Question for the computer electronics experts here

[sudsman]

Have inverters and computer controls on almost all of the equiptment here now. Some mfgs. says to leave them on all the time. (sure they want to sell parts) some tell us to turn them off at night. Some tell me it makes no difference.. So What is the best to do? For longest life expect.

 

[dirtybuck]

My computer gets turned off at night, and the monitor goes into "sleep" mode. Some companies leave their computers on overnight, but with the temp county govt. job I had, we were required to turn ours off before we left for the day.

I want to take everything off my desk and disconnect all the plugs and cables from the computer and do some cleaning back there, and also clean the computer peripherals. ALL of the computer related items will be plugged into my surge protector and I will start turning that off at night. I'm curious to see if there might be any notable savings on my electric bill (I've heard that plugged in appliances when turned off, still use electricity), so we'll give it a shot and see what happens.

 

[whirlcool]

Monitors need to cool down periodically, usually at least 3 hours in every 24 to extend the life of them. As far as computers go, I turn mine on in the am and then use the "sleep mode" when I'm not using it. When it's time to do to bed, I shut it off.
With my laptop, it's on only when I am using it, then I shut it down. I use this mostly on the road.

 

[dirtybuck]

Whirlcool...

Thanks for the advice on the monitor...I'm going to start doing that from now on. I mean, how hard can it be to press a button?

 

[andrewinorlando]

Many companies that leave their computers on overnight do so because that is when they do updates and/or backups. We use SMS servers to push software at night, do OS upgrades, server backups, etc. These are things we could not do during working hours as they consume network resources at high rates. Computers are designed to run 24/7 in most cases without the need to cool off. Windows, however, may need reboots to keep itself running smoothly.

Personally, I shut mine off at home. With a 450 watt power supply, even at idle, it's consuming approx 100 watts of power. Would rather save the money.

 

[autowasherfreak]

I also turn mine on in the morning and either use standby or hibernate modes during the day and power it off at night.

 

[launderess]

Turn on in the morning, it goes into "sleep" when we are not using it for awhile, then turned off at night before bed.

No sense leaving something on all night. However will do so if running clean-up programs such as defragmenting, Scandisk and virus scans. Such things take ages and best done when the computer won't be needed for awhile.

L.

 

[qsd-dan]

As far as longevity, keeping the computer on 24/7 is easiest on the unit, especially the hard drive. We have an ancient old Dell desktop from 1995 at work and everything is original, including some of the info stored on the hard drive. It runs an honest 24/7 as it's hooked up through the backup generator outlets. I've been fighting off IT for several years as they have been wanting to retire it, but honestly, it just performs some very minor monitoring and does it just as well as a new high dollar computer.

As far as my own computer goes, I put it in standby mode before bed and do a hard boot once a week.

 

[sudsmaster]

Modern hard drives are robust enough that powering them off every night shouldn't have much if any effect on their longevity. It would be argued that there is more wear (to the bearings etc) by leaving them on when they are not needed.

Leaving a PC on all the time means that it's helping to clean the room air - all that dust winds up getting sucked in by the fan and deposited on the circuitry. Bad idea. Big iron computers have air filters or even heat exchangers to keep the innards clean, but the PC was built with a different sort of mindset. By leaving the air filter off, the air filter will never clog, but the hardware does suffer the consequences. The designers didn't trust home consumers to check/clean the air filters etc.

Oh, and those fans have a limited lifespan also. Turning the computer off at night will help them last longer, as well.

 

[mattl]

Sorry, after about 20 years of building and using computers, mine stay on 24/7. My hard drives rarely fail, and when one does fail it's during boot up. Hard drives are more rugged today, but a few cents of electricity is a small price to pay to avoid loosing lots of data, and buying a new hard drive. Not to mention the time it takes to rebuild the system. Even with a back up it's still time consuming.

I have just about all of my family doing the same thing and to be honest, I have not had to replace one of their hard drives in years. I'm sold on 24/7

 

[brisnat81]

My PC is 24x7, with a 150watt powersupply, I've thought about shutting it down for a quarter and comparing power bills but cant be bothered.

I did the same with my last one, which was a 1998 HP Vectra and it ran 24x7 for 9 years. Its still working, its just been retired. The HDD was replaced in Year 5, but that was to upgrade the 4gb hdd to a 40gb hdd.

This PC is now 2 years old and is only turned off when we go away for more than a night. No issues so far and as data is backed up weekly to an external HDD I'm not overly fussed if the drive fails. This one is one of the last non Lenovo desktops.

I do always power the screen off, be it LCD or CRT.

Laser Printer and Scanner go to sleep of their own accord.