ok to leave my pc, with broadband and XP, switched on all the time?

Answer 1

I do and and its fine for me. Actually I think they reccomend it if you have broadband... Its just a little extra wear and tear on your power supply. Heres what to do if you leave you computer on 24/7... go into control panel, power options and change the settings so that your monitor goes off after 10 minutes, and your hard dive off after 20 minutes, and if you wish you can set your system to sleep or hibernate after a certain period of time too. this will save your hard drive, video card, and monitor a significant amount of life. And lastly If you have a newer AMD processor you can download amd's cool n quiet program which makes your system run off less power when it is idle. good luck!

Answer 2

Good answers all, so far.

Two other things to consider --

The best reason for leaving your machine on is that the point where most electrical and electronic devices fail is during the initial power surge when you turn them on.

On the other hand, heat is bad for integrated circuits. And, should you get any malware on your computer, it can be doing things behind the scenes while the machine is on -- especially if connected to the Internet.

Always shut down and unplug the power and network connections during a thunderstorm. Even a surge of a few volts can cause serious problems.

Answer 3

And connected to the internet? No. It will be infected quickly, and your computer will then be one of millions of bots sending out spam all day long. That's more than just a nuisance to the rest of us, it also drives up costs for ISPs, who then pass that cost on to us as higher prices. By the way, AV software is no guarantee that you won't get infected.

If you want to leave your computer on all the time, replace it with a Mac. They're immune to PC viruses, and they're much easier to work with.

Once you've got a Mac, install some distributed computing software on it so that it's doing something useful when you're not using it. No sense in just wasting the electricity.

Answer 4

leaving the puter on wont harm it in any way, a hardware firewall as built in to a router is preferable, do turn off in a thunderstorm, turning ur computer on and of in different temperatures causes more malfunctions over the long term and shortens the lifespan of the PSU, also keeping the computer at a constant temp prevents chip and board creep, but be aware that ur fan or fans are working

Answer 5

You HAVE to have a decent firewall application - both on your router and on your computer. Checkpoint Integrity CLient is ace (doesn't comsume your system resources like Norton etc).

I would also periodically reboot and think about switching on "Automatic XP Updates".

Answer 6

Yep. Just make sure you've got a good firewall installed and set you're idle settings so that you don't waste too much elecy. Oh, and be prepared to buy a new PSU in a couple of years when it fails due to constant use.

Answer 7

Aslong as you have a good firewall and virus scannerthere is no problem. although broadband does go down from time to time due to problems :)

Answer 8

it will reduce the life of your PC, but not dramatically.
plus you have to pay a big electricity bill.

Stefan Neagu
http://the.tech.guy.net.googlepages.com/
daily technology news

Answer 9

theoretically it is absolutely fine. it won't affect your PC at all, providing that it has a decent cooling system.

it certainly won't reduce the lifespan of your PC.

what you need to take into consideration is cost of electricity, waste of electricity, power surges, heat gain, etc, etc

Answer 10

I used to leave my pc on all the time, primarily because i download alot, and mostly because it was alot easier and more efficient to download all my crap while i was away =)