61 replies to this topic

[Blitz]

I leave it on constantly. Sometimes, like every few days, it'll reboot itself, which scares me occasionally, but it's still runnin'.

[-Michael-]

Lol, "the ghost computer".

I leave mine on for weeks sometimes and she's still running alright.

[l3lueMage]

OMG scariest thing in the world happened to me once, I completly shutdown my computer, and 10minutes later it turns on AND LOGS ITSELF INto my account...I was like OMG H4X <_<;;

[-Michael-]

So I'm not the olny one

[Wrightboy]

lol...mines really kinda old so I average 3-6 reboots everyday, works fine

[Xanderdude]

i useally put it on hibernate during the night otherwise i can't sleep due my fans hehe. Hibernate seems nice just 1 press on the button and u are @ your desktop. Rebooting sucks i can only bring erros hehe.

Cya,
Xander

[Vouksh]

Ok, I've heard this argument so many times it made me laugh as soon as I saw it, then laugh even harder at all your responses.
I turn my computer off every night.
You know why?
Hard drives, heat, and power.
1. Hard Drives.
Think about what happens to a record. if you keep the needle on it 24/7, it'll eventually destroy it, will it not? Same thing with a hard drive. They are constantly spinning at 7500 RPM or more. Think about what that does to an engine. Plus they have these prong like things touching them, reading the data. Eventually (if they're left run all the time) these will start to either destroy themselves, causing corrupted dataflow, or destroy the disks themselves, causing complete hard drive failure.
2. Heat.
Consistent temperature?! wtf are you smoking man? That CPU MUST be cooled down at some point. The average CPU nowadays runs about 35-40 degrees Celcius, or 95-104 degrees Fahrenheit. That's not even under heavy load (watching movies, playing games, etc cause a heavy load). And the cooler your CPU, the longer its life. So turning it off every night keeps it's longivity.
3. Power.
This is up to you. But I have a 580W power supply in my beast, and my monitor prolly takes 3x that. Not much of a choice there

I've worked on computers since I was 9, and i'm just about 17. My dad has worked on them since he was 15-16, and now he's 44, and he agrees with every word.

I've seen tons of people bring computers to me from bad hard drives, and nearly all of them leave their computers running 24/7.

Edited by Vouksh, 07 December 2005 - 10:07 PM.

[adio38]

Usualy my computer goes into sleep mode all night, it is hardly ever turned off. The whole thing with not turning your system off. If your running windows 98, 1. you need to update 2. 98 is known to crash after awile, read an article that 98 after so many days of not being restarted or shut down, the resorces starting going down, witch slowed the computer down, and also programs would stop working. But I friends at microsfot made XP pretty much so it could run long times.

Adio

[RedDragon]

I turn it off whenever i leave home and ofcourse during the night.

- saves a little on my power bill. (this doesnt apply to kids living with their parents)
- I dont see the use of leaving it on
- my pc doesnt have to last for 20 yrs, as I buy a new one every 3 yrs.

and the most important reason...

my friend's tv caught fire during the night while on standby, the entire house burned down, including the cat.

Now I dont care about that cat, but since I have an appartment on the 2nd floor with only one exit, I would be that cat.. lol

So I turn off every device when going to bed, so I only need to worry about bats, but thats another story.

Edited by RedDragon, 08 December 2005 - 05:59 AM.

[Donna]

So I turn off every device when going to bed, so I only need to worry about bats, but thats another story.

In your case and bats visiting in the middle of the night lol I would turn all power off too

TV's are known for blowing up, never heard of a PC doing that though.

[RedDragon]

lol yup, thank god its getting cold, I can keep my windows closed

what about a pc with a tv-out? haha

[ktd]

Donna you will like this, My laptop's fan doesn't work

I can only have it on for an hour or two and then turn it off for about 30 minutes.

Man my computer is falling apart. It barly even starts up. I have to hold the power button for about 2 minutes

[Donna]

lol Kev sounds like fun, hopefully it lasts and does its job for a little longer hey.

[l3lueMage]

LOL, okay, about the harddrive spinning thing, my computer auto sleeps within 15minutes of non-use, The harddrive supposedly goes to 1/8 of the speed it normally does when on sleep/hybernate, also about heat, its freezing here, my window is right next to my computer, and whenever u touch the case of my computer its ice code, my computer doesnt use much power and it has like 4 fans, and its usually running at 36C, I have never seen it go higher then 37...EVeR(except when rendering something in 3d but all my trials are over so that takes care of that)...I have seen it go lower than 36 though. So most of the stuff you said doesnt fully apply to me, and the hard drive thing if people put theres to sleep, it doesnt apply to them either, the heat might - depends on their power/computer...

[Jeepinator]

My Hard Drives are set to shut of after 15 minutes of no activity. They stop spinning completely. Plus the arm can move off of the disks I think. In fact I dont think the contact it at all. It just scans the surface from a fraction of a millimeter away. By the way I have taken a 5 year old hard drive of mine apart and the disk didnt have anysort of wear marks. That PC was on almost 24/7 365

Oh and about heat:

The thing about it constantly cooling and reheating will probably wear it out more. When it cools the surfaces contract and when it heats they expand. All this expanding and contraction (eventually, and im talking like 15 years lol) will lead to failure. Just liek the sidewalks in your city. Those cracks arent from weight or traffic, its from expanding and contracting, they put the lines in them so it will break at that point. But either way, if you leave it on or shut it off everytime you leave it even for 15 minutes, I think any PC will last long enough until it is obselete

Edited by Jeepinator, 08 December 2005 - 11:10 PM.

[Faken]

Forgot an option... I turn it off when I'm not using it lol!

Faken

[Shock]

I have an old piece of crap HP computer I got back around 3-4 years ago. I've turned it off every night... No problems with it ever (besides losing my harddrive 9 times. - my own fault) . I don't mind waiting the 56 seconds it takes to boot up or the 8 seconds it takes to shut down. My sister has one which she never turns off because she claims it won't start back up. But won't leaving your computer on for an extended amount of time cause the fans to burn out eventually?

[Vouksh]

Ok, if you put your computer to sleep, it has to be running to allow everything to be kept in-ram. Oh, and that arm can't move off them. It's static. Doesn't ever move. It's the disks that spin. And it has to touch the disks to read them.

I don't feel like getting all drawn out right now, as I'm not feeling the greatest (g-pa's funeral is tomorrow, I'm sick, and it's snowing [I love snow, but I don't want to stand out in the cold])

[-Michael-]

The resources thing is true for sure. My PF shot up to about 5 gigs after leaving my computer for too long.