I have friends who leave their computer’s on all the time and others who shut it down when they are done using it.
Both off them have what sounds like good reasons for doing this.
what do you guys think about this ?
it all depends on the computers and the power settings on them.
it also depends on how much time off and on.
I am an electrical engineer and I have done reliability analysis on several different projects, and all I can say is that they are both right.
If you leave a computer running all the time, there are a whole bunch of things trying to kill it. Heat is one thing. A very rough approximation is that every 10 degrees above room temperature cuts the expected life of a silicon chip in half. Friction is another thing. Fans wear out, and disk drives also wear out. The more they are running, the more wear and tear there is on moving parts. You are also at much greater risk of damage from power spikes, brownouts, and other power issues.
If you turn your computer off when you aren’t using it, then your computer suffers from thermal stresses as it heats up and cools down. Computers are made out of different materials, and those materials expand and contract at different rates as they heat up and cool down, putting mechanical stress on things like solder joints and connectors. There’s a thing called a cold solder joint, which is basically a flawed connection on the board caused by that particular blob of solder not getting hot enough and flowing properly when it was melted into place. A cold solder joint can work without fail for years, but repeated heating and cooling will often cause it to fail fairly quickly. So this type of manufacturing defect can be exacerbated by thermal stresses due to turning on and shutting off computers. Even the little connections inside the semiconductor chips get stressed, and one of the more common failure modes is that the itty bitty wire inside the chip that connects the silicon chip to the metal pin on the outside of the chip can lift up off of its pad and become unreliable or can break entirely.
Which one of these effects is more pronounced for your particular computer requires a lot of effort and analysis to properly determine, so it’s not easy to say for any particular computer whether it is better to leave it on or to turn it on and off. You don’t want to do too much thermal cycling, so it’s bad to turn the computer on and off every hour, for example. Also, if you have cheaper fans, their long term reliability will likely be more of an issue than a computer with more rugged (and more expensive) fans.
By the way, even if you turn the computer off and leave it off for a very long time, there are still things trying to kill it. Connections will corrode, and there’s even an aging effect inside the silicon. So no matter what you do, you can’t win.
to me, leaving it on when it’s not otherwise doing anything useful is a waste of energy. I shoot for the middle and put my systems to “sleep” (everything powered down except for the memory, memory controller, and a few blocks of the CPU to keep the memory alive.)
Can you break even, though? (Recalling a famous encapsulation/paraphrasing of the 3 Laws of Thermodynamics.)
I’ve noticed that when I leave my PC on for an extensive length of time, it can start doing wonky things.
There is also the effect of turn-on time to consider. A fast O/S like Linux is a lot handier than a full-blown Windows install with the usual garbage that keeps the disk rattling for minutes after you log in.
Personally I keep my Linux workstation running 24/7 usually for months at a time. It’s very quiet and draws minimal power when the screen is blanked.
An issue for windows is it likes to upgrade software at 3am or some-such. It can’t do that if it’s turned off, so then it leaps in and reboots you while you are using it.
Does this apply to the same degree with sleep mode and hibernation mode on laptops?
moving things have a finite lifetime, given in hours. so fans and hard drives will give a shorter lifetime to you in a number of hours of running time.
while running fans bring in killer dust.
some operating systems get corrupted faster if not rebooted.
also all the stuff talked about will affect desktops differently from laptops. there can be different power schemes for each. laptops can be harder to physically maintain and the parts are more costly, so hours turned on can be an issue.
people like to leave machines on because of the time to boot the machine. if people used Linux then that wouldn’t be such an issue.
lots of factors will affect the conclusion.
Hello Stosh,
the answer really boils down to a couple of things, is the computer a laptop or a desk top and where and how you use the device.
To the first point, I recommend that lappys are turned off, or at worst put to sleep, if unused. My rationale, no lappy i’ve ever used/repaired/maintained has had an adequate cooling system, you cannot cram power hungry CPUs, GPUs and storage into a confined space without something giving. This combined with the normal environmental detrius, skin cells, tobacco residue cat hairs etc plus the fact that many portable devices are used on peoples laps further restricting cooling.
Desktops have many advantages, space to circulate air, component separation, (CPU not cooking other components) and the fact that generally Desktops aren’t run whilst resting on your midriff.
So everything else being equal, see eng’s comment above, Lappys turn off when not in use, Desktops, power usage considerations aside, your choice.
As an aside with my new PC, ASUS desktop, from power down to a running desktop is about 15 seconds, hardly enough time to turn the kettle on for a cup of tea.
Personal preferences are more relevant here, the D/T in my bedroom is turned off when I hit the sack, don’t like light and noise ‘pollution’. In a work environment it can be useful to schedule routine O/S maintenance to zero/low usage periods hence Window’s preference for updating at dark o’clock in the morning.
It does behove us to be much more concious of our energy use. Just because we have the ability to pay for a utility that shouldn’t prevent us from being aware of the wider cost of it’s use.
Peter
Hi Pdunderhill,
I have a DELL Latitude D630 laptop.
It’s real old by computer standards but all I do is surf the web, send emails and play some games.
I do use it every day and want to get as much use as possible from it.( I’m finding out new stuff all the time. I’m 64 and fairly new to this computer stuff.) I turn it on and off a lot as I use it and wonder what I can do to make it last as long as possible.
I hear so much stuff about what to do and what not to do about this and that.
I found out about scandisc, defraging, cleaning, viruses and updates. It seem that every day I find out something new.
I still think it’s my computer but it seems that a lot of people can mess with it.
Any help will be appreciated ( a lot.) Thanks to all of you.
