"Keep your PC/iMac systems powered up 24/7... or not?" Topic

Sorry if there is a more appropriate board on which to bring up this topic but I couldn't find anything strictly related to computer issues anymore in the board lists.

In the nearly 3 decades that we've had computer systems in the home the accepted wisdom on whether to preserve the electronics by turning them off overnight, etc., or not, seems to have flipped 180° at least two or three times.

I just had a Dell LCD monitor die on me last week after three years' use. I was asked if I left my system on constantly. Over the last several years I had been doing so (perceived wisdom) and the response I got was "Well, there you go then!"

The tech said that the technology has changed such that both systems (and monitors) should both be powered off when not being used, even if only for a couple of hours. The danger now being of components ultimately being "overcooked" through being constantly powered up?

I'm still having difficulty abandoning the (seemingly sensible) idea that the off-on surges would do damage. I'd be interested in what opinions, and advice, on this question people here may have gathered in recent months and/or years.

TIA

I don't really know either, one way or the other.

For over twenty years I shut my computers down when not in use, more out of habit than anything else.

In recent years I've taken to leaving my main PC on all the time. It runs for months and months without a reboot. The only time I shut it off is if I'm going away for more than a few days.

I have left everything powered on for weeks at a time with no adverse effects. I like to reboot once every couple of weeks, though. The only time there has ever been an issue is when the CPU doesn't have adequate ventilation, and then it can overheat.

If you're not running anything then the hard drive isn't doing any work so you're not wearing anything out.

Monitors may be different, but I've had one that hasn't been turned off in three years and one that has been running constantly for two.

All that being said, they do consume energy when on but not in use.

While I am not sure about the on and off impact on the PC, I am 100% sure of the impact of the PC running all the time on the fans in the system. I tend to turn my PC off when not in use, but other friends and family leave theirs on all the time. Th issue is while I have rarely ever had to replace a fan in my PCs, they are constantly having issues, especially with video card fans burning out. Since these are moving parts with bearings in them, its just a matter of time before they wear out. In some cases they are easy to replace, but in others where they are hard connected to a video card or are of a strange shape/location in the cases, they can cause a major headache and cost to replace (normally have to replace the whole video card).

Watching their troubles makes me happy to turn my PC off when it is not needed.

Jeff

switch off, save the world a bit.

iMac here. No. It automatically goes into a low power mode when not in use.

It depends.

Electronics per se do not age differently by much powered or not provided they are within their temp range – for CMOS, it's something like -20 degrees C to +70 degrees C, so not to worry.

Fans are another story. Moving parts, hence they can wear out. Should last 5 years for continuous use though, but will depend on the quality of the fan.

LCDs, on the other hand, run a chance of burning out the back light. So these should probably be turned off.

Hard disks have a pretty high mean time between failure, but they do have moving parts. A lower power mode that turns them off seems like a good idea.

My windows machine I always turned off, because it needed a reboot once a week anyway. My iMac I leave on, but put in sleep mode. That way, I can jump on to TMP in seconds.

>>>iMac here. No. It automatically goes into a low power mode when not in use.<<<

My wife has an iMac and I have a Dell PC. She always puts her iMac into Sleep Mode when not using it which we have thought was sufficient powering down (re the LCD back light as well)?

>>>LCDs, on the other hand, run a chance of burning out the back light. So these should probably be turned off.<<<

I've had my Dell set to power down both the monitor and HD after a designated interval and activity, so would that be considered actually "turned off"? The tech said, "Just do the easy thing and turn it off if the power strip."

>>>Hard disks have a pretty high mean time between failure, but they do have moving parts. A lower power mode that turns them off seems like a good idea.<<<

Think that my power down described above (both PC and the iMac) seems sufficient?

Many thanks for your responses…

I leave my Toshiba laptop on 24/7 (used as a desktop hooked to a 19" monitor and USB keyboard\mouse). I usually turn the monitor off when I go to bed or when I'm at work, but the computer stays on. Never had a problem.

Businesses i work for typically leave a lot of their pc's on 24/7 although the monitors usually power down to "sleep" mode after a bit.

At home we have always turned off pc's at night and monitors whenever not in use, mainly to save electric.

I have not noticed any significant problems or failures either way tbh.

I would personally recommend turning them all off at night unless you "really" hate waiting for boot up, and don't mind the cost on your electric bill !

regards

Sounds to me like the tech is just blowing smoke. If everything is in sleep (like you said) it should be fine. It certainly wouldn't void your warranty, if they're trying to argue that.

Rich

>>>and don't mind the cost on your electric bill !<<<

There is, of course, that and the impact on world resources. But we began to wonder, would we be doing more damage by dumping a burned-out monitor every few years or by powering down 24/7?

>>>If everything is in sleep (like you said) it should be fine.<<<

That's what we tend to believe. Smoke blowing seems to be an all too notable characteristic of tech support.

LCD backlights have a finite lifetime, which depends mostly on how long they are on. Turn it off when not in use.

Hard drives used to be much more sensitive to spinning up and down. Server class drives (SCSI, SAS, etc.) are still designed with the idea that they will run almost continuously, but consumer drives can be spun up and down a lot without damage. Laptop drives are designed to go up and down all the time without any damage.

