Running 24/7?

What started out for me as a simple curiosity factor some what, 4 years ago now? has also afforded me the proverbial escape from the boob tube which is only grown progressively BORING & foolish IMO. The commercials alone are candidate enough for the funny farm. Can't believe businesses actually profit from such pure ignorance that oftimes borders on complete insanity.

My PC keeps me more in touch with what really matters in life as opposed to TV, as well as proven an invaluable outstanding education platform for expression and sharing your own chosen arts, studies, etc.

There is not one single education institution in America and likely either the entire world that can offer the hours of informational study that my PC gives me compared to semesters. The PC offers us a schedule (round-the-clock), that no college would dare offer. That's another chief reason that you can advance along much more faster IMO. It's definitely propelled my own interests & experience in PC security and many graphic arts, well beyond where i ordinarily would have been at compared to if i had followed some institutional schedule.
Resources? The net is full of them, and globally i might add.

 

Powerful post there EASTER. I totally agree.

Ditto herbalist.

 

Many of you make good arguments for both sides.
My Dell Dimension, 8200, 7 yrs. old now, has been running non stop for those yrs. with an occasional restart every so often.
For the last several yrs. I have been running Seti and Einstein also.
Good or bad, I've had no ill effects whatsoever.
Last Oct. I bought another Dell which will be running the same.
Maybe I'm lucky, but that's a day in the life of my puters!

 

When I go to bed, so does my PC. Not only is it easier on the hardware, and saves energy/money... but a physical disconnection is the safest state your computer can possibly be in so it's also for security purposes.

 

With the Sony battery fiasco, would that have made laptops fire hazards if they were running 24/7? Would the constant recharging made them susceptible to excessive heat and ignition?

 

The deciding factor of whether to turn off a PC or run it 24/7 is whether the user uses the PC a few times a week or every day. If a PC is used every day it should be kept on all the time and the monitor and hard drive should go into standby after 15 minutes to 2 hours, depending on usage. Normally a 15 minute delay for the monitor and hard drive to go into standby should be optimal. When I edit and dub video is 2 hours is optimal.
Main-board electronic components should usually stay running and warm all the time. Mechanical components such as hard drives should not run, but when not in use and or in standby the electronics stays on and warm. The drive heads should park and the spindles spin down and stop. IF the PC has no running applications, software issues or active malware all mechanical activity should come to a stop after the standby period.
The thermal expansion of a microprocessor coming from room temperature to operating temperature could lift the corner of a house in a year of daily starts. Electronics that runs 24/7 can last for 30 or 40 years. Old telephone company tube equipment had vacuum tubes that were 30+ years old. The same tube in a TV set would last only 5 to 10 years maximum. Solid state electronics is very similar to tubes in this respect.
Another important consideration is; how important is your data. A faulty thermally stressed microprocessor can compromise your data by preforming faulty hard drive writes.
Finally, my PCs that run 24/7 last more than twice as long as others PCs that are shut down daily. It only costs about $25 - $30 a year to run the extra 8 or 9 hours. Even less if I subtract the nights that I am dubbing or transcribing video. The only time I shut down my PC is when I run chkdsk, install software that requires a restart or to clean it once a year.

 

Welcome to Wilders user cljames,

Good posting to my poll. Very informative. Thank you.

 

Yeah, Merc, you got a good poll going!

I am beginning to 'rethink' turning my puter off day in and
day out....
Really don't want to have to 'fix' it...

Good arguments pro and con....

I like the educational arguments vs TV. (i.e. herbalist and Easter)
If you wanted, you could 'go to school' 24/7!

Interesting analogy about the TV tubes, cljames,
does anyone else think tubes compare to puter parts?

Marja

 

There are so many variables to this discussion. Ambient temperature, quality and type of parts used in the PC, etc.
The initial stress of start-up, both the mechanical stress of spinning-up plus the first 'jolt" of electricity will cause additional wear and tear on parts. Is this greater then then leaving them run? Still unanswered definitively. Then there is the heat factor, as mentioned. The heat in a tower\components will actually increase for the first few moments after shut-down due to the lose of air circulation from the fans being powered down. We may also need to take in the chance of moisture build-up from the temperature changes. Though this is usually very small if at all.
Side note, but related: I work in the SMT industry. (SMT = Surface Mount Technology) The manufacturing of printed circuit boards. There are actually 3 levels of production done and accepted by the Companies we build for. Levels 1,2,3 or A,B,C. 1 = the General Consumer, Us. This is your TV, radio, PC, etc. The acceptable levels for boo-boos on this type of part\while still workable are higher then Level 2. Level 2 parts are for Industrial applications. Meaning they go into equipment that is used in other Industries. Level 3 is for "life dependencies" devices used in the Medical field. These of course have the lowest = 0% tolerance, for errors.
One more note on moisture\condensation. There are actually specific parts that are stored in a special cabinets due to the normal humidity found anywhere. The cabinets are kept at less then .01 humidity due to the potential absorption of moisture into these parts.
Concerning your original question. With the exception of the larger size, IMO, tubes are superior. They are self contained with-in their own climate controlled environment. They are also less susceptible to naturally occurring static electricity. But alas....there are trade-offs to everything, technology included.

