How many hours per day should a PC be on?

[Tedster]

Twenty-four hours a day (:

Folding a lot of the time because I can.

[Thony]

The only reason I see for people not turning off their pc when they aren't going to be using for a few hours is that they either don't pay for their own electricity, or it doesn't cost much

Exactly, why leave it on if u aint on it. Jist wasting money no matter how much it is u pay for any elec. used.

Ive always been turning my pc off before sleep or anytime i leave for more than an hour.

Never made my HDD fail nor any other component for that matter.

Very high number of forum members doesnt care about energy saving...

[vanman69]

I won't tell you how often to use your PC, but if you're constantly spinning the hard drives up and down(if you have any), you're straining the spindle. My PC is normally on 24/7.

 

I would have to disagree with you on that one. I've been turning off and shutting down my computers for years, and I've never had a drive failure. It's probably better to shut the computer down if you are not going to be using it for hours on end. Plus, you'll save a little on your power bill.

[Godlygamer23]

I would have to disagree with you on that one. I've been turning off and shutting down my computers for years, and I've never had a drive failure. It's probably better to shut the computer down if you are not going to be using it for hours on end. Plus, you'll save a little on your power bill.

I didn't say something would inherently fail. I just said it strains the spindle and it does. Spinning the platters up and down puts stress on the spindle.

[KirbyTech]

24 hours a day, I rarely reboot my PC and almost never turn it off except for upgrades. Modern computers are fine to run 24/7 for a few years at a time. I think our one computer has been o for 3 years or so thanks to the UPS.

[Lays]

Nah, as long as you don't have serious overclocks, overvolting, overheating and stuff you'll be fine for a long time. It's not a console

The only thing you should really be keeping an eye on if you're safe elsewhere is your HDD. Even then it should take at least a couple years for it to start failing. That's sort of the nature of HDDs though.

 

 

I have yet to see anyone degrade a CPU to the point of it not working from overclocking.  I have seen a few people kill CPU's before, but it was out of their own stupidity like putting 1.8v through their chip without Ln2/ Dry ice.

 

 

I'm not sure why people on this forum think going over 1.35v means your chip is going to die in a year.

[SleathX1]

 but if you're constantly spinning the hard drives up and down(if you have any)

What do you mean by this?

[orangecat]

Assuming your PC doesn't have any heat issues and isn't overclocked leaving it on 24/7 shoudlnt be a problem unless you have the cheapest components you could afford. i leave my PC on basically all the time and i fold on it when I'm idle and I don't worry about it randomly dieing not to mention i'm overclocked.

[SansVarnic]

What do you mean by this?

This might help you.

 

[Mightyinvader]

24/7, when  not using it do some folding

[GoldSrc]

If you have mechanical hard drives, turning them off and on plenty of times shortens their lifespan.

If you only use SSD, there's no need to worry about such thing, turning it on and off 20 times a day or once a year it should be the same.

[rehankats]

24*7.....

[GBELILREESE]

1 minute 

[faziten]

assuming you have a normal environment (no vibrations, no abnormal heat humidity sources, etc. Then 24/7 is fine). 

 

Mine has been 24/7 since i bought it. (3 years) open air case, 6 fans moderate OC. The only thing i had to replace is some coolers (cheap ones though). 

[cragger89]

In all honesty, you don't need to worry.

[LeightonPC]

24/7 mate