24/7 ?

[songoku]

I couldn’t find what section that this was supposed to go into so I put it here. I do apologize in advance if I was incorrect.

My question is, is there anything wrong with leaving your computer on all the time. For me personally I always shut it off when I go to sleep or when I won’t be using it for an hour or so. My temps are quite low and everything is stable. I was just always told to always shut your computer off that, so thats what I have been doing. I would like to start leaving it so that my tech support ftp could be accessible 24/7. Any advice (this is a gaming machine so all the parts are for gamming, if that matters)?

Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

 

[Vapor]

Should be fine. I've never had a problem with leaving my puters on 24/7.

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[cdpage]

from what i understand leaving it on will not harm anything...

It used to be that turning off you machine every now and then was just to refresh your memory, due to memory leaks, to help speed things up a bit again. but thats not as much a problem any more these days...but doesn't hurt to do so from time to time.

If your turning on the computer several times a day however... it is better just to leave it on. turing on the computer does strain the parts, just like turning the lights on and off.

the question you might wanna ask is how much more is the electrical bill going to be?

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[pIII_Man]

everytime you switch on your computer you quickly draw A LOT of electricity to charge up the capacitors in your psu and on your motherboard...since they are discharged they for a moment draw equivilent amperage as a short would...this is one reason why it is not good to turn your psu on and off....however i normally do shut my pc of at night if i am not downloading anything, why pay for the energy?


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[dhlucke]

As long as your temps are fine you'll be ok. You won't wear anything out fast enough for it to make a difference. You'll replace the PC long before you wear something out.

Couple things to consider:
1. If you're doing a lot of 24/7 filesharing you should set up your PC to do regular defragging. Do it once a day.
2. Make sure you have a good firewall.
3. Make sure you have AV installed and constantly up to date.
4. Backup all your data.

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[songoku]

Well first off i live at a dormatory at collage. So all of my utilites are paid, included eltricty. My temps have never raised above 45 on cpu and 40 for mb. Those are very resonable. I have norton internet security 2004 and its updated. I just wanted to make sure, becuase i am so attached to my computer i cant usually sleep when its on for fear something might happen. boy does my girl friend get mad when i get up and check on my computer during the night.

Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

 

[jihiggs]

shuting your pc down and turning the psu off are two totally different things. its very bad on a psu to cut all power to it. it doesnt discharge when the comp is off, its always up and ready just not supplying anything but the 5v standby.

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[SoDNighthawk]

Correct just like blowing a light bulb. Leave your P.C on unless you see the cops or there is a lightining storm outside

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[CaptainNemo]

Yeah - computers have lots of components that run at 2200 degrees celsius (at 240 volts); turning the computer off and turning it off again can cause several of those components to blow up.

I'm a system builder, and I am always repairing systems that are turned off more than twice a year (against manufacturer's guidelines). Customers are so dumb; they should know that power supplies aren't designed to be turned off.

I end up selling them a patented switch-off device that disengages each component gradually over a two hour period. Unfortunately, it takes two hours to switch the PC on again (and costs $500), but that is a small price for peace of mind etc.

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[SoDNighthawk]

Ludwig van Beethoven always restarted his piano and look what happened to him!!

And he was not an Electrical Engineer like I am ..........Go ahead reboot/start your balls off son see what happens.

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[HardWareBoss]

You need to spend more time with your girlfriend.

 

[SoDNighthawk]

Not even a chuckle Boss it was a gooden-one

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[songoku]

You guys are hilarious. thanks.

Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

 

[Rob423]

i Live my Monster on for sometimes 4-5 days stra8 with no problems, then i'lll shut it down and let it rest for maybe an Hr or so...... and then let this animal go for another few days, I don't like to wait for stuff.... so instead of sitting down and waiting for this thing to Bootup (not that its slow) but i like to just sit down and start clicking and stuff.............. its quite comfortable!

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[SoDNighthawk]

Yes Rob I know the thing is if you or anyone that knows how little an-gates etc work inside a computer chip or ever worked in a manufacturing environment and observed test bench failures or later latent defects they would totally agree with the failure possibility of doing total shut down and restarts of a computer system.

I have worked for many very big names in the electronics industry including Bell Canada and main frame computers are not shut down ever not even to swap out new boards the systems stay hot and we do hot swaps of certain cards as long as they are not a power card.

The systems are designed to stay on 365 days a year not to keep valuable networks functioning but to prevent collateral damage to system components.

When you deal with SMT components that are very intolerant to heat dissipation and voltage fluctuations you can not risk system wide defects that are either total failures Hopefully because we can find those or components that are failing but have not yet failed Harder to find and cause many headaches.

The DSPF or dispatch frame at 78 O'Connor downtown Ottawa the Nations capitol has been powered up and running since 1942 the power has never been off and the 5th sub floor is 2 acres of battery back-ups that keep systems powered up during major power failures.

In 1987 when I was working 4th sub floor installing the new Fibre Optic networks into the trunk lines coming into the building there were guys working in what is called RIM crew cutting out old mechanical switches that were from the 1945 era but they had to work around hardware from the 60's 70's and 80's that were still functioning and had never been powered off.

Even when a circuit between Ottawa and the CN Tower in Toronto Canada goes dead we do not shut the lines down what we do is put higher voltage coils on either end of the line and use high voltage to dry the circuit out all the way from Ottawa to Toronto weather the line goes underground above ground or in the air the line still carries channels.

