when the machine goes to sleep? Unless you're running SETI or Folding@Home, whose machine *doesn't* go to sleep(standby) after a period of inactivity???

edit:
http://standby.lbl.gov/Data/SummaryChart.html
this suggests that computers average ~2 Watts in sleep/standby mode. so 12 hours*2watts vs roughly 45 seconds at near full draw...

Given your training i'll have to defer to you on this topic, then.
It's been over 10 years since I last studied and I never really used what I learnt so I'm very rusty and a soon to be baker so my interest has waned.
As far as MB Watt sensors, I'm not sure. I know you can pull temps off the MB, but can you get power draw?
Yes & no, currently most motherboards support monitoring RAM & CPU voltage and I'm not sure how many show other voltages like the various buses. I'm guessing there are power supplies that can report to the BIOS but I don't know if that is really the case. A quick google turned up this (http://www.uxd.com/i2c.html) so monitoring of a computers power load will probably be part of a future spec if there isn't one already.
My logic equation was specifically (average wattage while in standby*# of hours) VS. Wattage needed for cold-boot, with some rough adjustments for impact on overall machine life from cold-booting regularly. I estimated that with sleep mode pulling <20Watts (is this still acurate?), it made more sense to sleep the machines overnight than it did to reboot them every morning.
Why do people keep mentioning Fans and hard-drive wear from leaving the machines on? Does anyone's machine not stop both when the machine goes to sleep? Unless you're running SETI or Folding@Home, whose machine *doesn't* go to sleep(standby) after a period of inactivity???
I haven't tried putting a machine into sleep or standby mode for years, it always seemed to cause problems for me even with laptops. The fans and HDDs should power down.
edit:
http://standby.lbl.gov/Data/SummaryChart.html
this suggests that computers average ~2 Watts in sleep/standby mode. so 12 hours*2watts vs roughly 45 seconds at near full draw...
But how much power is consumed coming out of sleep mode?