Turning Computer Off Vs. Keeping On

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I have heard many mixed views about this and would like to confirm:

Is it better to leave the computer on (for days) or to shutdown every evening for the night? Maybe its best to leave it on in standby? Which is best for less power consumption and for the components? I don't want to stress the hard drives/cpu too much. Thanks.
 
Leaving it on won't stress the components too much. I've left my systems on 24/7 and none have died from it. In fact, HDDs don't like power fluctuations, so if you can, keep them running, lol, and make sure you have a nice UPS.

If you want to save power, turn it off or put it in standby. If you don't care about saving power and want to Fold@Home, then go for it.
 
Mine is on 24/7 and has been/is ultra reliable through 2 generations of this PC now.

For power consumption, its an absolute no brainer, turn it off when finished.
For reliability, its a 2 edged sword.
Some components will age quicker by getting hot then cold a lot, others will die earlier from being left on.

Overall I'd have to say my PC has never been so reliable since I started running it 24/7 so I believe its better to leave it on 24/7 for reliability.

I do still use power saving on my hard drives, set to turn off after 45mins which goes against the grain as they are THE component I would have thought was most likely to fail from power cycling. Gotta say it works great though.
I run 3 Western Digital drives btw.

I've had no hardware failures for so long I cant remember now :)

Standby wont change the reliability in any way except maybe make the PSU age a teeny tiny bit faster.
I wouldnt worry about standby unless you are concerned about wasting a few Watts.

ps my power consumption at idle is around 130W
 
meh i've been turning my pc's off at night for years, i mean 10+ years and I have NEVER had a problem, I still have 5+ year old systems (amd tbird 1.33 w/ asus mobo) still running perfectly, which are turned on and off once a day.. I'd rather save $ on the electricity and turn the damn things off when they are not in use.. I won't knock anyone for their opinion but I think it's a load of crap that it's better to leave your systems running constantly, even if the daily on & off does stress the board, what is it going to do, shave a year off of it's ~8 year lifespan, by that time it's obsolete anyway
 
Im sure you could save a few dollars on your electric bill if you shut it off when you arent using it. I leave mine on all day, when I leave for work I shut it off.
 
^^ dual folding 24/7 in the house

enginurd said:
Leaving it on won't stress the components too much. I've left my systems on 24/7 and none have died from it. In fact, HDDs don't like power fluctuations, so if you can, keep them running, lol, and make sure you have a nice UPS.

If you want to save power, turn it off or put it in standby. If you don't care about saving power and want to Fold@Home, then go for it.
Click to expand...

I read something recently by an HD manf talking about how newer hard drives are less susceptible to that, can't find the article though.

I've always thought that temperature would be more of an issue too, since a lot of times HD cooling is neglected.
 
Vista Hybrid sleep for the win. The only time the system reboots is when a windows update or installed app needs it too.
 
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