Desktops forum: "turning off PC" = Good/Bad

Your choice. My machines that run as weather data collectors run for years without any ado. But they were setup with oversized power supplies, oversized heatsinks and generous cooling so that as time and dust collects, it still won't have an issue.

The on/off question will be discussed for years, but in short, decide and move on...

Bob

PS. The ones that need to be on 24x7 are off, the others are off.

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Regarding the subjects of placing a PC into Standby Mode as well as having the hard disks spin down while idle --- I sometimes go for a week or so on the same boot, yet place my PC on standby (NOT hibernate) when I turn in at night. Does anyone know about how much energy is consumed while a PC is sleeping? And is heat being generated? And regarding a spun-down hard drive while the PC is powered on: when it spins back up is it returning from a dead stop or simply a slow turn? Is the harm caused from each cold boot more intense than re-spinning a warm drive? Thanks for any info...

Leave them on!
If you want your Windows PC to work properly there are things that you need it to do like disk defrag and antivirus security update. A disk defrag can take several hrs to do if you dont schedule them on a regular basis. Set defrag up to run during the hrs you're not using the PC and you wont NEED to reboot it.
If it's a power issue that youre concerned with, check here http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=computers.pr_computers

Its less strain on the hardware to leave it up and running, when the PC comes out of sleep mode there isnt the same power spike that occurs during a cold boot-up.

I leave my computer on a lot. To save electricity, I threw out my television.

Millie

Listen people, If you run a home office or have customers that use their windows based desktop on and off all day or night, leave the machine on (turn the monitor & etc off). I have been using computers of all types for over 15 years, and 10 years profesionally. What I have experienced is, as Microsoft keeps making their windows faster and bigger (I.E. more hard drive space to run), the machines don't like to be turned on and off all the time. I have personally lost two machines from turning on and off too much. Now what I am saying is if there is a thunder storm outside, shut your system down and unplug. Your power supply and hard drive will thank you. Also if you leave your office for the week end or longer than 24-48 hours turn off your machine and unplug it. It does not matter on the so called Surge Supressor you have unless it cost more than 100.00+. I I have found this out the hard way. Use the tools on your computer to do scheduled defrags and backups. If you have a zip drive use it, a CD-R,CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW than use them to make religous backups. I have been running on 24-7 for about 6 years now and the only problems have been power brown outs and lighting.As for the wasting electric power, Well on a 300-500 watt power supply. The power draw is so small you might have a 2-5 dollars a month increase on your electric bill.

Leave them on!
If you want your Windows PC to work properly there are things that you need it to do like disk defrag and antivirus security update. A disk defrag can take several hrs to do if you dont schedule them on a regular basis. Set defrag up to run during the hrs you're not using the PC and you wont NEED to reboot it.
If it's a power issue that youre concerned with, check here http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=computers.pr_computers

Its less strain on the hardware to leave it up and running, when the PC comes out of sleep mode there isnt the same power spike that occurs during a cold boot-up.

I pretty much agree with tose guys. Leave it on. Besides the relays, and "shock" that happens when some circuits are not buffered, Solder weakens when it goes from hot to cold over and over, thus don't turn it off every night. Some people have older computers and operating systems and should turn their monitors or or find software to force a standbye if concerned about power loss. Due to software contention problems, I have my computer tirn off NEVER, Hard drive NEVER and monitor AFTER 30 MINUTES idle.

As a former mechanic, I'll just point out that a car engine has considerably more moving parts than a computer. Friction is an engine's worst enemy. And what's the most "stressful" time for an engine? Starting it after it has sat for several hours. Why? Because the oil has drained into the pan (at the bottom of the engine) leaving the engine's moving parts to wear against each other until the oil gets flowing and fully coats things.

Hard dives are usually guranteed for at least 50,000 start/stop cycles. More damage is done during an abrupt stoppage rather than a controlled power down. An abrupt stoppage could be hitting the power button, pulling the plug, power outage, etc. A ups could save you a lot of agravation.

At any given time I have 600+ machines under my care, being used 24/7 by CS students. In some labs the machines get powered down repeatedly daily. In others, they only get powered off for maintenance.
The only real downside to this has been that the power switches get broken from repeated use in the labs where they get turned off, but the other hardware doesn't seem to be at a loss from the up/down activity.
The machines that get left on 24/7 *do* seem to have a much higher rate of hard drive failure, despite climate control in each lab, so I am left to attribute this discrepancy to the constant rpm's.
We shut labs down over spring break and had a 20% loss at restart in the 24/7's, vs. 100% functionality in the labs that get cycled daily. That's a pretty strong argument for regular disuse for us. Now we've implemented procedures to alter our 24/7 lab behavior to benefit our power consumption and hardware loss mitigation, despite the possibility that we may have to replace some power buttons.
The point about solder joints is fair, but it isn't really a problem in machines that sit around- failure in solder or 'cold solder joints' generally happen in things that get moved about a bit (we teach EE here, too) and I've *never* had that type of failure.
It simply doesn't make sense to waste all of that power when it's clearly just wear and tear on the hdd. I can't guarantee that I'll never have to shut them down, and it's the cold start after running for long periods that seems to be the problem, not after normal use. I used to be a proponent of the 24/7 side, but not now.

Think

No one has mentioned anything about electrical leakage. does anyone know the difference between power consumption during hibernation/stand-by and power leakage while the computer is off. I am a tech and ive heard numerous people talk about computers and other electrical appliances leaking power when turned off... if anyone has any info on this please let us know

I don't agree. Cars don't have ignition keys so you can shut them off at every red light. In the 60's computers were designed to be 24/7. Also, if the monitor is off, componants run on 12VDC. Not a big energy drain. But, honestly, I don't know what is better. Some nights I shut mine down and others I leave it on to complete tasks like backing up hard drives.

I guess that means that the power switch to my house should be turned off on a daily basis too?