<p>Is it bad to leave your computer on 24/7, with occasional restarting (not daily or anything)?</p>
<p>Some people say turn off your computer for the night/when you won't use it for long periods of time, other people say it's better to leave it on rather than constantly on/offing it. </p>
<p>What's the deal.</p>
<p>It saves power to turn it off. Plus it's good for your computer to restart every so often. But it's mainly a power thing. I keep mine running all the time, but then again it's a small laptop.</p>
<p>It should be fine, I used to leave my Windows desktop on all the time which enabled it to update itself and scan for viruses automatically. But with my MacBook Pro, I put it to sleep at night and when I'm not going to be using it for a little while, but still, it is just asleep and not shut off.</p>
<p>If you have a Windows PC which needs to have up-to-date virus definitions and should be scanned regularly (I recommend daily) then you should set your anti-virus program to do so at night and just leave your computer on.</p>
<p>I've heard people say that the greatest risk of hardware damage is at start up when there is a surge of electricity, whether or not that's true, I don't know.</p>
<p>Edit: I highly agree with the poster above, you are saving electricity if you shut it off, especially if it's a desktop, even more so if you're using a CRT monitor. And if you decide to leave it on all the time, I recommend that you restart at-least once a week, that goes for both Mac and PC.</p>
<p>Hm, very interesting.</p>
<p>At work they are having problems, computers crashing, I suggested a couple times it might be b/c they leave their comps on all the time, b/c I know mine gets slow if I leave it on only for a couple days (RAM gets used up). I guess if you defrag every now & then that's not a problem.</p>
<p>If you're using Windows you don't have to worry about restarting once a week since your computer will get cranky and force you to restart it long before then.</p>
<p>I shut it down before I go to sleep unless I'm downloading, defragging, or the like. It saves power and is better for the computer overall because it gives it a chance to cool down.</p>
<p>It costs money to leave computers on because of electricity. But you can donate your computer's idle time by downloading programs like folding@home to help scientists find new cures for diseases.</p>
<p>MissSuperFantastic,
Your computer problems may stem from not having enough RAM, but before you go and buy more RAM, try a program called CCleaner and run it once a day, that may help your problem.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ccleaner.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.ccleaner.com/</a></p>
<p>I think that you should keep your computer off when you aren't using it to conserve energy. However, I dont know if its better to keep it off or on, but I think there's teh possibility of over heating if it's a laptop.</p>
<p>i keep my comp on standby over night, but that's it.</p>
<p>I've actually left many Windows PCs powered on 24/7 for years with no problem. These computers were actually doing work the whole time though. If you're not planning on actually doing anything with the computer through much of that time, then I recommend powering off to save electricity. </p>
<p>It doesn't need to be restarted weekly either. If you find that it does, it's likely due to a wayward application(s) that's consuming memory. </p>
<p>MissSuper: This is the problem you seem to be having. Memory shouldn't be consumed to the point of getting used up and crashing the system but it can happen with defective applications (and there are a number of them out there). Defragging the disk will have no affect at all on this problem.</p>
<p>Unless you're folding or donwloading massive amounts of crap stuff over the internet, there is absolutely no reason to leave your computer on 24/7. The only advantage is that is shaves a minute or so off your startup time which is a pretty lame excuse to be wasting all that energy in my opinion.</p>
<p>Well this isn't exactly a computer problem but it's related. I left on my external harddrive on all the time and it broke down in several months.. then i got my replacement and i turn it off every often and it's still alive after several yrs...</p>
<p>I would also turn if off if i wasn't constantly downloading huge files... I heard it's good to give computer several hours of rest every day...</p>
<p>Re: leaving a computer on 24/7</p>
<p>This brings back memories from the dawn of personal computing (i.e. before any of you were born). When the IBM PC was introduced (1981), it came with 16 or 32K of memory (and expandable to 256K). Unlike computer or laptop memory of today (memory sticks), memory for the IBM/Apple were actually computer chips that fit into sockets on the motherboard. You bought memory chips in long anti-static plastic tubes and had to press each chip into the motherboard.</p>
