computers.... on or off?

[jaspertf]

hey

 

so ive been jumping around the internet trying to find a conclusive answer to whether leaving your computer on all the time is bad for it

 

Just when i think ive found a good answer, i find another thread / site saying the opposite.

So, a final answer is what I (and a few others im sure) want

 

And i dont really mean like leaving it actually on, i would just put it into sleep everytime im done

i dont like to turn on / off my computer for reasons too long to explain

Ive heard hard drives will eventually be worn down, along with fans / a bunch of other stuff for pretty much no reason if i leave it on

but if i put it in sleep, it should be fine, right?

[ttam]

hey

 

so ive been jumping around the internet trying to find a conclusive answer to whether leaving your computer on all the time is bad for it

 

Just when i think ive found a good answer, i find another thread / site saying the opposite.

So, a final answer is what I (and a few others im sure) want

 

And i dont really mean like leaving it actually on, i would just put it into sleep everytime im done

i dont like to turn on / off my computer for reasons too long to explain

Ive heard hard drives will eventually be worn down, along with fans / a bunch of other stuff for pretty much no reason if i leave it on

but if i put it in sleep, it should be fine, right?

It doesn't hurt anything. 

I leave mine on 24/7 with random restarts. 

 

On note of HDD's, actually had a talk with one of my reps who runs one of the larger data recovery companies around about it (hes a former Western digital engineer) and said it doesn't do a thing

[Bosspro1]

It does not matter if you leave it on or off and it will not ''kill'' any of your hardware. It just comes down to personal preference.   B)

[DigitalHermit]

Other than normal wear, there's no problem leaving your computer on 24/7 unless you live somewhere with a very unstable supply of electricity...

[juretrn]

It's power cycles that normally damage electronics, not continual operation.

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

Leaving it on 24/7 will shorten it's relative lifespan, but the absolute lifespan is still the same. In the sense, say a fan bearing has a 100,000 hour life span. Well, 100,000 hours straight is roughly 11 1/2 years to failure, but it you're only on for say 6 hours a day, that jumps to 45 years. That being said, the only danger in leaving things on 24/7 is data loss, and temp issues if you don't have adequate cooling. Throwing it into sleep is fine, but again, you risk data loss if you suddenly lose power. An alternative is to just hibernate instead of a shutdown, since resuming from a hibernate is faster than resuming from a shutdown, bu either way, you NEED to do a restart, or FULL shutdown every now and again since Windows starts to bug out after a while of not shutting down with random little errors.

 

I should also point out, 24/7 operation does come with one actual caveat, in that, you will need to replace your TIM more often, I recommend every 5 years for the average user, 3 mid-class gamers, and enthusiasts/24/7 systems and super hard core gamers should replace it every year. I suggest that because TIM doesn't exactly have a life span, more of, it begins to slowly dry out from temps over time, nothing absolute though. Aside from that minor thing, things will be fine, and realistically, unless you're pushing it at 80+% load, 100% of the time you're not gonna notice things failing any sooner than if you'd turned your system off when not in use.

 

Reasoning: PC repair tech for 6 years, still have a working HP G71 that's always on for music, and my download box downstairs that's been running 24/7 for about 8 years, and only 4 months ago suffered it's first hardware failure (a Maxtor drive made in 2001)

 

TL;DR On 24/7, or sleep when not in use are both fine. You'll likely replace parts long before they reach end of hardware life (by natural means), and the only risk is data loss if you suddenly lose power and had open files that were being worked on

[Patyo]

Honestly it's usually better for your hardware to leave it running constantly. With mechanical parts like HDDs and Fans, you have to think about laws of force. The force required to keep an HDD running at a constant rate is miniscule to the force required to get it spinning from a dead stop. I have seen drives in server run continuously for years, and then once power was lost several HDDs failed at the same time because the motors no longer had the muscle to get them spinning.

[Snickerzz]

i leave mine on 24/7 for the most part