I leave a desktop on, as I’m running a server on it. My current machine is not an extremely powerful machine of the most recent vintage, but not that old or wimpy either - ASUS AM3+ motherboard with a Phenom II quad core. It’s happily run 24/7 with only a few interludes of being shut down since 2011. I shut the monitor off when away from it, and have dynamic frequency scaling enabled (AMD’s “Cool 'n Quiet”). IMO, the frequency scaling saves a lot of power and keeps temps down on a 24/7 machine, and should generally be used unless you have a good reason not to. With the monitor off, the machine and other stuff connected to it (router, etc) pull about 100W. Lots of people choose to burn that much in outdoor lighting.
Windows updates occur on the 2d and 4th Tuesdays of each month, but important ones only on the second Tuesday. If a very important update is needed, Microsoft will issue it as soon as it can. You can schedule the updates for any time of the day. I schedule mine for 3PM because my puter is usually on then. (I power off between usages. I usually power on only once daily and power off after checking my mailbox, websites (such as this one), Face Book, and playing some chess.
And personally, I prefer the mode where it notifies me that updates are available, but doesn’t automatically install them.
Evening Stosh,
I’m posting from London so Evening it is!
Hmm to last as long as possible…
Firstly keep the underside of your Laptop clear of the table, I tend to pop a pen under the closest side to me of the machine, essentially make sure air can freely flow under the device. If you were in NW London I’d also give the fan/s and interior a good clean, it’s bread and butter stuff for a decent local computer shop, Cats don’t appreciate just where their fur goes.
If your Tosh is as spec according to this:
then could I suggest making a backup of your files onto a USB memory stick, changing to a newer Windows Operating System like Windows 7 or 8.1 and to really pep your computer up perhaps an SSD to replace your mechanical Hard Drive with a Solid State device.
In the UK a copy of win 7 is about £25 and an SSD of 128GB as opposed to the 80GB that the above site says your machine was supplied with is about £44, local labour costs are something else, personally it’s less than an hours work and I’d do it gratis as a loss leader as should anyone else, but that’s another matter!
Perhaps the greatest advantage of a clean installation of a new Operating System is the avoidance of the extra and superfluous programs that manufacturers install onto computers in order to make a few pennies extra per unit.
Cats aside, please bear in mind EngComp’s comments above, I’d add one thing about MTBF, mean time between failure, how long a device will last. Generally if a device survives eighteen months you should expect many years of service, everything else being equal, also known as the bathtub curb:
OK Stosh I’m off to watch a BBC Four programme about Hattusha, PM me if I can help more.
Peter.
Good day pdunderhill,
I’m in Reading PA USA ( I understand you guys have a Reading in England too.)
I do keep the underside of my computer clear.
I am using the windows 7 operating system and I have a copy.
I, also, have a external hard drive with all my info on it and it is disconnected and put away in case I need it.
I’ve been told to do this by friends and I hope they know what they are talking about.
I’m not sure how long I’ve had this computer but I think it’s been at least 18 months.
I have a friend who says he can erase everything from my computer and I can start from the beginning, if some hacker screws things up. ( my fingers are crossed )
I’m not sure what you mean by PM. ( you have to assume I know nothing. That’s pretty much true. I’m learning, but it’s going to be a long haul.)
I like BBC America and watch Top Gear, although, I think it has lost a lot lately.
Good day Stosh,
A PM is a private message which you should see, like this , in a mo, when you log into the Dope.
Your questions.
Scan disk is a utility, a program, that reads and writes to a drive to check it’s robustness.
Defragmentaion is. again an analogy, akin to re-arranging a library after a hurricane, any Operating System needs to reference what and where, on a hard disc/k/s programs are
Cleaning, hmm… that’s a bit too generic, too general to mean anything and not specific enough to be helpful.
Providing you are aware of the Elephant traps that con artists use online and sites like
Suspect you’ll need the 32 bit version.
Viruses, well that’s a conversation in itself. Sadly there are malicious people using the Internet.
Age is neither here nor there, a friend of mine is still prepared to discuss whether Churchill was right to shut down the whole Enigma operation after '45. Churchill’s argument being that Moscow had only a vague idea of what and how signals were decoded. As it turned ot the Soviets still used the same system for many post war years.
Next on the list is your question about updates, yup sorry it’s a pain in the behind, the price of living in a free world, if there was an image/emotican for what think about Microsoft it would be illegal in the UK and the US.
PM refers to clicking on a Dopers user name and you’ll get the option of sending a message independently of the SD.
Damn, if you lived down the road I sort the lappy out for free.
Peter
I use my computer at different times doing the day so I keep it on doing the day.
Turing it on and off 4 to 8 times doing day is bad.
If you only check your computer every day in morning than in that case I would shut it off.
Most computers go into a sleep mode now:eek::eek::eek: so it not like the computer is running 100% like computers from the 90’s putting wear and tear on it when you are not using it.
You’ve stumbled onto a debate that has been running for decades in the tech community, with very good arguments for both sides. So, it pretty much boils down to personal preference. Some people like having their computer always ready for use, others prefer the energy savings and quiet of complete power down.
With the proper power settings, a laptop will “turn off” various components after amounts of idle time (no user interacting with with the computer), yet still be ready to use in a fraction of the time it takes to boot from completely off.
In fact, unless you hold the power button for several seconds (or tell windows to shutdown) it’s most likely just going into a sleep state, rather than shutting completely off.
Including all its presenters.
Welcome to the wonderful world of computers and SD. If you, as I do, read most of the threads, you will find the answers to many questions that you never knew you wanted to know:)