Shut down or leave running?

[Joe Bolt]

The Power Supply Unit (PSU) of my computer recently gave up the ghost. The computer internals all had to be transferred into a new casing complete with new PSU. (Old casing too small for the new PSU).

The man in the shop said that 3 years (the age of my computer) is about the average life expectancy for a PSU.

My wife says that it's my fault because I leave the computer switched on for too long. (Generally I'll start it up whenever I first want to use it, and shut it down at bedtime).

I say, "nonsense woman, it's your fault for turning it on and off too often. There are dozens of computer terminals in the hangar where I work. They are all left running 24/7 without problems."

Does anyone else have an opinion?

[amanoffewwords]

In my experience it's the constant on-offs that can lead to a problem, just like a light-bulb. In my previous job we had servers in Turkey running 5 years+ without a hitch (despite mountains of cigarette ash being dumped on them), until you went along to perform an upgrade and the thing would fail to reboot soon after you opened it up. I quickly learned to take a spare with me just in case...

So, IMHO opinion, with apologies to Mrs Bolt, the method you are following is better.

Though I would also add that the PSU, CPU fan and possibly the hard-disk are the weakest point in a PC due to the constant use of moving parts, which like the man in the shop said, don't last for ever when powered on/off all on a regular basis.

HTH

[ratsarrse]

I'm of the opinion that switching off & on does cause more wear and tear. I hear of more desktop PC failures than server failures. Most servers are only ever powered down when they need an upgrade and you'll find kit in many datacentres and computer rooms that are much older than 3 years! A more extreme example would be the IBM mainframes. These are rated as having 99.999% availability and the only time they are powered off if is you are going to dispose of them entirely or move them to a new site.
Fans tend to be a problem - they tend to accumulate dust quite quickly in the home and stop working or produce horrible noises.
Hard drives do fail - don't find out the hard way and backup your important stuff every so often!

[SLF 999]

Have to agree, from my IT experience if you can, leave the machine powered up, as frequent start ups causes more wear and tear than anything else.

The only time I power my machine down is about once a year to take the covers off and vacuum the internals to get rid of the accumulated dust in the fans and the CPU cooler.

[Binoculars]

I'm a leave-it-on too for the reasons already described. It gets plenty of practice at restarting every time Windows crashes. :(

I suppose commonsense would dictate that being on all the time would leave you more open to power spikes and the like, but I certainly prefer not having to wait through the boot-up process. Each to his own I suppose.

[fobotcso]

I usually do what JB does. Switched on when needed and left on for the day. That's days in the case of the Internet Gateway that serves the rest of the Network.

I've never had a PSU failure although anything is possible in this business. Monitors are the components that fail the most for me and to some extent I wonder whether Energy Star is doing us a favour by constantly turning off the EHT, only to suffer the surges whenever I wiggle the mouse.

Current surges during startup are the killer of electronic components as all those capacitors and inductive components settle down. By leaving your PSU running you are avoiding them. But by leaving the box running you are using watts, and keeping various components warm and whirring. I guess you takes your pick...

[Mac the Knife]

Leave it on. It isn't so much the ons and offs as the thermal cycling as the whole megillah cools down to room temperature and then warms up to operating temperature again. It makes socketed components creep loose among other things. Any old hands who have magically cured hiccoughs by reseating DIMMs and BIOS chips will know what I mean.

I leave 'em all on unless I'm going to be away for a long time and they're often up for days (if the M$ ones don't crash that is). I've added an extra cooling fan to all of 'em too, even though only one is a bit overclocked.

I've only had one PSU die on me over the years, but several PSU's have needed new fans. Not difficult to replace yourself, but get a ball-bearing fan rather than the commoner ones with a sleeve bearing - lasts far longer.

[Tonic Please]

Leave it on too. I have the NTL broadband, so the net is on 24/7 as standard deafult now. Must say, turning it on and off would get on my nerves. I must admit the system im using snt exactly a slow, oldy one, but still, waiting for the start-up gets on my
t!ts.

SMooth skies,
Dan

[CrashDive]

I personally find it hard to sleep at night whilst knowing that my home PC and / or laptop are running as, being electrical equipment, they represent an inherent fire risk and as such I power mine off at night, just as I do for most of the other unnecessary household electrical appliances

Nb. One thing we learn as pilots, and also as part of common sense, is ‘The Triangle or Fire’, i.e. to have a fire you need oxygen, plus a source of heat / ignition, and fuel - and electricity can certainly be a source of heat & ignition, e.g. did you know that you can start a substantial fire with just a 9V battery and some iron-wool ?

Take any one of the three away and you’ll prevent / stop a fire.

Also, computers are most definitely capable of catching fire – I’ve seen it !

So. I'd much rather take the hit on repair / recover of the home computers, than trying to replace the kids post inferno !

That said, I don't worry so much about the servers at work as they are just that - i.e. fitted dual everything, and so double the redundancy ( and before somebody points out the obvious, also double the stuff to go wrong too ) - and as such they're, somewhat necessarily, running 24/7.

[criticalmass]

I'm voting with the "leave it on" brigade. My creaking old 233Mhz Pentium has lasted 5 years with as few system deadstarts as possible, usually only required when WIN95b gets so broken I can't do a soft-start.

HDDs usually snuff it at spin-up time after deadstart...motors burn out. Fewer starts mean the drives might actually go to TBO.

Monitors usually die when the flyback transformer that generates the EHT for the screen fails, due to overheating. Either goes open-circuit, or the soldered joints on the main board go dry. I have a fan on a small cardboard chimney on the top of the monitor casing to keep the internals several degrees cooler. Seems to work well.

Avoiding the "upgrade treadmill" is one goal, I try to get 5 years from a system before a major upgrade/rebuild.

[Tonic Please]

Id prefer to not leave it on over night. But, during the day, normally on. If im out for a while, and nothing is going on, I turn it off. If its downlaoding, upgrsding, defragging, or something like that, then I leave it on to not interupt.

Dan

[under_exposed]

CrashDive, bet you leave the video on standby overnight rather than powering off. As for the 9v battery, I know somebody who works for a large supplier of rented tv/videos, they have found a real problem with remotes down the sides of chairs overheating and starting fires!
My work machine was last powered down when I moved desks 6 months ago. Montor does get switched off.