Home PCs, year 2006 - turn off at night or leave on?
About 5 years ago, I asked all my PC Tech friends this question -- for home users, should they turn their PCs (old and new) off at night, or leave them on.
Exactly half the guys said -- Turn it off. You'll get less dust -- dust is the killer. General rule of thumb -- less time on means less heat, means longer life.
The other half of the guys said -- Leave it on. Parts burn out when you turn on the PC and the current runs thru the PC. So just leave it on, using restart when necessary. If it's a good PC, the fan will keep it cool. And a screen will keep the dust out, etc etc.
Do you guys agree, is it 50/50? Or has it changed in the last 5 years?
Exactly half the guys said -- Turn it off. You'll get less dust -- dust is the killer. General rule of thumb -- less time on means less heat, means longer life.
The other half of the guys said -- Leave it on. Parts burn out when you turn on the PC and the current runs thru the PC. So just leave it on, using restart when necessary. If it's a good PC, the fan will keep it cool. And a screen will keep the dust out, etc etc.
Do you guys agree, is it 50/50? Or has it changed in the last 5 years?
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Gary Case
... I agree that even if you turn them off they should still be on UPS's. ALL of my PC's are on UPS's -- and when I have a friend's here to work on, it's on a UPS too :-) I simply do NOT expose any PC to unplanned power outages.
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Wow, great answers, on both sides..
I do NOT have a UPS. Even tho the breaker cuts off power about once a week.
My assumptions (most of which are probably wrong)
(1) losing power temporarily in a power outage is the same (to the OS and hardware) as unplugging a live pc with no UPS
(2) the above 2 situations are identical, in terms of stressing the hardware, as shutting down the computer, waiting, and turning it back on (booting windows) -- but they are harder on the OS... (in other words, teh only benefit of using shutdown vs unplug, if for the OS, not the hardware
(3) using restart rather that shutdown avoids the "electrical stress" of turning power off then on
(4) turning off and and restarting the operating system is good for the Operating system, as nobus said.
Are any of these right?
thx!
I do NOT have a UPS. Even tho the breaker cuts off power about once a week.
My assumptions (most of which are probably wrong)
(1) losing power temporarily in a power outage is the same (to the OS and hardware) as unplugging a live pc with no UPS
(2) the above 2 situations are identical, in terms of stressing the hardware, as shutting down the computer, waiting, and turning it back on (booting windows) -- but they are harder on the OS... (in other words, teh only benefit of using shutdown vs unplug, if for the OS, not the hardware
(3) using restart rather that shutdown avoids the "electrical stress" of turning power off then on
(4) turning off and and restarting the operating system is good for the Operating system, as nobus said.
Are any of these right?
thx!
(1) No -- an outage will generally have much more of a transient waveform and can cause much more damage; although unplugging the PC is also not good for it.
(2) Absolutely not -- shutting down the PC causes a single, controlled loss of power to all of the components; unplugging it can cause a momentary spike due to the loss of grounding; and an outage is often accompanied by several spikes (within a few milliseconds) that are the worst yet.
(3) Yes -- this is a control line that resets everything programmatically and does not cause the same level of stress on components as a power off/on cycle.
(4) Not really "good" for it; but rebooting will cause all of the drivers to be reinitialized; buffers to be reset; etc. -- and if any of these have been in any way corrupted a restart will resolve that. With earlier OS's that had noticeable memory leaks (e.g. the 9x OS's) this was definitely a desirable thing; with NT-based OS's (NT, 2000, XP) it's much less necessary. I haven't rebooted my system for weeks at a time -- it generally only gets rebooted when an update requires it.
(2) Absolutely not -- shutting down the PC causes a single, controlled loss of power to all of the components; unplugging it can cause a momentary spike due to the loss of grounding; and an outage is often accompanied by several spikes (within a few milliseconds) that are the worst yet.
(3) Yes -- this is a control line that resets everything programmatically and does not cause the same level of stress on components as a power off/on cycle.
(4) Not really "good" for it; but rebooting will cause all of the drivers to be reinitialized; buffers to be reset; etc. -- and if any of these have been in any way corrupted a restart will resolve that. With earlier OS's that had noticeable memory leaks (e.g. the 9x OS's) this was definitely a desirable thing; with NT-based OS's (NT, 2000, XP) it's much less necessary. I haven't rebooted my system for weeks at a time -- it generally only gets rebooted when an update requires it.
Thank you much. : )
Garycase needs to take a vacation. I am getting tired of posting "Ditto" behind him. : P
Garycase needs to take a vacation. I am getting tired of posting "Ditto" behind him. : P
dgrrr -- if you haven't figured it out yet, let me make it crystal clear: the single biggest improvement you could make in the reliability of your system is to buy a good UPS ==> do not buy a low-end unit without automatic voltage regulation (AVR).
... interestingly, I was at a friend's house yesterday looking at the damage he had last week from a direct lightning strike. Hit the roof over the garage and did quite a bit of damage to the house; blew out the A/C unit; fried several major appliances; and destroyed both of the UPS units he had purchased a few months ago on my recommendation -- but BOTH computers (which had, in fact, been on when the strike hit) are fine :-) Needless to say, he's now a very strong believer in my "UPS is a mandatory accessory" theory. And Belkin (the UPS's he had were these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16842101219) is replacing both units for free.
... interestingly, I was at a friend's house yesterday looking at the damage he had last week from a direct lightning strike. Hit the roof over the garage and did quite a bit of damage to the house; blew out the A/C unit; fried several major appliances; and destroyed both of the UPS units he had purchased a few months ago on my recommendation -- but BOTH computers (which had, in fact, been on when the strike hit) are fine :-) Needless to say, he's now a very strong believer in my "UPS is a mandatory accessory" theory. And Belkin (the UPS's he had were these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16842101219) is replacing both units for free.