Should I use auto-sleep?

[couchLump]

I have been leaving my computer on all day and then using sleep mode at night, restarting about once a week.  I was wondering if it would be better for the longevity of my components to auto-sleep after ~20 min or so, or just leave the pc on like I have been doing.  I understand heat cycling is lessened by this method, but the collection of dust must be greater with the machine running all the time, and the lifespan of the fans would decrease I assume.  

[fuzz0r]

If you want my honest answer it sounds like you're overthinking it a little.

Your components will be fine even running like you do and restarting once a week.

Of course components degrade over time, and how fast it takes is based on a lot of factors.

TLDR: Don't worry about it, run your PC like you want!

[Mark Kaine]

Turning the pc on and off often, especially in 20-30 minutes intervals is the worst you can do to pretty much any electronic device.

 

Because the constant cooling and heating puts the most stress on them.

 

Better to just turn it off when you sleep or arent at home tbh. 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

19 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Turning the pc on and off often, especially in 20-30 minutes intervals is the worst you can do to pretty much any electronic device.

 

Because the constant cooling and heating puts the most stress on them.

 

Better to just turn it off when you sleep or arent at home tbh. 

This is really an exaggeration.  Your computers components are already moving between massive temperature deltas, from high end gaming to 'sitting idle on the desktop'.  Moreover while people will often cite 'Turning the PC off and on is the worst thing you can do to it' there are few stories of anyone experiencing drastically reduced service life on a PC just using the stock Windows 'Sleep' settings which is to sleep after 2hrs.

 

What people also don't bring up is power consumption, while your PC will consume 'minimal' power when idle, it'll still draw anywhere from 75-120w depending on the hardware, meanwhile sleep or hibernation are more like 1w or less.

Room hot in the summer?  Yes even idle, that PC is heating the room.  Pay your power bills?  That's going on your electrical bill.  Pay for HVAC?  Well, now you're paying money to have the PC make the room hotter and paying to then reduce that heat via the HVAC system.

Don't put your computer to sleep just because you ran to the bathroom but sleeping a PC after a perfectly reasonable amount of time minimizes how many hours you put on the hardware, minimizes excess het produced and energy consumed.  It's good for the hardware, good for the environment, and good for your wallet.