 

I personally shut my PC down when not in use. But I really believe that this issue is 100% a personal preference. In the early days of computing It was a good Idea to shut them off when not in use. But now with much better components I think either way the user decides to go On/Off will be just fine. Different strokes for different folks http://bestsmileys.com/thumbs/2.gif


bigc

 

My server runs all the time. Apart from vacations.
But this machine does get a lot of use, downloading, serving music and films.
Screen is usually powered off. Cpu and motherboard and gfx card are 7 years old and going strong, hdds are newer (I have 3), a few have failed and the others upgraded for more capacity. I 've had one failed memory stick of unknown origin, but the rest has been fine.

Laptop goes off when not in use.

 

I put the computer on when I am ready ot use it, when it is time to go to work I shut the computer off. Put it back on when I get home, stays on Till I go to bed. If I have to run a scan or some type of mantance/security program I will have the computer run while I am at work, not at night as the computer is in my sleeping quarters and about heat buildup....it does raise the room temp and my sleeping quarters are on the second floor and is normally warmer. I run the airconditioner to keep the computer tempertures down in summer. I bought one of my computers in 1998 and it stll runs great. I have a Sony CRT monitor I bought in 2002, when it goes I will be glad to buy a LCD I can use the space.

 

I run 24/7 to minimize the chance of component failure. The systems I build tend to last longer than the 2-3 years most people average, and they are well-ventilated (under 45C year-round) so there are no heating problems.

 

I let the monitor shut off after 1 minute of inactivity on my laptop and I just put it into sleep/standby whenever I'm not using it, fast startup.

 

When I shut down so does my computer and modem. I do monthly maintenance on my box myself, clearing out any dust, re-seating memory, PCI cards etc.

 

I can't make my computer run 24/7 'cause the hot climate in my country can overheat my machine, plus in some cases it can cause me a BSOD when the hard drive is running in very long periods of time, and the economy of my country is a nightmare so wages are a bit low with high bills/prices to top it.

 

I shut down when not at home. Restarting up with these new hard drives is very quick and they auto park during shutdown and are also less prone to crashing.

I also make sure I add to the air flow by adding 3 extra fans. Heat is the main problem so ventilation is more important than the shut down/shut off question in my view.

 

I shut down, when not actually using it. I voted waste of time and money, but it's also partly due to security concerns. I kinda like to be in front of the monitor, just in case some enterprising jerk manages to hack past my security before there's a fix.

 

Hello, and thanks for the warm welcome mercurie and others.

ThunderZ had made another very good point about fans that stop when thermal energy is still trying to get out of the micro and other components.

Being a master of analogy; it's like when you drive your car on a highway for a long time and immediately shut it down, the heads boil the coolant. After several seconds you can hear it going tick-tick-tick. This is a very accurate parallel, the same physics come into play. Some cars have electric fans that sometimes run with the ignition turned off.

Modern PCs could probably benefit by having a modified or separate power supply that would run the fans for several minutes after shutdown or until the components are near ambient temperature. This would likely be especially beneficial to over-clockers, you guys have trouble getting heat out with the fans screaming.

The micro would likely benefit by having a fan supplied by a 12Vdc @ 500mA to 1A "wall wart" type supply with an analog comparator, thermistor and FET as a thermostat switch. The fan could be diode or-ed to run from either the PC or aux supply for safety. The tachometer won't care which supply is running the fan, as long as the (-) common is still board ground.

I think I'll give it a try with some thermocouples attached to the micro and heat sink. I'll post the results, but not very soon, I have allot of irons on the fire.

I'll also let my burb idle and cool after a hard run.

If anyone is interested in a aux fan circuit I can help them build one, make up a BOM or kit, or build and sell you one.

user_cljames

 

user_cljames,
I think it would be interesting to have a secondary fan...and you would not have to have a seperate power supply. At least I don't think so. I beleive the technology for this is here now. Alternative energy companies are working on generating of electricity by use of spring power. Electric generation is much more complicated and spring unwind tolerance would be much more difficult to control and for much longer extended period of time.

In your example this spring loaded fan could be wound while the PC is running electrically then when the system is shut down. This spring wound fan or fans would engage spinning the fans to cool the system. The fans could be set for full wind down or disengage at a certain tempeture. This could also save rewind time. Also tempeture control switch would eliminate short useage cycle issues. That is it in a nut shell. I am sure there are minor issues to deal with but nothing that could not be overcome.

 

Carver,
I understand.

I to have a "boat anchor" Sony Trinitron CRT Monitor and will be glad to one day replace with LCD flat. I to can use the space.

Vintage Trinitrons are over sized.

 

Not to steal your thunder user_cljames but may spare you some time. Nexus Prolong Cooler

 

Another boot anchor.....err....I mean Trinitron CRT user here. Love the true 21" viewable screen, but that is about it. Waiting impatiently for enough $$$ to move up to a true 24" viewable LCD.

 

Do it and you probably will frequent hard drive resellers and Air Conditioning contractors!

 

Have to disagree.
I run Seti and Einstein on 2 computers all the time, running at 100% CPU.
Never had a problem.
If what you say is true, the hundreds of thousands running these research projects world wide would come crashing down and these projects would cease to exist.
Pssst, it ain't gonna happen.