Leaving PC On - Question

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NelleSRB

Honorable
Sep 11, 2015
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10,510
Hello, TH's Community

I've been up to PCs for a long time, learned basically anything regarding them (software & hardware), but there's something which is bothering me.
I do turn off my PC when I'm off or when I go to sleep, but there's people who don't really bother to turn them off while going to sleep or so.
So the question is; can I leave my PC on while i'm off (30 ~ 40 days of constant work) without turning it down.

Thanks!

Also, if this isn't proper section, move it, as I'm new to this forums.
 
Solution
Solandri
In theory, leaving the computer on 24/7 is better for it. The parts experience fewer thermal stress cycles from heating up and cooling down, and last longer.

In practice, it's usually not worth it. If you pay the average price of electricity in the U.S. of 11.5 cents/kWh, then by a fluke the number of Watts your system burns almost exactly equals the number of dollars of electricity it'll use in a year. Most modern computers are pretty thrifty so they'll only burn about 35-50 Watts idle. But older Core/Core 2 systems used about 75 Watts idle (100-125 Watts if you had a GPU). And the older P4 systems used about 100 Watts idle (150+ if you had a GPU). (The exact formula is $ per year = $0.115 / kWh * 8766 hours/year * system Watts...
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Migdecsag

Honorable
Sep 9, 2015
24
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10,510
Hi...just wanted to share my experience...
I have a 10 year old PC which is still going strong even though i'll be changing it any day...thing is for 6-7 years it was ON 24/7...nowadays i turn it on first thing in the morning and off last thing at night and only because the ah heck is so loud i hear it in my bedroom.With todays tech i'm guessing you'd have no problems.i did however have to change the psu twice in these 10 years but they werent that good to begin with...
 
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N

NelleSRB

Honorable
Sep 11, 2015
20
0
10,510

So your PC was running for 7 years without turning it off? Woah, my rig is 4 years old and its not so new, but I don't actually care about this one. I'm about to buy new, so that why I'm asking.

 
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Solandri

Solandri

Illustrious
Jan 4, 2012
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In theory, leaving the computer on 24/7 is better for it. The parts experience fewer thermal stress cycles from heating up and cooling down, and last longer.

In practice, it's usually not worth it. If you pay the average price of electricity in the U.S. of 11.5 cents/kWh, then by a fluke the number of Watts your system burns almost exactly equals the number of dollars of electricity it'll use in a year. Most modern computers are pretty thrifty so they'll only burn about 35-50 Watts idle. But older Core/Core 2 systems used about 75 Watts idle (100-125 Watts if you had a GPU). And the older P4 systems used about 100 Watts idle (150+ if you had a GPU). (The exact formula is $ per year = $0.115 / kWh * 8766 hours/year * system Watts / 1000)

So depending on how often you use the computer, leaving it on 24/7 can actually result in you wasting several hundred dollars on electricity over 5 years. More if your electricity prices are higher than the national average (Hawaii is about 30 cents/kWh). By the time one of your components fail due to thermal stress (if it ever happens), you've paid far more in extra electricity than it would've cost to replace the broken component.

A good compromise is putting the computer to sleep (suspend) when you're not using it. In that state, the CPU and memory remains powered, while all other components are shut down. So you get close to an instant-on as if you'd left the computer on, without the huge power drain of actually leaving it on, and the CPU and RAM experiences fewer thermal cycles. Unfortunately, Windows is flaky waking up from suspend on certain desktop systems.
 
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