which is better PC turned on 24/7 or shutting it down daily?

[Nocutius]

I've been wondering what is better for my PC. I usually have it on 24/7 sometimes for a month. Is it better to shut it down every time I go to sleep or not? I'm guessing that it effects different components differently, what about overall? Nothing serious just wondering.
thanks

 

[slicessoul]

Is it make you feel much better on paying your expensive electricity bill ?

 

[jitpublisher]

I have PC's that have been up running for years. One in particular is a 486SX25 mhz (circa 1993?) running a voicemail system. It has been running since it was new, only been shut down a handful of times in 13 or more years for a few minutes at a time. I have servers running NT and Unix that also have been for up years.
I'd say if you have all the newest high power hardware that generates a lot of heat, leaving them on all the time will probably no doubt shorten the life of the moving components, like fans and drives. However, if you are the type of person upgrades every couple of years, it won't make any noticable difference, except on your electric bill maybe.

 

[cafuddled]

Yup the only thing you will notice is a bigger power bill, PC components are designed to power up and power down. You can get unlucky though but is it not best a faulty peace of hardware going sooner when in warranty, than staying on for longer and breaking down about 3 months after your warranty has expired?

 

[Nocutius]

I understand that high electricity usage isn't free, or very environmental for that matter. I've read somewhere that it is fore some reason not good for electronic devices to be turned on and off all the time. I'd just like to know if its true or not.

 

[Zenthar]

I don't believe it makes any noticable difference. I've been turning my PC on and of multiple times a day for the past 3 years and nothing ever happened that I didn't provoque by other means.

On the other hand, do a little math and check how much electricity it might cost you and you might be surprised to see that in a 3 years laps you could probably finance another PC . For example, lets say I got a system that consumes about 280W once powered-on:
[code:1:cb1eb8c450](280W*(24hrs*365days/year))/(1000Wh/kWh)*0.0522$CDN/kWh=~128$CDN/year[/code:1:cb1eb8c450]But in the states where electricity costs can range from ~0.06$/kWh to 0.20$/kWh, it can make a huge difference (~152$US/year to ~491$US/year)

 

[Nocutius]

I haven't noticed any difference either, thats why I'm asking.

 

[Nocutius]

And by the way I've read that in some article about some high end speakers, don't remember where.

 

[slicessoul]

I've read somewhere that it is fore some reason not good for electronic devices to be turned on and off all the time.

Hmmm...electronic devices ?
So, do i have to always turn on my microwave, washing machine, dish machine and all other machine on all the time ?

IMO, current electronic devices are designed to save energy by changing its state from full works into standby automatically.

If you make attention, even when you shutdown your PC without unplugging the electricity cable, your PC will still draw some power as it says "standby state". So it's mean, they are already designed to be ready to ON or OFF several times on its lifetime.

 

[Nocutius]

yea that does make sense

 

[Nocutius]

in retrospective it does sounds as a stupid question.
thanks for all the replies.

 

[slicessoul]

You're welcome for the stupid question. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Cheers.

 

[slicessoul]

And i hope you understand that you were reading a stupid article somewhere.

 

[Nocutius]

I guess i should make sure I keep my brain on 24/7 next time

 

[Nocutius]

oh wait that would have killed me.

 

[mcgruff]

Powering up causes sudden heat stress to electrical components which affects their lifespan more than being left on 24/7 (I think). On the other hand moving parts like HDDs will wear out quicker if left on all the time.

 

[slicessoul]

Powering up causes sudden heat stress to electrical components which affects their lifespan more than being left on 24/7 (I think)

So why manufacturers put regulators on their electronics products then ?

 

[slicessoul]

I guess i should make sure I keep my brain on 24/7 next time

Do you have a switch to turn off your brain for sometime ?

 

[Nocutius]

I guess i should make sure I keep my brain on 24/7 next time

Do you have a switch to turn off your brain for sometime ?

there are ways

 

[sailer]

I understand that high electricity usage isn't free, or very environmental for that matter. I've read somewhere that it is fore some reason not good for electronic devices to be turned on and off all the time. I'd just like to know if its true or not.

Theoretically, its harder on the hardware to be turned on and off all the time, particularly for the hard drive. For the rest, each time its turned on, a fractionally small bit of the part gets burned off, so when enough bits get burned off, then the part fails.

So much for theory. A decade or more ago that might have been good advice, but now most parts are of good enough quality that they rarely burn out from being turned on or off. I turn mine off daily and clear the ram, etc of any corruptions that have worked themselves into programs.

The electricty saved probably amounts to a few dallars a month, but not many, as you can use hibernate or other power savers that turn most everything off but allows a quick restart when needed. In the end, when it comes to turning it off or leaving it on, I'd say do whichever you like and don't feel uncomfortable about it.

 

[mdalli]

There is another factor here: time.

I don't want to wait for my computer to boot up. Sure, it only takes a minute, but imagine if I did that every day? Wasted time is more of a consideration to me than a couple hundred bucks a year in electricity bills.

If you are interested in keeping your power bills low, just have your computer turn its monitor off automatically after 20 minutes. CRTs are power suckers.

 

[randomcow]

For me its not just the boot time - I leave all of my background apps and work in progress up and running on my PCs including chat windows, media players, p2p, browser windows, word/excel docs, etc. Can't imagine reopening everything everyday just to shut down a few hours a day.

As for hard drives, I set Windows power management to shut off inactive drives in an hour. I have multiple hard drives but usually only the OS/apps drive is running all of the time.

 

[bberson]

For me its not just the boot time - I leave all of my background apps and work in progress up and running on my PCs including chat windows, media players, p2p, browser windows, word/excel docs, etc. Can't imagine reopening everything everyday just to shut down a few hours a day.

You could use the All Programs/Startup group to fire up all that stuff automatically when you boot up, if you ever chose to go that route...

 

[Spiv]

I leave both of mine on 24/7 if I can. The only things hurt by leaving them on are moving parts (hard drives, fans). Everything else is happier staying in one state.

Your washing machine (unless it's very new) has no computer parts in it.

Your microwave is on all the time (unless you unplug it after it's finished cooking something).

 

[baddog1]

It's probably not that much to run it all the time. Most likely it's about five bucks a month to run it all the time, so obviously, only your wife's and your kids computers that MUST be shut down for the night.