🚀 go-pugleaf

Guy Barwood (barwoodg@ocean.com.au) wrote:
: There are a few things to consider here.

: Pro's:
: 1.	By keeping your PC on, the components will not undergo the stresses
: of thermo-cycling, which can be the cause of failing solder joints,
: track breakage, and chip creep.
: 2.	Near zero boot time! (just monitor returning from standby and Screen
: Saver closing!)

: Con's
: 1.	I'm sure that most HDD's spin all the time (except laptop ones for
: power saving), now keeping them powered up will wear the motor quicker.
: Mean time between failures are normall quoted in number of hours, so
: this may reduced the effective life of your drives.

Most new HDD's and new PC's (even desktop PC's), have power saving on the 
HDD.

: 2.	CPU fans and Power supply fans have limited lifes.  If one fails
: while you are asleep,  either your computer could fry, die, or even
: burn!
: 3.	The cost of the electricity.
: 4.	You will need to clean (blow out) the insides of your PC more
: regularily to get rid of the extra dust intoduced by the power supply's
: fan. (Called preventative maintainance)

: I used to keep my old 486DX33 on 24 hours a day, and just turn on and
: off the monitor.  Over a period of about 2 years, the PC never failed,
: but the monitor failed with a broken track which I had to repair.  I
: wasn't paying for electricity then, but now I am, so my PC now goes on
: and off as required.

: Bye

: PS Personally I'd keep the PC on all the time if their was no difference
: in my power bill, which would  probably be equal to a 100w globe on
: average (bit of a guess).

Well monitors on there own use about 200 w and PC's power supplies are 
rated somewhere about 200 watts as well, so you are looking 400 w (not 
considering power saving)

It's also (my opinion) unethical to leave equipment on that uses 
electricity if it's doing nothing; even if you are payingthe bills. Think 
of the environment.

: scott schwartz wrote: : > 
: > I use my computer daily and would like to know if turning it on and off
: > everyday is more streesful to the computer than leaving it on all the
: > time.  They claim that computers use very little electricity when idle.
: >   Please email me your response.  Thank you.

: -- 
: |       Guy Barwood BSc (Maths)   3rd/4th Year Comm. Eng. RMIT
: |         HomePage:  http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~barwood/
: |Scanning Service: http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~barwood/esindex.html
: |                    Email: barwoodg@ocean.com.au
: |                       "Live Long and Prosper"

There are a few things to consider here.

Pro's:
1.	By keeping your PC on, the components will not undergo the stresses
of thermo-cycling, which can be the cause of failing solder joints,
track breakage, and chip creep.
2.	Near zero boot time! (just monitor returning from standby and Screen
Saver closing!)

Con's
1.	I'm sure that most HDD's spin all the time (except laptop ones for
power saving), now keeping them powered up will wear the motor quicker.
Mean time between failures are normall quoted in number of hours, so
this may reduced the effective life of your drives.
2.	CPU fans and Power supply fans have limited lifes.  If one fails
while you are asleep,  either your computer could fry, die, or even
burn!
3.	The cost of the electricity.
4.	You will need to clean (blow out) the insides of your PC more
regularily to get rid of the extra dust intoduced by the power supply's
fan. (Called preventative maintainance)

I used to keep my old 486DX33 on 24 hours a day, and just turn on and
off the monitor.  Over a period of about 2 years, the PC never failed,
but the monitor failed with a broken track which I had to repair.  I
wasn't paying for electricity then, but now I am, so my PC now goes on
and off as required.

Bye

PS Personally I'd keep the PC on all the time if their was no difference
in my power bill, which would  probably be equal to a 100w globe on
average (bit of a guess).

scott schwartz wrote:
> 
> I use my computer daily and would like to know if turning it on and off
> everyday is more streesful to the computer than leaving it on all the
> time.  They claim that computers use very little electricity when idle.
>   Please email me your response.  Thank you.

-- 
|       Guy Barwood BSc (Maths)   3rd/4th Year Comm. Eng. RMIT
|         HomePage:  http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~barwood/
|Scanning Service: http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~barwood/esindex.html
|                    Email: barwoodg@ocean.com.au
|                       "Live Long and Prosper"

Guy Barwood <barwoodg@ocean.com.au> wrote:


>Con's
>1.	I'm sure that most HDD's spin all the time (except laptop ones for
>power saving), now keeping them powered up will wear the motor quicker.
>Mean time between failures are normall quoted in number of hours, so
>this may reduced the effective life of your drives.

Power saving features in are standard in most modern systems so you
can set the HDD to power down automatically.

>2.	CPU fans and Power supply fans have limited lifes.  If one fails
>while you are asleep,  either your computer could fry, die, or even
>burn!

True, but its unlikely that the damage would be that drastic.  The
heat sink does most of the work anyway.

>3.	The cost of the electricity.

Pretty negligable.  A current monitor can be set to turn itself onto
standby which uses almost no power, and the rest of the system should
use less than 50W (I would guess anyway) probably much less with the
HDD powered down.

>4.	You will need to clean (blow out) the insides of your PC more
>regularily to get rid of the extra dust intoduced by the power supply's
>fan. (Called preventative maintainance)

Always a good habit anyway.

>
>PS Personally I'd keep the PC on all the time if their was no difference
>in my power bill, which would  probably be equal to a 100w globe on
>average (bit of a guess).

around my guess.  I'm fairly sure it would be much less than this
though.


Regards

-- 
Adam Oswald, BEng
**
Concorde Computers
The best hardware prices in Australia
**
Mt Gravatt, Brisbane, Qld 4122, AUSTRALIA
Tel (07) 3219 2600  Fax (07) 3216 8905
Home page http://www.powerup.com.au/~concorde/index.htm

Concorde Computers wrote:
> 
> Guy Barwood <barwoodg@ocean.com.au> wrote:
> 
> >Con's
<snip>
> >2.     CPU fans and Power supply fans have limited lifes.  If one fails
> >while you are asleep,  either your computer could fry, die, or even
> >burn!
> 

In the office here we have a number of monitors all are around 18months
old and all are brand name monitors.  All have power saving features,
and we had been leaving them on overnight.  One by one they are now
slowly dying by burning out - one almost started a fire on a colleagues
desk when he went out to lunch, and the smell of burning hung around for
a few days.

Clearly, while the risk of fire is small for most computer equipment, if
you leave equipment turned on the risk is there, wheras if you turn it
off there is far less risk.

For the very small possible gains in lifetime of the equipment by
leaving it on, and from my personal experience, I would now say that the
risk is not worth it.

Phil