Is it okay to leave computer on forever than to turn on and off every day?

Question

Is it better to leave computer on to improve computer's life or is it better to turn it on and off everyday?

Answer 1

Hey Dude,

We were just talking about that here. :) If you understand the history, you will know the answer.

Back, in the day, idle computer time cost money. Actually now it does too, only it is insignificant.

Your computer is a dying thing since it is built. You only get so much processing, so much hard drive time, and so much out of the power supply before the computer fails.

It use to be that processors, power supplies, hard drives, etc had a MTBF (Mean time between failures) which helped people plan for when a failure would occur. This MTBF was measured in time that the device had power applied to it.

So, if you had a computer running, not doing any processing, it was slowly dying while not accomplishing anything. To extend the life of the Million Dollar computers, they would turn them off, park the hard drives and turn them back on. Sometimes, this act would throw the devices into a fault, causing more damage than if they were left on.

As computer technology became more reliable, the need to turn off computers diminished. However, know that your computer is still always in a state of dying. It is only a matter of time before your Power supply and Hard drive, fan, etc WILL fail.

Enter the "Internet"! Having your computer on 24/7 and being connected to the "internet" allows people to more readily get to your computer. The more time on the net, the more your address gets propagated.

Make sure you have some sort of firewall. I leave the 17 computers I have on most of the time.

My laptops, however, I turn off frequently. They do not have the life expectancy like good desktops.

Tom

Answer 2

By leaving it on overnight used to use less energy than rebooting it, but I think that has now changed.
For a normal PC running windows, each time you open an application, it opens a set of files and starts some processes, but when you close the application, it doesn't necessarily stop or close these, and they remain open. Since this happens many times, many processes are happening in the background, using your processor, and clogging it up. As a result over time your computer will slow down, as more processes remain open. By turning off the computer, all of these files are closed, and the processes are terminated, and once you reboot it, it doesn't reopen them, until you open the application.

The result of this is regular reboots speed up the computer, especially for laptops which already have low processing power.
For Apple Macs this is no issue, the programs close all their processes when the app closes

Another thing to consider is updating the system, firmware and operating software updates require a reboot. This is also the same for many software updates. Part of the result of not doing this is not updated software, which is more likely to have bugs, and security problems than the updates, so rebooting the computer allows these to install and update, reducing bugs and increasing security.
What ever you do with a laptops battery when leaving it on will degrade it, leaving it on constant charge can reduce its life, and also constant charging followed by use will also reduce its life. A solution is to plug it in, but remove the battery, but then you have no protection against power surges, which will cut the power to your computer, and force an instant shutdown, which can cause issues.

Answer 3

Depends. I have my PC's ( I have 6 running in my home ) do all of the scanning at night but I'm on my PC most of the day. The general rule of thumb is it's ok to leave a PC on just make sure you have a "Good" firewall setup. It's harder on it if you turn it off and on 10 times a day. You could select for it to sleep after so long if that makes you feel better. No matter what you read here, it's harder on chips to heat up and cool down a lot. As for as cost goes, like I said earlier, set it to sleep mode and it hibernates using very little electricity but still allows it to work at night while you sleep.

Answer 4

The practice of keeping your computer on non-stop came from the old days, when shutting down a computer too often caused damage to the machine.

With a modern computer, as long as you are shutting it down properly, no harm will come to the system if you turn it off every night.

Just keep in mind that, like a car, a computer uses a whole lot of extra energy to get itself started/shut down, so turning it on/off too much can waste electricity. Turning it off every night shouldn't cause any issue though.

Answer 5

For the hard drive its actually bad because the constant on and off makes the temperature go up and then down which ruins the hardware. To put it into perspective: the freezing, then heating and then refreezing of a rock eventually causes it to crack. Although this does happen your probably going to need a new computer before it does

Answer 6

As long as your fans are working fine, it is okay to do so...If it's a laptop I would not recommend this however. You may want to see what the temperature is of the computer after it has been running for awhile..
Here is a free
http://www.download.com/Motherboard-Monitor/3000-2086_4-10518385.html?tag=lst-0-3program to monitor your computers temperature

Answer 7

I turn off my PC but leave the power supply on

Answer 8

no your computer needs to shut down so it can save your setings. but you can leave it on for 2 or 3 days at a time.

Answer 9

You should probely just turn it on in the morning and turn it off b4 you go to bed. That Is what I do. But my friend used to turn it off when they weren't using it. But that is a pain. I suggest just turning it on in the morning and off before you go to bed.