24 hour computers?

Vinny

Vinny

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How many of you leave your computers on all day?

Lately, I've been leaving mine on non-stop due to torrent files. I think it's been going non-stop for at least a week now...

I'm starting to wonder if this'll have any adverse long-term effects on my hardware.
 
Your hardware will be fine. If it's a windows machine, I probably would reboot it every few days though, they tend to clog up.
 
I think the only problem really would be using the hard drive so much, so it'll likely die out faster, but for the most part they're fine to run constantly...Minus the electric bill.
 
I usually have mine on for 18 hours or so, but I shut it down for a bit. I don't think it will really hurt it to leave it running all the time, assuming you have a good fan.

And Yoohoo is right. The only main concern would be killing your HDD a bit faster, though that still shouldn't worry you much.
 
if I run my machine for more then 3 days without a shut off, when I do give it a break for a few hours, it makes a loud long ass beep when I start it up again.
 
All my PC's stay on 24/7 and might get put into standby at the very most. I have had no issues with this practice. If your computer has a TV tuner and media center then why would you power it off and risk losing a show. PC's run 24/7 just fine, but yeah they tend to slow down if you don't reboot them everyonce in awhile. I average a reboot a week per machine.
 
i've gone from a couple of days to 3 months without rebooting, noticed no problems

every once in a while you'd want to make sure to close all your browsers and messaging programs to free up any memory leaks
 
It's been really cold, and my house sucks at being warm, so I've been leaving mine on because it makes my room warmer. Not warm, just...not as cold.

I used to leave my computer on all the time, for weeks at a time, and I've never had any problems, but generally I shut it off when I wont be using it for a good amountof time just to save the little bit of electricity.
 
[quote name='NoRain']All my PC's stay on 24/7 and might get put into standby at the very most. I have had no issues with this practice. If your computer has a TV tuner and media center then why would you power it off and risk losing a show. PC's run 24/7 just fine, but yeah they tend to slow down if you don't reboot them everyonce in awhile. I average a reboot a week per machine.[/quote]
Same.
 
I've been practicing the habit of leaving my main computer on 24/7 since the day I got DSL (8 years ago). I've gone through about 4 PCs since, each enduring my 24/7 addiction. None of them ran into any significant problem that made me think twice about leaving them on (just case fan became noisy, DVD-writer failed). I even ran a couple of Shuttle XPC cases 24/7 during hot summer days in SoCal without problems. As long as you reboot your computer when needed (to cure slow downs & odd application behaviors), and clean your PC every now and then (with all the fans going 24/7, they suck in a lot of dusts), you won't run into any problem worth worrying about.
 
[quote name='magiic']Mine has been running pretty much 24/7 for almost three years now[/quote]

^-- what he said

I usually find that I need to reboot once every 3-6 weeks just because I cant tolerate the crappiness of windows at that point. Ive gone months and months without rebooting though, it almost becomes a contest... that is until the power goes out or someone messes with my comp and unplugs it or something. Had this setup now for like 5 years and never once had a single problem with it.
 
I never cut my off, I even have battery backup on mine so if the power goes off for less than 15minutes it will still be downloading. Only reboots and shutdowns I do is during updates (Software/hardware)

THe only time in 8 years of leaving a pc up 24x7 caused me problems was I let it get so much dust build up that I rebooted for an update and it didn't come back up and the transistor were so covered in dust that I suspect this might have had something to do with the motherboard going out.


System Specs in case you care

Amd X2 3700+
4x 512 ddr 400
Geforece 6800 extreme XT (overclocked)
2x 80gig sata
1x 250gig sata
2x ide 200gig
soundblaster 7.1
2x 17inch monitors(one not hooked up trying to get cheap PCI vid card)
1x 21inch monitors
Pioneer 111a dvd burner
 
Mine has been running 24/7 since 2003, except when I've moved it. I mostly just leave AIM running in the background most of the time.

My laptop, I leave on sleep mode, even though I only use it about once a week. Apples seem to be better off like that though.
 
Sweet... I'm glad I'm not the only one.

And I'm not sure why you guys think it's necessary to reboot it. Mine's been running just as fine as it normally does. I'm in the dorms so electricity isn't an issue.

But I'm not too psyched to hear so many of you mention the HD risk. Although I'm not worred, I don't want to lose 1.6TB of "stuff" (no, not porn... I only have 5.2GB of that) though I doubt it'll happen within the next 5 years.

I wasn't too worried since our Gateway from 2000 has been running non-stop for about 3 years now (expect for necessary restarts from software/updates). But that computer's in the basement back home, where it's about 15F cooler than the rest of the house.
 
My computer is always on. I'd say it's for the PVR, but was doing it way before that. My current processor is a Pentium 4 3.0E, so it's... toasty... but I haven't had any problems. Lately I have had the HDs turn off when not in use, which at the very least saves on some noise pollution.
 
I turn my on whenever I first use it during the day and then just turn it off if I'm leaving the house or going to bed. Saves the electric bill some. When I was in college I'd leave it on 24/7 even over Christmas break and whatnot since I could still access it from other computers. Never experienced any adverse affects although I would restart it whenever things started to slow down.

And to those people who are worried about their HD failing, no worries... it'll take a few years before you have to worry about it. And when it does happen, it's not instantaneous. You'll start hearing noises coming from the HD that'll get louder and louder with time (almost like metal scraping metal). After a couple of weeks of that, THEN it'll completely die on you. If you haven't replaced it by the time it dies... can't say it didn't warn you.
 
Yeah I leave my Secondary Computer on almost all the time for torrents, the only time it gets turned off is when I have to update it and when someone in my family decides to turn it off errr.

But my Main Gaming Rig I turn off everynight when I go to bed but turn it on first thing in the morning.
 
I wish I had a bit of extra cash for a spare computer for torrents. Something that wasn't so power hungry. This one sucks up a lot of electricity, and runs HOT! While the electricity isn't an issue here, it is back home. Plus, during the summer (no matter where I am) this thing makes my room an extra 10F hotter (even more when I'm gaming).

I might actually build one some time, I have an extra monitor, memory, graphics card, and optical drive. I could pick up a free case, cheapo HD and PS, and some old processor/mobo combo... with some patience and crazy deal hunting, I could escape with $150 out of my pocket.:whistle2:k
 
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