Running 24/7?

@ Longview, I´m with ya, I really think that people who let their machines run for no good reason, are stupid!

 

Thanks for all the postings and votes. Very interesting.

I am not a mod. but please do not call those who have shared their opinion "stupid". The vast majority of the postings have stated good reasons for their view imho.

My goal in this poll was to tap the knowledge base here at Wilders on this issue and I wanted to learn something myself and perhaps I need to examine my own postion on this. I picked this forum to do it. Something you all should be proud of. This was why I framed the choices the way I did. Maybe I needed to rethink my opinion on this. I am a currently a 24/7 guy.

Convenience and machine longevity vs. possible machine early burnout and costs associated with 24/7. (depending on where you stand)

Calling me stupid will not help me decide.

Thanks again for the input.

 

Hello.

LOL. What's a "good" reason for me, may not be "good" enough for you... It's relative.

 

Nicely stated. Much better then any response I was thinking of.

 

Well, I would call a reason like: "it´s convenient", pretty stupid. I mean if you´re PC has absolutely nothing to do, I don´t see why you shouldn´t turn it off.

 

It's clear you never needed to get online in a hurry or you don't mind waiting for your system to to start up. I understand some Systems do start up faster then others. Others have expressed a desire to have their updates be completely automatic and timely. I think these are good reasons to leave it on 24/7.

This should be weighted against other factors like possible shorter life span or energy waste or if you want to save money by turning off.

Your opinion that why would someone want to run their system when there is no production or entertainment is certainly a choice made by some. I don't think there is a wrong opinion in this particular poll.

 

I think this one is a bit thin. Almost all who have written saying they do not run 24/7 have said they basically turn the machine on in the morning and turn it off last thing at night. i.e it is on when needed and off when not. How often do you wake up in the middle of the night and need to get on line in a hurry ?

Let's be honest here - and I accept that there are exceptions - programs running research 24/7 and so on - but the real reason some keep their machines running 24/7 is because they can . It is simply pc machismo. My machine has run longer than yours. Freud would have a field day.

 

Clearly, some people use their PCs for just the plain basics - web browsing, email, IM, photo editing, etc. etc.; others use their PCs for myriad of higher purposes, whether a media server, FTP server, Home Security/Monitoring/Control, etc. ... the purpose defines the need. Basic PC use doesn't require 24/7 operation, I don't prescribe to any of the various myths regarding PC life expectancy either way - If there isn't need, why waste resources and contribute to unnecessary pollution?

 

Longview,
I am up late at night sometimes. And guess what? I actually do get up at night refreshed from a little sleep and do a little work on the PC and then go back to sleep. You never know when a good idea or you want to look up something.

By the way this is not me, but I know of some who actually trade currencies, (spreads between the values of different countries money), this is a very early morning or late night type of use. Think about the world time zones.

I actually might fall back to sleep at my desk waiting for everything to come up (this last statement truely is thin)

 

Mine is usually on during daylight hours only, and I will only leave it on overnight if im running a scan or a defrag. Some days I leave it on while I am out in the evening - particularly on Monday nights, as this is when my KAV scheduled scan occurs.

 

I believe this to be spot on.

 

Thanks to all who voted and gave their opinion, not that I don't want to see more. Your postings have caused some shift in my opinion on this. Debunking those who say minds can not be changed by civil debate.

My Family Machine is only turned on when first needed in the day and is turned off at night. What about the Router/Gateway? It has a toggle switch in the back.

The NetGear does not have a toggle switch the only way to turn it off is unplug it. No matter, my old Compaq will run 24/7 since I don't like to wait. By the way I lost a harddrive after 4 years and a CD burner. CD burner not likely a 24/7 burnout issue it was used only occassionally. 24/7 has not seemed to damaged the other parts. The machine was bought in 2001. The energy useage/money a whole different matter.

Thanks and please do continue to share your experiences.

 

I don't know how the power demands of the modern harware compares to my old box. The power supply on mine is rated 100W maximum output, so it's normal demands are lower. That makes it about the same as a light bulb. That translates into a cost of about 15¢ per day here. Shutting it down at night would save about 5¢ per day. At those rates, if there's any lengthening of hard drive life, it's worth it, especially if you place any value on the time it would take to replace and reload another one, not to mention the costs of going to get another hard drive (gasoline prices anyone). Do your own math with your electric costs and hardware prices. How many years would it take to equal the price of a replacement hard drive?

When you get right down to it, most of the electric used by a PC gets converted into heat. During the heating season (over half the year here) heat produced by electrical appliances, including a PC, is heat that your heating system doesn't have to produce. The electricity isn't being wasted. It's effectively multi-tasking.

IMO, the energy savings to be had are negligible and come at other potential costs. There are many, many things people can do that will save a lot more energy that don't result in a loss of usable component life.

I'm not pointing at you with this statement. This is widespread in the "civilized" world. There's an example of the greatest waste of all, a society where everything is disposable and obsolescense is planned. While we sit here and pick at miniscule energy usages, we willingly accept the greatest wastes of both energy and materials and generate untold amounts of waste in the process, much of it toxic. We'd do better to go after the problem at its source, our own lifestyles.

