vizwhiz Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 hi There ya'all is it better to leave your computer(s) running overnite and continuously? or is it safer or better to turn The Computers off at the end of each work day? with some of the recent postings about HD failure i was kind of wondering about This does running continuously wear out your computer faster? or is it better left running than to be Turned off and on a Lot just idle curiousity, running in circles Thanks for any and all Info in advance Randy ---- Q work or go to sleep? A. go to work and sleep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cesar R Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 hi There ya'all is it better to leave your computer(s) running overnite and continuously? or is it safer or better to turn The Computers off at the end of each work day? with some of the recent postings about HD failure i was kind of wondering about This does running continuously wear out your computer faster? or is it better left running than to be Turned off and on a Lot just idle curiousity, running in circles Thanks for any and all Info in advance Randy ---- Q work or go to sleep? A. go to work and sleep. HI, its not bad to leave it on for a day or two, but if you notice certain large companies have a system maintenance hour(s) in which they reboot and defrag and do all kind of things to the machines. I personally leave my computer on while I am at home/studio regardeless of I am using it or not. however if I am going to be gone for a while I turn it off. I have left it on for a few days straight, but I feel the machine needs to cool off for a while sometimes and re load. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anvaraziz Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 its a machine ...let it cool for some min........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 I've only turned mine off when I leave town, or when storms come by, other than that, they are always on. I'd like to know, too, but I was told by some computer geek friends that turning it off and on puts more wear on the system (think - spinning hard drives, power changes, etc.) than letting it just sit (which nothing is working besides the little lights). The office I am now, which is a large viz/web/graphic firm, does not turn theirs off at night, just the monitors (that I do turn off at night). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 When I used to sell computers I was able to ask company reps that same question. The answer that I got from some of them was that turning your computer off and on all the time will cause all of the parts on the motherboard to expand and contract. Over time this could cause certain parts to short out or even create small power surges that could damage the processor. In reality I doubt this would ever happen, and you could make the argument that a computer only has so much life in it anyway so leaving it on all the time could reduce that life. In our office the official policy is to shut down every night unless the computers are needed for network rendering. I would recommend if you leave your systems on all the time you should at least reboot once a day just to clear out your memory and work on a fresh system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cesar R Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 ...you should at least reboot once a day just to clear out your memory and work on a fresh system. ...QUOTE] I agree with that, as far at the HD spinning and power changes..., when the computer ir idle for a long time depending on how you system is set I think windows will turn on the HDs... just let it cool off and save energy if your not using it ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 Interesting...different sides, it would seem that there should be a 'correct' answer. My computer I am typing this on is 5 years old and has not been off for more than a few days at a time. I'd say that it's been on for weeks without rebooting (when I am using other machines). Never a problem, and I've never changed a part. So I guess I'll stick with the 'leave it on'. I believe my machines do nothing unless you touch the mouse (no hard drive movement, etc.,). Starting it up, or any computer for that matter, sounds painful! Esp. with the newer machines - you can hear them gag from across the room!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radioVOY Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 what about the power consupmtion? how much a computer waste power when is in stad by?, must be a fact to concern in a large office. sorry for be the enviromentalist here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 Our IT guy did some calculations a few years ago and back then we had about 100 machines, if we left them on all year that would cost our company $18,000. So that's about $180 per year, not very much when it's just one or two machines but when you put a lot of them together it adds up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 was that the computers alone, or with monitors? I could see the monitors taking a lot of juice, but a computer should be doing nothing while it sits, kind of like leaving your printer on. Could be wrong, though, and I am sure it makes some kind of difference in energy bills. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cesar R Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 what about our fridges? we should turn those off too uh? jk - I am bored - ok back to work . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bricklyne Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 The whole debate with the demerits/advantages of turning computers on and/or off frequently has traditionally and typically tended to centre around the digital storage media (i.e Hard disks (HDD), optical drives, tape drives e.t.c). Formerly conventional thinking tended to dictate that because digital storage devices are built on Magnetic-based binary system or more specifically electro-magnetic based systems, turning a computer on-and-off on a frequent basis was not particurlarly gratifying to the system's utilitarian integrity. Basically, a hard-disc typically stores information by magnetizing and demagnetizing the given binary sectors based on the information to be stored, such that later on when the information needs to be retreived, the magnetized sections light up as '1's under the reader or drive read head and the non-magnetized areas as zeros. This is a simplified version of course, of what really happens, but the basic prinicple is what defines the process. Sorry for the high-school lesson, but the reason I'm mentioning this is because as you may ( or maybe not) remember from elementary physics, the fastest ways to 'destroy' natural magnets (i.e. lodestone) or significantly reduce the potentcy of their magnetism included among others, heating, repeated application of heavy impact-force (hammering the magnet) and most significantly, repeatedly and intermittently passing an electric current through the magnet. The idea being that the dipoles in the magnet's molecular structure that are responsible for its magnetic