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Will it damage my computer if it's left turned off for a long time? (didn't know where to ask this)

akirivan
By akirivan
in Power Supplies
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Posted

I might be leaving home to study a semester abroad in a couple of months. Of course, I can only take my laptop with me, and my desktop PC will have to stay home. Will it damage it to just leave it turned off/unplugged for the entire 6 to 8 months? Should I ask someone to regularly turn it on and back off every once in a while or to use it sometimes so it's not off always? Or should I just unplug it and put it away someplace where it won't be exposed to dust?

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No, there is no chance of damage.  Worst possible thing is the SSD "forgets" some of the data on it, but this is something I have only heard is possible but never experience, either personally or through reading reports of it on the forum.

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If you can have someone keep up on Windows Updates while you're away, that would be great.

 

I left my old desktop shut down for almost a year and had nearly 300 Windows updates to go through when I turned it back on....

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My PC stayed on 24/7 for over a year once with no issues.

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2 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

My PC stayed on 24/7 for over a year once with no issues.

I thought I read "left turned on" as well.

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Perhaps the thermal paste may petrify on the CPU and GPU, so may need to look at the temps when turning it on eventually.

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Posted

The worst that will happen if you leave it unplugged is the button battery on the motherboard will discharge. You may need to replace it when you get back.

 

 

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If you leave the PC plugged in but turned off, the battery will be fine, because the bios settings and time will be kept alive using the 5v stand-by power coming from the power supply.

If you disconnect it completely from the mains then yes, the CR2032 battery may be discharged when you come back (but it's unlikely)

For short periods of time, your PC's gonna be fine. If you were to keep it turned off for more than six months or so, I would recommend just turning it on for a few minutes every 3 weeks or so.  Just enough for the mechanical drive to get some action, to move its heads, spin the discs inside and so on.

 

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The ants will move into your PSU.

 

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40 minutes ago, mariushm said:

For short periods of time, your PC's gonna be fine. If you were to keep it turned off for more than six months or so, I would recommend just turning it on for a few minutes every 3 weeks or so.  Just enough for the mechanical drive to get some action, to move its heads, spin the discs inside and so on.

Why?

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Lots of reasons ... but I admit there's less risk of failure with modern hard drives, maybe once every 3 weeks is a bit too much, maybe once every couple of months or something like that would probably make more sense... and leave it idle and spinning for some time, not just minutes.

 

See some of the answers here : https://serverfault.com/questions/51851/does-an-unplugged-hard-drive-used-for-data-archival-deteriorate

 

IMHO Ideally, you would NEVER turn off a hard drive. It works best at its "equilibrium", after it's started and reached its normal operating temperature, platters are all nice and warm and not shrinking or expanding due to heat variation...

Every power cycle is just another risk of failure, but powering after long periods of time is more risky than powering several times at smaller intervals.

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53 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Lots of reasons ... but I admit there's less risk of failure with modern hard drives, maybe once every 3 weeks is a bit too much, maybe once every couple of months or something like that would probably make more sense... and leave it idle and spinning for some time, not just minutes.

 

See some of the answers here : https://serverfault.com/questions/51851/does-an-unplugged-hard-drive-used-for-data-archival-deteriorate

 

IMHO Ideally, you would NEVER turn off a hard drive. It works best at its "equilibrium", after it's started and reached its normal operating temperature, platters are all nice and warm and not shrinking or expanding due to heat variation...

Every power cycle is just another risk of failure, but powering after long periods of time is more risky than powering several times at smaller intervals.

That's good to know I guess, since I tend to leave mine on 24/7 and was always wondering in the back of my mind if that was wise, or if I should have it auto-sleep after a few hours or something... trading more power on time for more power cycles.

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2 hours ago, Legendarypoet said:

I thought I read "left turned on" as well.

It was intentional. F@H

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  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
  • Author

Well, thank you all a lot. Turns out I'm not going abroad, though, so that's that. :S

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