Do you keep your PC on 24/7 ?

[odiseo77]

I turn it off before going to bed at night or whenever I am away for more than one hour. Not only does it cheapen the electricity bill, but it's also more ecological.

[oldsoundguy]

I process for Boinc .. so the boxes are on 24/7

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I really can't answer the poll; because, I have laptops, a netbook, some desktop PCs, and servers. The poll does not allow multiple choices.

For everything except servers, they are turned off when not in use. When the servers are needed; such as, when I am doing expermients with cloud computing, SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, or running a multimedia server, they may be on 24/7. When I don't need the servers they are turned off.

Where I live, we normally have 3 months or more where the temperature is above 90 deg F and a month or more when the tempuratue is above 100 deg F. Our electric bill during the summer months is considerably more than what some areas north of us in cooler climates experience in in entire year.

The cost for electricity to run a computer that uses the same power as a 100W light bulb is trivial compared to running a 2 ton airconditioning unit 24/7 for 3 or 4 months.

[cbennett926]

Desktop, always on.

Laptop, never turned off, only suspended.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

Nope. I turn it off when I go to bed or leave the house. Just as I turn a light off when I leave a room, or turn the stereo off when I'm done listening to music. I don't care how much (or little) electricity is being used if it is left on. If any electrical item is not in use, it's off.

[1clue]

Is it bad for the computer to turn off ever time you finished on it?

There has been a big debate about that for as long as I've been in computers.

My personal answer is, "no."

At one point some argued that the shock on the electronics during power-up and -down took a little life off the system each time. That might technically be true, but FWIW I think you're more likely to have an "infant mortality" failure on a part than you are to see any difference because you push the power button twice a day.

[Paqman]

At one point some argued that the shock on the electronics during power-up and -down took a little life off the system each time. That might technically be true, but FWIW I think you're more likely to have an "infant mortality" failure on a part than you are to see any difference because you push the power button twice a day.

As a reliability engineer, I'd agree with that. Thermal shock is a real thing, and the components of a PC are operating at a high percentage of their homologous temperature, but there are failure modes associated with numbers of hours running as well as number of thermal cycles, especially for components with moving parts.

Bottom line is extremes of either will probably bite you.

[2XL]

My PC is kept on 24 hours day, every single day of the year. It's also kept on absolute maximum performance state - CPU on 100% clock performance all the time, GPU set to maximum performance, no hard disk spin down, no suspend or hibernate etc.

I build my machines for maximum performance and expect as such. Also, my PC is in use pretty much all day every single day, either by me personally or I'll have it doing a task. And when it's not in use, I like it at the ready all the time because I'm very ad-hoc with my usage. With no sleep pattern or time commitments I use my system at literally any time of the day or night.

Furthermore, with no download limits, I'll leave it to download stuff 24 hours a day, or simply stream HD vidocasts / podcasts etc.

Moreover, my PC uses hardly any power compared to the big screen TV, electric hot water, cooking etc. So it really is a non issue.

And lastly, the amount of times I have lost hardware due to turning on and off a PC is ridiculous. My last system went through fans and other hardware every 6 months (or less) due to this. When I started leaving it on 24 hours day, the hardware failures stopped. This system has had no failures in almost 5 years of being on 24 hours a day.

[1clue]

As a reliability engineer, I'd agree with that. Thermal shock is a real thing, and the components of a PC are operating at a high percentage of their homologous temperature, but there are failure modes associated with numbers of hours running as well as number of thermal cycles, especially for components with moving parts.

Bottom line is extremes of either will probably bite you.

OK serious question to the first person I've come into contact with who can probably give a reliable answer:

What is an expected time line here? If I shut down every night and wake it up every day, 365 days a year, how many years before I have a significant risk of hardware failure? I'm guessing that the lifespan we're talking about is larger than my desire to have the computer.

And is it different for a laptop or desktop?

[Roasted]

No. I have a server running 247 which I need to run 247 for different services... file, print, backup, video surveillance, web, etc... I have no need to keep my desktop running 247 as that's only more money burned on my electricity bill.

It's easy to forget things like that when you're living with your parents. It's much harder to ignore when the bill has your name on it.