how long is it safe to leave my pc on?

[rzX157]

sometimes i leave it onf for 2 or 3 days. is it safe,it wont over heat or anything will it?
i have a case fan and cpu fan and heatsink son my GPU and cpu and hard drive.

[Felix]

it should be fine to leave it on for as long as you want as long as its stable and has been tested before with large uptimes.

[wooolF[RM]]

http://www.uptime-project.net/page.php?page=toplist&content=profile&uid=6016&PHPSESSID=e586ee9e0ed03121dac7fe55b95a9316

that box have been online for 831 days ?=) Need I say more? :)

[Syphon]

As long as your system is well ventilated (i.e. has a good cooling system) then you will be fine.

[Shinosuke]

I dont overclock my PC. 2 extra fans, a bigger CPU fan, and I have left it on for 2 months before, till it lags, then I'll just restart it.. and then it'll be a couple of weeks again before I restart.. shut down? Unless it's some hardware matter, i never shut down ;)

[cRAZyDESi]

yah when the mem gets near full it gets all slow, so i restart

[Puma]

i heard it is better to leave it on that turn it on and off over and over again.
Better for the connections and small parts? :)

btw...finally reached 15 posts. This is a historical day. I can use my own avatar...muahahaha

[Syphon]

Well, every time you switch it on you send a surge of electricity through the system, which in theory is bad for it therefore switching on and off over and over is bad.

As for the memory getting full, look for a program called "clearmem.exe" made by MS which clears out your RAM of unused .dlls etc.

[½Life]

I'm running Windows 98 SE (Athlon 900) w/ 512 MB of ram. Video is GeForce Ti4600 and 5.1 Sound card. But being that it's an Athlon 900, I restart constantly after playing games for awhile, some games i have to restart before and after playing. But I ain't complaining the cpu's 5 years old.

[[DivX]RobinHood]

I read a report somewhere that leaving a PC on all day uses about the same power as a 100w bulb being on for a hour.

But I leave mine on 24/7 and the only time it's off is if I'm working on it, or out of town for more than a day.

It's less wear and tear on the PC and even the fans since being off dust and crap can settle in the fan and stuff.

Just check it every few weeks and make sure your fans are still running, clean, etc... You'll be fine

[vietfrost]

My fan on my geforce2 ti burned out a long time ago. It doesn't say on for more that a few minutes before it starts to keep restarting :( i have to open the case and leave a fan on up to it 24/7 lol. I haven't turned it off for so long. Months already without the restarts. I wonder if i could replace that fan, it be nice to have my case back on like most normal computers.

BTW anyone know how much an average pc uses up power a day lol?

[luck777jojo]

dunno if this is just a myth or something but I heard that a PC uses less electricity per 24 hours then it takes to run a washer or dryer 2 times per day

[GrumpySpyGuy]

Totally true.. I believe it..

Just like a TV, it takes more power to turn on and off. If you keep it on it keeps a low steady output.

Washer and dryers take a lot of electricity.

[vietfrost]

LOL i live in california usa. Theres a power crisis here. Have to keep the power usage low or they might start the rolling blackouts again lol.

[luck777jojo]

ouch, yeah heard about that..... that's gotta suck O.o

no power problems here in canada, actually BC is selling power to California :p

[Foe]

This is a recent article about this very topic.

Why you shouldn't turn off your PC

Brian Cooley
Editor at Large, Reviews
Friday, Apr. 23, 2004
Off or on?
My position in the debate: I say, forget the thing even has a power switch. Leave it on. That way your machine is instantly available, just like every other tech product you own. It also lets backup programs, antivirus apps, and spyware cleaners do their thing thoroughly every night without slowing you down--or vice versa. That's how the pros run machines after all.

The cost? The average PC draws something like 60 watts in normal operation. At the average national rate of 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, that's $6 a month running all the time. Add in a monitor, and you might round up to $10, much less for an LCD. So we're talking maybe $120 per year.

What about wear and tear? The only part of a PC you really worry about breaking is the hard drive. My Seagate Barracuda is a 600,000-hour part (as measured by its mean-time-between-failures rating). That's about 69 years, always on. I've also noticed that PCs are like jetliners--they almost never blah out when cruising, but you have to watch those takeoffs and landings. Cycling the power on a PC is when you should tighten your seat belt.

But if the benefits of instant-on and background housekeeping don't turn you on, here's a more human-based reason to never shut down your machine: It takes my computer 48 seconds to boot. During that time, if you're like me, you sit there, pretty much staring at the BIOS and Windows screens. Maybe you're even mouth-breathing. Done just once a day, that's 4.9 hours of looking stupid, every year. I'll gladly play $120 to take that off my resume.

[luck777jojo]

hahahaaha that article was quite funny rofl

good job finding that and posting it O.o

[Shinosuke]

Omg, thats the most intelligent article i have read for a loooooong time! No, seriously! Thank you!! :p 4.9 hours! imagine that.. i could get about 500mb with that time!

Very nice~~

[angelhunt]

how about leaving your modem on?, my adsl modem gets hotter than my CPU, it can almost really boil a pot of water if i leave it on just for a day, any suggestion on how to keep my modem cool or can i just leave it hot without breaking a fuse in it, (if it has any, lol). One more thing, i just noticed i keep on getting system failure and havta restart a few times, and i found out that one of my 512 ram is spoilt =X any idea why?, i only on my pc ~ 16 hrs a day

[JesseC]

I use my PC a couple times a day. About 5 times a day for an avg. of about an hr. I turn it off after each time I use it. How much damage am I incurring on it?

[Dark Blaze]

Well, JesseC if you have a good cooling system, you needn't worry about it... Besides, most users (more than 90%) will use that computer for a long time and then get a new one, throwing away the old one or giving it to a person in the family that wants it for his/her needs... All in all, I still use every computer I own (apart from the Atari or the Comodore, that is), but upgraded, bought new parts, a new pc, etc... I doubt there will be one to use the hardware or the computer in general, to its very limits... that is speaking of more than 90% of the population that uses pcs...

[Jesus Claus]

If you dont have your harddrive to shut down after 30 mins than I wouldt leave your computer on cause the head on the harddrive gets loose and wears your harddrive out alot faster than normal. If you do have it so it shuts down after about 30 mins than yeah its fine if you leave your computer on. Its still fine to leave it on without the 30 min thing. Just wears your hard drive out alot faster.

EDITED: Just read the article. Not bad. More your hard drive wears out the slower it becomes with reading info off of it. Get a new seagate hard drive about after a year same specs and stuff and you will see a differance.