leaving your computer on 24/7...

because I was told that it helps it to not have to boot up every day

That statement is a relic from another time when it was true it was not good to do that (due to the fact the hard drives could not handle it). But that's no longer the case. You can leave it on 24/7 but you need to be aware of things like making sure the system always stays cool. Setting up power management to spin down the hard drives when the machine is not in use and the wear and tear on the ball bearings of any fans. There's also the matter of your electric bill.

Personally I don't do it for workstations because I see no point. Servers obviously are a different manner.

I think if your going to be away from it for a day you should turn it off. Thats what my mac pro instructions read. My PC on the other hand if its running for several days it gets sluggish, so it has to be turned off just to reset.

I think the idea behind not booting up all the time had to do with temp of the computer. All the circuits heat up and expand when its on then cool down and shrink when its off. Overtime this causes failures....not sure how many times it would take but I'm sure it would take hundreds or thousands of times to wear it out by this means.

I'm not sure, but I think if you leave your computer on, the memory starts to get clogged because it allocates memory in chunks which are never completely deallocated unless the computer is shut off. If you use the computer a lot (like every day) then I could see you leaving it on, but turning it on and off every day isn't going to hurt it much. Though like =Exsecror says, you should adjust the power settings so that it will be in standby and/or hibernation when you aren't using it so that 1) It doesn't get too hot or destroy the fans and 2) so that your electric bill doesn't get huge.

~Istarian

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c. 2006 DeviantArt user ~Istarian, respective owner and creator of said user.

Slightly un-related, but, my friend leaves his pc on, all the time. Hasnt been turned off (to my knolage) in a month. Although he does say he has had some sluggish moments.

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I leave mine on all of the time.

Make sure that your computer is healthy and isn't making a load whirring noise. When it does that, it means that the fan is working extra hard or having trouble cooling off the computer.

I also have automatic power-save. If I'm gone for a while, it doesn't go to a screen saver. It instead completely shuts off the monitor and puts the computer to sleep.

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Desktop PC is designed to work 24/7, but if you do that, you'll shorten the lifespan of all hardware significantly. There's one thing that you cannot handle on your PC (I'm assuming your's s a workstation): heat. The more the hour it's on, the more your hardware exposed to heat.

In my own experience, a constant working PC will keep slowing down after 4 hours of usage.

I suggest to you and to anybody here to turn off your PC while not in use, especially laptops which only has 8 hours per day lifespan. Overworked PC will tend to betray you in your most dire situation, so please give them more love.

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~LuzBalthasaar =PerseBalthasaar ~Serpentear
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In my own experience, a constant working PC will keep slowing down after 4 hours of usage.

Let me guess. You are using windows. Well it that case it is true. Windows can not handle 24/7 operation with out being rebooted.

However, if you are using linux you should be find. As long as it is one of the server distros.

Of course, but do your Linux run a program (yes, single program) that ate > 500MB?

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~LuzBalthasaar =PerseBalthasaar ~Serpentear
We are the Balthasaars! *Strange music plays*

yeah I'm using Windows. Thanks for the info!

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