Constantly keeping computer on

[itotallybelieveyou]

What should be worried about if I were keep my computer for weeks straight? I got E6600, 8800GTX and 2GB Kingston 667mhz RAM and Thermaltake Toughpower 750W. E6600 idles 39 and, 8800GTX idles 55. The components aren't hot so what else should I be worried about? When I idle my pc i'm running windows and a torrent programs with the monitor off and that's it. Nothing else and nothing in the DVD drive.

 

[Abrahm]

Only reason why I stopped running my computer all the time with my new rig is that it heats my room up a lot when i leave it on. If your 750w psu stays cool I don't think there are any issues. My 485w heats up a little though.

 

[itotallybelieveyou]

Thx for the quick reply.

 

[vertigo_2000]

Your power bill, but it won't break the bank in the least.

 

[itotallybelieveyou]

Live in a condo power bill is no concern

 

[Joe_The_Dragon]

You should still reboot it once a day at the least.

 

[4745454b]

You should still reboot it once a day at the least.

Why? Don't give me the BS of "windows needs to be rebooted." I have my PC do the exact same thing, and I don't have any problems. I reboot once a month, after patch Tuesday. I don't have any problems. Didn't have problems when I ran windows 2000, didn't have any problems running XP. Even when I ran win98 I only had to reboot once a week.

To the OP, as I mentioned, I do this very thing. Turn off the monitor, leave everything running, go to bed. There really isn't a problem with this, other then your harddrive filling up from the torrents...

 

[MezzFA0]

Electronically speaking leaving a computer on all day every day is better for it than turning it off as you forgo the dangers of things cooling down and heating up.

The only trouble with that is when you do finally turn it off/back on (talk to any server admin about that).

As mentioned above heating the room up can be a pain and obviously the electricity bill.

I don't live by the mantra of reboot once a day anymore, most modern OS' of the Microsoft variety are fairly good at memory management (2K and above) which was the main reason for rebooting in the old days.

 

[royalcrown]

Okay ppl, for those of you not engineering fans, the time something is MOST likely to fail is when there is a "change of state", which means on/off, heating/cooling, starting up or coming to a stop; Same principle applies to computers.

 

[4745454b]

Right, its when you try to turn on the lightbulb that it dies on you. They almost never fail while already being on. In my life, I think I've had only one bulb die while being on.

 

[itotallybelieveyou]

ok sweet... I can do this without worrying

 

[aggressor]

I power my Pc off when not in use.. Back in the day, admins, would leave machines up and running because of HD failures. The grease on the spindle would heat and cool... as it cooled over many cycles it would cake and prevent the platters from spinning ever again. This could be urban legend... but sounded plausible at the time. For 10 years(or so), I've powered down my machine when not in use and have never had an issue.

As far as rebooting... Windows XP does handly memory fairly well but there is still some sort of memory leak. It's not difficult to ID either... After a fresh boot, start taskmanager and check your commit charge. Then run the machine normally for a week or two. With the same applications running check taskmanager you'll notice that Windows is consuming more memory running the same applications. The question then becomes how does this impact performance? If its being sucked up by an application that's the main use of the machine then it's probably not a big issue. You could potentially see a degradation in performance with other programs but I have no way to test that. My mindset is... I rather reboot and start fresh ... and save some money on the power bill while I'm at it

 

[Naw-yi]

Do you leave your tv on when you leave or go to bed?
or your car on in the driveway?
or the lights on when you leave for work?

They are made to turn off and on over and over again without problems for years, and you'll probably get a new 1 next year anyway.
Even if you don't have to pay your electric bill someone does, and the electricity if not being used by you(downloading mp3s, video, etc.)when your away, can be used by someone else when your not at home and not using your rig. oh, unless you plan on remote accessing it.

 

[endan]

You should be worried about global warming

 

[royalcrown]

Well, if you turn off your computer, then SKYNET takes a kick to the CPU anyways...so turn off your computer and help kill a terminator...

 

[cyberjock]

@Royalcrown-ROFLMFAO! That's a funny comment.

I don't think there's any scientific study as to whether it's better to cycle it on and off or leave it on. Surely all of the comments provided gives reasons why 1 could be better than the other:

Pros to leaving it on:

1. Less cycling of heating/cooling and power
2. Hard drives spin continuously*

Pros to turning it off:

1. Save money on electric bill
2. Electon migration of CPU(yeah.. but it's supposed to take 20 years or something.
3. Less heat generation in your living space

* Some could argue that it spinning all the time is better for it, others could argue that spinning all the time is worse for it.

Bottom line: Do what you want because most likely if what you choose really is worse than the other, you won't care as you'll replace your computer before anything fails because of you anyway.