leaving computer on

[curious]

What is the general rule or is there one about leaving a PC on all the time. I have had two hard drives fail in a row within one year. Someone suggested turning the PC on everytime I want to use it could be a problem. Any thoughts on this?

[Randy_tx]

Two hard drives in one year.....wow.....very unusual if they were both NEW. You will get the always on camp and turn it off camp in any discussion like this! My experience is that it didnt matter which way you went until about 2-3 years ago when processor speeds started exploding and keeping these new fast processors COOL became vital. I turn mine off any time I will be away from the computer for more than 2-3 hours...period! I have an AMD Athalon cpu and they run hot anyway; however, even a new generation Intel Pentium chip will quickly overheat if the CPU fan dies [and TRUST ME, they die!].

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Will XP save Me ?

[Bailey]

The answer to this question really depends upon how you use your computer. My recommendation is when the computer is turned on at the first of the day or mid day that it stay on until it is last used and then turned off for the night.

If however you want to run scandisk or defrag during the night, you will need to leave the computer on during the night.

I really think that it matters little if you shut it down daily, or leave it on 24/7.


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"Ooooh, They have the
internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson (http://asf.allwavs.com/wav4/Simpsons/inetcptr.wav)

[sea69]

I'm with Randy on this one now.

I was one that always said I leave my pc on 24/7, but now that it's almost a year old I need to consider that T-Bird processor like Randy was saying runns hot and my fan could stop working at any given time.. leaving under 10 seconds for my cpu to fry.

must admit, I do leave it on most of the time.. when I go to sleep, so does my machine.

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

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homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)


;)~

[hiredgoonz]

And if you do leave the system on 24/7 it's probably a good idea to have a temperature monitoring program with the ability to shutdown the system when it gets to a certain temp...

I have a Slot Athlon with 2 fans on the hs, and I figure the odds of both fans failing simultaneously aren't real high so I don't worry too much about leaving mine on...

That said, I do shutdown at night unless I'm running something...

Motherboard Monitor is a free cpu temp monitoring prog. and you can set it to run a program at a certain temperature, so I have it set to run shutdown.exe at 50 degrees Celsius...just in case...

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When all else fails, read the instructions.

[iisbob]

Like the rest have stated i've heard both sides of the story; and i witness it nightly( work leaves their systems up 24/7 ) but they have no choice-if their systems go down they lose business, but on the other side they certainly have finiacial resources i dont?! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif Therefore i always trun my system off whenever i know i'm not going to be on it for any length of time; ie. bedtime , etc..you'll find a no# of diverse opinions on this, but as has been stated by Sea and the others-with todays newer tech ( and more power drains, plus heat ) it's probably a better bet to not leave it on all the time.

Think of it this way; you don't leave your new car running all the time do you?!

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iisbob
"Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run."

[RUSKYNY]

I ONCE READ AND I'M SURE PEOPLE WILL AGREE THAT IF YOU PLAN TO OPEN AND CLOSE YOU COMPUTOR MORE THEN THREE TIMES A DAY THEN LEAVE IT ON. OPENING AND CLOSING CONTRACTS THE CIRCITS WHICH CAN CAUSE SOME OF THEM TO SPLIT FROM BEING HOT WHEN YOU TURN ON THE COMPUTOR AND COLD WHEN THEY COOL DOWN

[curious]

Originally posted by RUSKYNY:
I ONCE READ AND I'M SURE PEOPLE WILL AGREE THAT IF YOU PLAN TO OPEN AND CLOSE YOU COMPUTOR MORE THEN THREE TIMES A DAY THEN LEAVE IT ON. OPENING AND CLOSING CONTRACTS THE CIRCITS WHICH CAN CAUSE SOME OF THEM TO SPLIT FROM BEING HOT WHEN YOU TURN ON THE COMPUTOR AND COLD WHEN THEY COOL DOWN

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif Thanks very much for the info, I think I will try to follow that idea.

[evalroy]

Curious,

I am just curious: were these new hard drives, what brand drives and what brand of computer were they installed?

We've had a very bad run of luck with Quantum IDE drives in 5 out of 11 Dells we bought last year at work. Each was replaced under warranty, but imagine the inconvenience! Nosing around the net it seems that it was not a great year for Quantum HD's in Dell boxes (note - overall we have had great success with our Dells over the years).

Like I said, just curious,
ER


Originally posted by curious:
What is the general rule or is there one about leaving a PC on all the time. I have had two hard drives fail in a row within one year. Someone suggested turning the PC on everytime I want to use it could be a problem. Any thoughts on this?



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I think, therefore I am -What the hell was I thinking?

[paul_barr]

There is one thing that could fry your drive or any part of your PC thats not mentioned here and that is mains spikes. While your PSU is filtered it may not get some of the surges that can be experienced on mains supplies ( several KV). They are caused by sombody on your single phase supply using noisy equipment such as big old motors (power drills etc)They could be three doors down the street so you won't stop them.

These spikes will be transferred onto your low voltage rails by induction if not directly and can be considerably high. Try buying a Mains block with built in suppressor.

P

[Musashi]

What is a good line filter at a good price?

And should all computers have such a filter hooked up? Is this a bad problem?