properties are constantly being jumbled and not given enough time to re-align themselves to magnetic North. Over time they lose this ability completely and the magnet becomes non-magnetic. Generally magnets will tend to lose their magnetism naturally anyway, but the processes I mentioned above tend to speed up this natural decay. The same holds true for Electro-magnets, but primarily with regards to their capacity to be re-magnetized again electronically as effeciently as before. All this, of course, is significant to Computers in the sense that when you turn a computer on, the power-up process will naturally involve the passage of electric currents through the entire system as the various peripherals (the CPU fans, power-box, floppy/CD/DVD drives, etc) come to life and vice versa as the computer is turned off at the end of the day or, worse yet, during lunch breaks; and it is this repeated process, over a daily, if not more frequent, cycle that is or at least used to be suspected to be the main culprit in reducing the life or useful life of a computer. On this score, of course, the notion of turning a computer on and off repeatedly at the very least, increases the likely-hood of your getting Hard-disk errors and file storage inconsistencies sonner rather than later on in the Computer's life ( Blue screens anyone??) However...... Now the reason I said used to, is because all this is based on 'conventional' knowledge, as it was accepted as far back as the early-to-mid eighties (grief, I'm gettting old) as the personal computer concept was just beginning to get more and more popular. Obviously, computer manufacturing methodology and technology in general has come a long way since then, particularly with regards to the shielding of sensitive and integral components from unwanted yet self-emmited EM radiation, as well as more effecient ways of designing circuit boards aimed at cutting down cross-cutting electric pathways in today's motherboards. So it's less likely ( although not entirely impossible) that the frequent restarting of one's machine will have an overall, if not drastic, degrading effect on their system; at least as far as most modern and top-o-the line systems ( 'Intel inside' and 'not-made-in-China') are concerned.But as with any electrical system it is not entirely foolproof nor perfect and as such I would advise against turning one's machine on and off all the time anyways. But it is, of course, a personal choice at the end of the day, as some people don't mind the loss in effeciency knowing that they will get rid of their current machines in about 2-3 yrs anyway. So at the end of the day, to some degree the argument holds water both ways, I suppose. P.S. The Energy consumption argument posed against the idea of leaving the computer on is a moot argument when you consider the fact that most computers already have energy-saving features (hibernation, screen-saving, CPU idle-mode, etc) through which it consumes no more electricity than a 100W light bulb. So unless you're rendering, disk-defragging, or basically doing any CPU-hogging (i.e. running the fans and heating other circuits) activity, leaving one's computer on, is no different, energy consumption-wise that leaving a night-light on. Unless of course you intentionally go and turn of the screen-savers, Hibernation mode, Power-saving features, which of course, is just plain dumb!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xgarcia Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 We leave ours on all the time except for storms (ie hurricanes) or when you need to replace parts or change monitors (never). ALl the boxes on the network defrag, virus scan & update at night. As well as the servers backing up (the server nevers goes off). If you set your monitors (lcd or crt) for power saving and your computer for standy mode - you won't waste energy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vizwhiz Posted October 8, 2004 Author Share Posted October 8, 2004 Fran, Based on what i'm reading in this thread, I too had the same problem. I lost all my data when I left my system idle overnight.next morning, Windows won't load. I was disconnected from the net, that would rule out virus attack.I use 2 80 gig Seagate SATAs in raid 0 configuration. What made it worse, I replaced the hdds with new ones and still it happened. Finally, after so much thought, I had my system set to hibernate and windows would shut down the hdd after a designated time.waking -up the system is the problem, it will not wake up.when you reboot, windows will not load. I asked the shop, PC-DLs aand SATA's are usually servers and basically servers are not designed to hibernate or be in stand-by. common sense maybe...but i think it was the problem. now, I dont let windows go on stand-by mode or hibernate, even shut down the hdds. I no longer experience data corruption anymore. I've read also somewhere in the PCDL manual that SATA's don't support S1 or S3 standby modes. Maybe that was the cause of your HDD crashing, IDE or SATA's. This is http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7319&page=3&pp=10 The above comment by Voltaire_ira started me to Think about whether my HD's would ever wake up if left on (for tool Long) i guess you have to know in advance which HD will or will not respond or come out of "sleep mode" but i am still running win2000 so maybe This doesnt matter i guess idle curiousity got the better of me This time around now That is starting to get below a 100 here in Arizona on a daily basis i am leaving the air-conditioning off at home when i am at work (real job) to save my $$ i lost a motherboard about 2 months ago (probably from overheating) i Think the UPS finally went "toast" we also had some severe Monsoons sometime in that Time Frame (not as bad as a hurricane or earthquake) Thanks for the Info Randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Nelson Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 I don't think it matters that much. I'm not going to leave my car running 24 hours a day even though the engine goes through hell every time I start it up. But at the same time I don't turn it off and re-start it at every red light just to save gas. I say treat your computer well, and it will treat you well in return. A little computer karma if you will. Of course, I'm sure Fran was very nice to her puter and it still did very bad things. So my point is......I have no clue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cesar R Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 "Of course, I'm sure Fran was very nice to her puter and it still did very bad things." You say PUTER too? cool - I thought I was the only geek . Just use common sense with the computer on/off thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Nelson Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 "Of course, I'm sure Fran was very nice to her puter and it still did very bad things." You say PUTER too? cool - I thought I was the only geek . Just use common sense with the computer on/off thing. GEEKS OF THE WORLD UNITE! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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