In general, you are almost certainly better off, when using consumer grade hardware, to power it off (or put it in a "hibernate" mode that draws ~<1 watt) when not in use for more than ~0.5-1 hour.

Whether something is actually "off" when in low power mode depends on a lot of different factors. Many consumer electronics draw a significant fraction of full power when in "standby" mode. Some older LCDs don't properly shut off the backlight when told to go into sleep mode. There may be newer LCDs with the same problem.

A Kill-A-Watt is an inexpensive (~$25) way to test the power draw of different pieces of equipment.

link

My Dell screen has also just died . I always used to power it off at night but have recently been leaving it in sleep mode so I can run scans when I go to bed . I turn the screen off but leave the system going. I think I've had the system five years .
I am using an old VDU at the moment and think the picture is much better . I will get a decent LCD screen soon when I decide what I want .

I always switch mine off at home and at work. At work, I and my staff do a lot of database work and this tends to really crap up PCs over time. Memory leaks from objects that are not closed in programming (and I'm probably guilty of that myself) and just general database crunching tends to wear down an XP machine to the point where when people come to me to say such and such is not working, a response from me of "did you turn your machine off, wait about ten minutes and then power on again" takes care of most problems. Not all, but most.

We had a Dell laptop LCD monitor die after about three years, so given others' experience in this topic, I suspect there's something Dellish going on…
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Tim

Back in the late 80s and early 90s, the most stressful thing you could do to a pc was to turn it on as the electronics warmed up from cold (aka thermal stress)).

Additionally, hard drive heads did not automatically 'park' so frequent on/off could cause a head crash.

Computers made in the last 10 years really don't have these problems so it doesn't hurt to turn them off when not in use.

Remember though, that a computer will always suck some electricity unless it is unplugged.

Since I've had home PCs since 1985 (and home C/PM machines since before then), I tend to leave mine on 24/7. Just a habit from the 'old days'.

Regards, the Gorb

This is the first time at work that the IT department told us to shut everything off when we go home.

My home computer is an HP Laptop and I always shut it off when not using it, mainly because I am concerning with it getting too hot.

At work, systems are left on constantly. So, that tells me that we should be replacing our systems about every three years then?

Leaving the system on doesn't hurt a thing. In fact it is useful to let the Anti-Virus program do its stuff in the off hours while you sleep. Most monitors have a sleep function so screen fry won't happen. I leave mine on constantly. It's five years old. Also, my "Franken-Computer" is running just fine.

Two things that could possibly have happened to your monitor: 1) If you were running directly to the wall, a power surge may have killed it. 2) It's a 3 year old monitor. It just gave up! Sometimes that happens.
I'll go with #2. Get another and move on.

One thing I will tell you that does help is a quality un-interruptible power supply (UPS). The power strip style surge suppressors can help some but UPS's will provide a great degree of power and the battery will help stabilize the current in the case of a power surge.

Hope that helps some…

John

I've got a Dell LCD that had been turned on pretty much constantly for over three years now. When I first got it I always turned it off when I used it. The problem is with all that turning off and on the physical switch broke. Fortunately it broke in the on position. Now when I want to turn it off, I have to unplug it. I've had no problems with it burning out. I'm just waiting for it to burn out before I worry about getting a new one.

The PC on the other hand does shut off, but I don't turn it off, except to reboot it or if I'm going to be gone for an extended time. I've had it for about five years now. It's got a fan that is making more noise these days.

Turn them off when you don't need them, it will save power. Sleep modes enable faster bootup but still use some power so at least turn off the monitor.

I use the power management wake up setting in my PC's BIOS; for me what works is to have it turn on at 5:30 pm. I schedule all my system updates and virus scans to happen then; usually I don't sit down before 6:30 pm, often later. When I go to bed I do a shutdown. That gets more than half a day's power savings every day.

For my laptop, I always put it into standby when I pack it up. Conserves battery life.

Leaving gear on all the time will:

a) use power, bad for the planet and your pocket.

b) probably (although not certainly) lead to space leaks, runaway processes and all kinds of bad things unless you have 100% reliable software. Nothing a regular restart won't fix.

Even our '24x7' systems at work do regular restarts to deal with (b) (some it is phased around a cluster so the service stays up even if a node is down).

Along with advising users to power off all their personal kit when they leave work, we also do selective powerdowns of server hardware to save on power/cooling during periods of low demand. We also do forced remote powerdowns on open access kit (thousands of PCs) after a certain idle time. This attempts to address (a).

Always turned them off. Discourages casually time wasting on them and saves power. Everything has always lasted forever and been given to family members, indeed they get obsolete not damaged.

So far, nobody has mentioned the only REAL reason to turn your computer off when it's not in use – security. Even the cleverest hacker can't get in if there's no power.

That perception on security is, well, the formal term is "naive".

It's like saying, hey burglars come by in my neighborhood all the time, but my plan is to fool them. I have a mobile home and I'll just drive it somewhere else sometimes. I'm hoping one of the times I'm out, a burglar will come by, see the vacant lot, and then just go away and never come back.

Translation: Practice good power management for its own sake. Don't think of it as a security measure though, because it's not.

I leave my work and personal computers on 24/7. Same with my wife. It's a convenience thing. When you are on the clock close to 18 hours a day, you get impatient with the 30-60 second boot time.