Shutting down electronic devices is only asking for a system failure even in a home P.C even if the power supplies and hardware software devices have buffers in the circuitry to slowly over a few nano seconds apply and remove power the fine components inside the motherboard and PCI cards as well as peripherals take a Voltage Drop or over volt every single time. It can only hurt the system not help it.

I re-boot my P.C all the time if I am gaming perhaps 4 or 5 times in more then a few hours but I only do a shut down if there is a storm outside as I do not have a battery back-up currently for my game computer.

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[endyen]

The most common failure on computers is power supplies. Even with the best available safety features some voltage problems persist. That is only a small fraction of the problem. Where most power supplies fail, is from dried capacitors, or overheated components. In standby mode, your mobo is mostly not charged, but the psu is. The reason we have standby, is the same reason we have instant on for tvs. People are lazy. Your system will colect less dust, sustain less heat damage, and will have a chance to purge itself if you shut it down.

 

[Rob423]

SoDNighthawk, Im not sure what you meant about this
"Yes Rob I know the thing is if you or anyone that knows how little an-gates etc"

um... I am an Electronic Major at DeVry Institute, And i DO! know alot about TTL gate Logic, I've had specific Courses that delt specifically with An-Gates, Xnors, and ETC...

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[SoDNighthawk]

Well I believe the topic was about the possible damage to a home computer about powering it up and down at night or in the mornings.

I am sure in your course outlines you have discussed Latent Defects.
Just in case as you are in school and do not yet realize how destructive Latent Defects are to a manufacturing plant in Dollar Value each Quarter let me explain this.

As I currently work in Quality Engineering after many years in design and process control I understand the whole spectrum from build to testing to shipping then in returns caused by latent defects.

As you will totally understand from your courses that a latent defect is caused by many situational problems the main one from manufacturing to the end user is ESD failure.

As you know that we as humans can feel Electrostatic Discharge only when the Voltage approaches 5000 Volts you also understand that inside computer chips used in P.C or electronics it takes only 5 Volts to blow part of an internal trace.

A latent defect then can go unnoticed at final test and a hardware device with a faulty component can be shipped to the end user.

If a circuit board takes an ESD hit during manufacturing only part of the trace can be damaged say 5% of the trace imagine a one lane roadway that has 5% of the lane collapse into the ditch leaving 75% of the road available for transmission of traffic or in this case electricity.

The board now has a built in latent defect that will fail at some point later at the end user. Simply unpacking a new computer system and pulling it out of the card board box and out of the Styrofoam packing can cause voltages exceeding 2500 Volts without any current, harmless to humans but totally deadly to electronic components.

It is my job as a Quality Control Engineer to find and implement Manufacturing process to eliminate latent defects as they can cause literally millions of dollars in losses every company quarter.

My wife works for Alcatel Canada and she is responsible for North America for latent defects and it is her job to make sure the customers mainly mainframe ISP's receive replacement hardware to replace defect hardware not always caused by ESD failure related problems but latent defects for many reasons. She understands and knows as I do for my company how much cost to the parent company these defects cause.

The little switches inside the micro chips be they BGA (Ball Grid Array) to QFP's Quad Flat Packages are very susceptible to ESD and voltage defects. Inline Packages are just as susceptible to the same defects as all related chip packages are.

We can in fact use X-RAY equipment right in the labs as I have at Nortel Networks to see directly inside these components and see the damage to the switches and pathways inside the micro processors.

As we use lab testing to configure hardware for fault testing we can actually observe a failure event directly responsible from the powering up and shutting down of hardware.

The filament inside a typical light bulb is carbon based in fact the first successful filament that did not burn out the second power was applied to it when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb was a piece of human hair rolled in carbon and used as the filament. I believe you can read that topic in the HAZEN Conventional Current Version (Experiencing Electricity and Electronics) Second edition (Special Thomas A. Edison Edition Text Book.

In any case the direct component failure of electronic devices from micro chips and their internal switches and traces can be directly linked to all sorts of electrical failures. It cost companies billions of dollars each year because of these defects.

Consumer time lines for component hardware failure are kept to a minimum by only using electronic components that have both limited shelf life before installation and by reverse engineering of latent defects and using applied knowledge to prevent internal defects during the manufacturing processes mainly at the SMT or surface mount stages where robotics used to pick&place these components.

All production operations robotics workers are highly trained in their field of robotics operations from programming the units to taking in house courses on ESD and latent defects.

In short it is common knowledge in the business that hardware failure is caused by mainly 2 events ESD failure related problems and the powering up & down of electronics.

Warranty's are formulated directly by the normal cycle times and therefore the life expectancy of the most fallible components in a production build.

The old joke of your car stopped working 2 days after the warranty period is not a joke its a fact believe it. Because the engineers understand cycle times of each hardware component in your purchase and directly apply warranty periods that cover that short lived time line.

Most companies that therefore absorb costs of defects directly are willing to simply state they have a 1 to 2 year warranty period or you purchase an extended one at the user end.

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[SoDNighthawk]

Hello Rob come back where did you get off to now ?

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[fariss]

My guess is he's off writing that script you alluded to.

 

[Rob423]

Jesus what the hell are you writing about...lmao......... i went to play Counter Strike and then watch Superbowl........ and i just got down playing Counter Strike------pretty late now

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