Turn computers off at night?

[Curiousity]

I was under the impression that you should leave a computer on all the time to minimize the wear and tear that occurred when you turned it on.

One of my co-workers was telling me that this was true of older computers, but that you don't have to worry about this anymore and can turn them off when you are not using them. Is this true?


Thanks

 

[Kingofools]

I've honestly never heard of this being an issue, but I know from experience my computers tend to perform better when I shut them down. I recently purchased a new laptop (within the last month) and know for a fact, that when it sits idle for hours on end, it usually ends up with an error and restarts itself anyway. So in all honesty, it may not really matter, but I tend to turn mine off. I've never heard of excess wear and tear by shutting down.

Just my $0.02

 

[Miami797]

Your computer needs to cool down. The CPU, Video Card, RAM, Hard disks, almost everything gets hot with use. Besides the temps you also have moving parts in the fans and the hard disk that probably shouldn't be active all the time.

If you have to leave your computer on for a while you can change your hard disk settings in power options, so that it's not active unless you need it.

Nothing bad happens on boot up. You can speed it up by cleaning up your system or using an OS like lynux. Lynux would also let you keep your computer on all the time withour crashing so often.

 

[Liphted]

No reason to obsess about this, turn the f'ing thing on and off as you see fit. It's a machine, treat it as such.

 

[Curiousity]

I'm not obsessing. When I buy things, I want them to last a long time (last computer lasted 5 years before I upgraded and I am still using the original monitor) and I was told that it would last longer if I leave it on all the time. I do adjust the power settings of my harddrive and monitor.

If it makes the difference between having to upgrade every 5 years instead of every 3 years, then that's money that I'd rather spend in other places: investing, schooling... or pick a banner on this page!

 

[Narus63]

Leave it on. IT s like a light bulb. Leave it on all the time the bulb will last for over a year.. turn it off and on and its last a few weeks...sort of the same thing.

 

[Kaiser]

The biggest enemy of a computer is change in temperature. Change. If you leave it on or just reboot every once in a while your computer will more than likely last a little longer. This is not true for a laptop as they are to compact and have inefficient cooling. The change in temperature on computers cause materials to contract and expand. This is especially true with non solid state mechanical parts like a normal hard drive. Desktops I usually instruct my clients to leave on especially for updates and laptops turn off.

 

[trapz]

the reason your comp runs faster when you turn it off has nothing to do with powering it off and everything to do with shitty MS windoze.

 

[Liphted]

I'm not obsessing. When I buy things, I want them to last a long time (last computer lasted 5 years before I upgraded and I am still using the original monitor) and I was told that it would last longer if I leave it on all the time. I do adjust the power settings of my harddrive and monitor.

If it makes the difference between having to upgrade every 5 years instead of every 3 years, then that's money that I'd rather spend in other places: investing, schooling... or pick a banner on this page!

The obsession wasn't necessarily directed at you, but like I stated it is nothing you should even think twice about. If you're going to be away from your computer for more than ~4 hours turn it off, but if your stepping out for a bit and plan on hopping back on your computer, leave it on. It's as simple as that.

Thermal expansion and the related problems (chip creep) just aren't issues today, unless you are running a Commodore, which however cool that might be, I really hope you aren't. Advances in fabrication today yield much better hardware and the concerns people typically bring up come from issues from over a decade ago. If your computer is somewhat new (i.e. from this decade) you just don't really have to worry about it.

Ask yourself do you worry about turning your T.V. on and off, or do you stress every time you turn your gaming console off. No you don't, because it's not a concern, even though these two pieces of hardware contain the exact same types of components that are found in your computer.

 

[sup]

The biggest enemy of a computer is change in temperature. Change. If you leave it on or just reboot every once in a while your computer will more than likely last a little longer. This is not true for a laptop as they are to compact and have inefficient cooling. The change in temperature on computers cause materials to contract and expand. This is especially true with non solid state mechanical parts like a normal hard drive. Desktops I usually instruct my clients to leave on especially for updates and laptops turn off.

Ditto for my clients. Its also more convenient to schedule updates (Windows and Virus dat's) during non-use hours.

Honestly I would rather have my machine patched as early as possible.

My work machine has never been intentionally shutdown except for during installs or when my WSUS forces one.... 3+ years now