Computer usage question..

[Raven]

Hi, I was wondering if it is good to leave your computer on all the time? Also is it good for the computer to turn it off and on several times say within a few hours of using it and not using it.

-raven

[Stan]

Hi

Let's not think about the electricity bill...

I have 4 machines at home and 1 PC (server, running NT4 server sp5) is on 24h/24h.
I switch off the other WS when I am finised with them. Ususally, I swith them on in the morning and off before going to bed.

Now, it is good and recommended to reboot a PC (which is left on all the time) at least once a week.
It is called memory (RAM) fragmentation and causes NT to become unstable. I don't know about Win9x.

Stan

[dawgtuff]

Leave it on.The repeated warming/cooling can loosen connectors and boards.Also,you can download free utilities that idle your CPU and HD(ie.Rain and CPU Idle).I'd also buy a good UPS/surge suppressor(this I recommend in any case!).....DawgTuff.

[Mntsnow]

I personally have my machines running 24/7 and they have been for the past 3 months or so. I finally joined the SYSOPT RC5 cracking team and have since put the "idle time" to good use....The main "powerhungry" part of your computer system is the Monitor. I just have turn my monitors off when I am done using them. (I figure my 4 systems cost about 5-6 bucks a month extra on the power bill running 24/7

Mntsnow

[IRED]

Leave them on and put them to sleep.NOT STANDBY.That way your HD is not running all the time an your monitor is,well asleep.
And it only takes 3-4 seconds to wake everyone up.

[lost1]

Every computer I have ever owned for the last 7 years has always been left on 24/7. Right now I have 4 systems and they all stay on continuously. The only time I shut them down is for maintenance/upgrades and mother nature, ie. bad thunderstorms. Never had any problems, however I don't recommend doing this if you don't have surge protection & backup power supplies- power glitches have claimed more hard drives than old age ever will :-)

[krusty]

Do you guys actually leave windows running all this time??? I have tried & after a few days to a week or so the system crashes. Even lost my registry once...Man was that a lot of fun to recover from..NOT!!

[Mntsnow]

Krusty,

As for my systems YES they are running either Win98 (3 systems) and NT server (1 system) I do enough "tweaking" that I usually "reboot/refresh" the systems about once a week. (it really helps to keep the system resources up high on the Win9x machines). But I have run Win98 before for over 90 days without a hiccup.

Mntsnow

[Underclocked]

I most surely restart more often than I should, both cold and hot. Do a lot of component checking and also work on other machines. Since I only have the one monitor, my system has to be shutdown everytime and sometimes that's 4 or 5 times a day. No problems at all because of this (although down the road a ways I may see reduced lifetime on components).
Just don't think that's as much of a problem as it used to be. We now have better power supplies/regulators and more efficient components, and in particular more reliable hard drives.

[lost1]

Yes Krusty, I leave Windoze running all the time. It's not usually a problem though- because anytime you do anything on or around a Windoze machine, ie. installing hardware/software, removing hardware/software, system tweaks, recovering from system tweaks, brushing your teeth, walking the dog, etc., you have to reboot.

"Windows has found that you are breathing. You must now restart your computer."
;-)