<p>The great debate in the early 80’s was all about the issue of thermal expansion. Because many chips on the motherboard were socket-ed (not soldered), techs argued that turning your computer on and off created a heat/cool cycle that would make chips potentially loosen from their sockets causing problems. As a tech working for a division of Xerox, whenever someone called about a problem with their PC, I would remove the cover from the PC and carefully press down on all the socket-ed chips on the motherboard to insure that they were making a good electrical connection. Then, as now, people argued that leaving on dozens of PCs just wasted electricity. Our IT department won and the PCs stayed on 24/7.</p>
<p>But we were wrong. Pressing on chips did little or nothing to prevent computer glitches. What leaving PCs on 24/7 did do was to gradually wear out the exhaust fan on the power supply. The fan would start making a faint whining sound and then stop working all together. I learned this when a user called about a noise coming from her PC. I wasn’t able to get to her office that day. The next day, she called and canceled her trouble call, saying that the noise had stopped. What really happened was the exhaust fan died which allowed the power supply to overheat and start smoking. I only realized that when an alarm went off in the building and the fire department showed up. Luckily there was no damage to the PC. I swapped out the power supply and the computer was fine…</p>
<p>Sorry for the long story. The moral of this story is this: While I’m sure that power supplies are much better than they were years ago, there’s still the question about how good the fan is. The power supply fan is always on. There’s the potential that the fan will fail and that the power supply will overheat. That is not a good thing.</p>
<p>Depending on the quality and stability of your local electrical provider, voltage spikes and brown-outs may also cause problems for any electrical device. I vote to turn it off when you’re going to be away from your desk to save electricity. </p>
<p>An important security issue: if your system is not password protected, anyone can access your PC while you’re away from your room. If you do decide to leave your PC on all the time, remember to log out from your user account and have your system locked with a password.</p>
<p>michuncle:</p>
<p>I agree on two of your points: Don't leave the PC on all the time if it's not going to be used since it justs wastes electricity (the ones I left on for years were/are actually used 24/7). The fan (the one usually integrated with the power supply) is usually the weak point and the first thing to fail. Once it fails, the components will overheat and the power supply will fail (it might take a few days).</p>
<p>Note - My first 'PC' was a CPM Z-80 S100 bus system - this was before the IBM-PC came out. Remember those?</p>
<p>desktops are not a problem</p>
<p>Laptops on the other hand, were not designed to be left on 24/7!!!</p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad:</p>
<p>I started out with a Xerox 820 (CPM-86) with an 8" SSDD floppy and a Hayes 300 baud modem. We also had a couple of TI phone coupler modems laying around (you placed your dial phone headset into two rubber "thingys". Never had to use those devices.</p>
<p>Then the company got our first IBM PCs to replace the 820s and, I think, some huge Digital Equipment Document processors that the secretaries used.</p>
<p>After that were all manner of PCs (ATT/Olivetti/NCR/some Apple IIs/ Apple Lisa/ and more than I care to remember!</p>
<p>Our company actually had a Xerox Star system which we all marveled at. It was the size of a Xerox collating copier with a funny device called a "mouse" and a huge monitor (a white screen with black text). You could kinda "draw" with the mouse. We all thought it was pretty useless... Apparently, two guys in California thought it had potential. Paid a visit to PARC and the rest is history...</p>
<p>yeah my laptop started to burn up after being left on 24/7 for 2 days. hm.</p>
<p>It won't hurt them. I was fortunate to get an extremely good computer which hasn't crashed once in three years, and I run it hard from everything to games, video editing, burning, etc.</p>
<p>I reboot about once every 2 months just because things run better. If I only used mine an hour or two a day though, i'd probably turn it off.</p>
<p>We leave our desktop PC in stand-by mode when it's not being used. But I just got the laptop I'm taking to college with me, and I think I'm going to turn it all the way off when I'm not using it. But that's just me and I may change my mind when I actually get to school.</p>