Ahh, severe thunderstorms almost here. A shame we can't harness that energy. Then things like saving a few cents worth of electric wouldn't matter.
Rick

 

When you put mileage or demands on anything for extended periods (including your body LoL), you better expect some wear & tear over time.

With computer componants the longer you run them the more mileage piles up and eventually something somewhere gives. In my experience when i had wireless hi-speed i left the PC run 24/7 most the time for nearly 2 years before the Power Supply & CPU fan bit the dust. Fortunately those are the only hardware componants that flopped early. Everything else still hums along nicely. PcChips M810L mobo with 1.2 Ghz (5% OC).

I actually expect that i'm now extending the life of the PC hardware since returned back to dial up connection again. There really was no need for the PC to sit there idle "ON" for those extended periods but i did learn that at least my PC took the heat for a very long time before something gave out.

It helps also to regulary clean the dust collecting inside your box too. All the airborne particles are drawn inside like a magnet and doesn't take that long to layer up, especially on the CPU and PS fans.

 

I can not believe how often that is over looked\ignored\many Users are not even aware. IMO, that, and the related increased heat is the main premature killer of PC parts. Irregardless if you are on only when used or 24/7. But unless you use liquid cooling we just have to live with it and the regular maintenance it en-tails.

 

Have you guys ever heard of standby mode? It takes only a few seconds to start a PC up in this mode.

 

I use standby all day. I was told that hibernate is really meant for laptops so as to save battery life. Every time I walk away from my computer I put it on standby, unless I'm going out or to bed where I turn it off.

 

Hibernation simply copies the contents of your RAM (like an image) into a file (hiberfil.sys) on a HD, so the power consumption could be minimal. When you power-on your rig, the RAM is filled again with same contents.
Standby cuts the power down to all external components but keeps power for RAM, so you can easily continue where you left off. So yes, hibernation is good for laptop batteries.

Cheers.

 

The same information source that said run 24/7 for longer life of PC, also recommended regular dusting of internals using canned air with care.

I blow out the dust at least every 6 months, sometimes more based on lent ball counts hanging on vents and power supply fan visible from the outside.

 

Well said.
Which is exactly why mine stay on 24/7.
To alleviate the guilt factor, I've replaced all incandescent bulbs with the energy-saving spiral fluorescent type, and rarely watch TV anymore, except for the occasional DVD flick.

 

I watch very little TV as well. For me the PC is my escape from the TV, which my other half is completely addicted to. Drives me nuts. Other than that, I've done most of the little things that save electric. Still have one big electric user to address, when I can afford it, a bad well.

Even if it is wasteful, I don't feel at all guilty about running my PC 24/7. My solar greenhouse has more than made up for whatever energy the PC consumes.
Rick

 

None of my PCs run 24/7. I did read in the past about turning off and on would wear down the motherboard and "shock" the components. While the energy savings to shut it off and on during an extended period may be minimal, I still shut off the PC daily because I don't want to tax the hard drive read/write heads since they are among the first of the components to fail (it is the only "moving" piece inside the PC box (other than the DVD drive). I look at the PC similar as to a car. Heat is the biggest enemy of your car engine. Heat is the biggest enemy to your motherboard and its components. So I would not leave my car running 24/7 because of that (and also because I don't want to waste gas and since electric bills are going up by 50% starting this month).

 

I'm not convinced about the car/PC analogy. I'd want to think heat may be a primary factor, with high ambient air temps and humidity also also playing a role. However, I know many users in Thailand and Malaysia, some who leave their PCs running 24/7 and don't experience higher than normal hard drive failures (if at all), despite high ambient air temps and humidity... and most don't have air conditioning. Go figure.

 

Perhaps the two are not quite affected by heat in the same way. Hard drive crashes tend to be the result of read/write head mechanical problems rather than heat itself. Most of the heat generated by a hard drive is probably from the motor running to spin the platter and not by the transfer of data. I have an old 486PC that I purchased back in 1994 and have rarely used it now, but it still powers up with no problems and I expect it to do so for many years to come. I sort of agree that running the PC 24/7 does generate heat for warmth (similar to my air compressor and oxygen concentrator units that run 24/7 all of the time that generate heat exhaust). It is nice during the winter time, but during the summer months, it makes the room more hotter than it needs to be (not to mention that you are adding to the greenhouse gas impact to the atmosphere).

 

I don't think that heat produced by normal operations is what causes hard drives to fail. Think about the effect of heat on solid material. Most materials expand by varying amounts as temperature increases. Apply this to the moving parts of a hard drive. Going from cold to hot changes component dimensions and the resulting clearances to other components. A shaft and bearing that precisely fit at one temperature will fit differently as the temperature changes. When a hard drive runs all the time, it's temperature is much more constant and the clearances between parts change much less than they would going from room temperature to their normal operating temperature..

If there's a comparison to be made to automotive engines, it would be when the wear takes place. In an automotive engine, the great majority of the wear happens when the engine is started cold. Engines that are used for short trips and city driving wear out much faster than those that run on the highways for hours at a time. I can't prove that this holds true for hard drives, but it makes sense.
Rick