Running Computer 24/7

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jay Cee
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Jay Cee

I've heard that MS recommends letting Vista run with as few shutdowns as
possible. I use my present XP computer twelve hours a day and then turn it
off for the night. So twelve hours on, twelve hours off. Will not my next
Vista computer age twice as fast if I leave it on 24/7?
 
Jay said:
I've heard that MS recommends letting Vista run with as few shutdowns
as possible. I use my present XP computer twelve hours a day and then
turn it off for the night. So twelve hours on, twelve hours off. Will
not my next Vista computer age twice as fast if I leave it on 24/7?
Click to expand...


No.

Whether running Vista or not, some people never turn off their computers,
claiming turning them off can cause the hardware to fail sooner. Others turn
them on and off multiple times each day, to save electricity.

My view is that it doesn't matter very much either way, and you should do
what works best for you. Personally I do much the same as you--power on once
a day, when I get up in the morning, and power off once a day, when I go to
bed at night.
 
Jay Cee said:
I've heard that MS recommends letting Vista run with as few shutdowns as
possible. I use my present XP computer twelve hours a day and then turn it
off for the night. So twelve hours on, twelve hours off. Will not my next
Vista computer age twice as fast if I leave it on 24/7?
Click to expand...

Jay,

Some people believe components regularly heating up then cooling down causes
more damage than being permanently on. Personally I believe this theory has
some merits.

Having said that the additional cost of the electricity required to run the
PC will almost certainly outweigh any increase in lifetime you might get
from running 24/7.

Anyone know why MS recommend running Vista with as few shutdowns as
possible? I haven't seen this anywhere...

Ed Metcalfe.
 
Thanks to Dave, Ken and Ed for prompt and informative replies. In conclusion
I'll leave my present and future PC running 24/7. Disregarding electricity
cost in favor of PC reliability seems to me the best choice. These heating
up and cooling down of components cycles must be indeed harmful. Plus the
always present threat of a Windows malfunction at booting up! I'll just shut
down all programs, the Internet connection, and switch off the monitor.
Thanks again, guys!
 
'Jay Cee' wrote:
| Thanks to Dave, Ken and Ed for prompt and informative replies. In
conclusion
| I'll leave my present and future PC running 24/7. Disregarding electricity
| cost in favor of PC reliability seems to me the best choice. These heating
| up and cooling down of components cycles must be indeed harmful. Plus the
| always present threat of a Windows malfunction at booting up! I'll just
shut
| down all programs, the Internet connection, and switch off the monitor.
| Thanks again, guys!
_____

I don't think you draw the correct conclusion, in fact the conclusion you
draw is the opposite of the recommendations of the three posters you
thanked!

(a.) "Plus the always present threat of a Windows malfunction at booting
up!' is not a consideration. If anything, on boot-up many small errors are
fixed.
(b.) 'Standby Mode' is a good compromise between always on and daily
shut-down. In 'Standby mode' an image of memory contents and machine state
is saved to the hard drive, and the system powers off. When the system is
next restarted, the image is restored to memory and the system is up and
running with no restart of Windows necessary; only the boot from BIOS is
required. No power is used during standby, and the time to restart Windows
is reduced considerably, especially if you are not using Wi-Fi. In this
case, Windows should still be restarted from scratch a least once a week to
roll up all the accumulating small errors.
(c.) The quality of the components is more important for hardware
reliability than start cycles. Systems DESIGNED for 24/7 operation use
components with a much longer Mean Time Before Failure. These components
are designed to run continually. The typical home or small office system is
NOT designed to run 24/7 and the components have a shorter Mean Time Before
Failure. These systems should NOT be run continuously and daily shut-downs
that cut operation time to 1/2 or 1/3 increase the lifetime.

(d.) There are compromises such as 'Sleep' mode (memory is kept alive, but
the CPU goes into a low power state and the hard drives spin down.) But the
temperature cycle will still occur.

Bottom line: if your system is not designed for 24/7 operation, don't run
it as if it were. Restarting Windows periodically from scratch IMPROVES
system stability.

Phil Weldon

| Thanks to Dave, Ken and Ed for prompt and informative replies. In
conclusion
| I'll leave my present and future PC running 24/7. Disregarding electricity
| cost in favor of PC reliability seems to me the best choice. These heating
| up and cooling down of components cycles must be indeed harmful. Plus the
| always present threat of a Windows malfunction at booting up! I'll just
shut
| down all programs, the Internet connection, and switch off the monitor.
| Thanks again, guys!
|
|
| | > I've heard that MS recommends letting Vista run with as few shutdowns as
| > possible. I use my present XP computer twelve hours a day and then turn
it
| > off for the night. So twelve hours on, twelve hours off. Will not my
next
| > Vista computer age twice as fast if I leave it on 24/7?
| >
|
|
 
OK! Thanks, Phil. I'll do then what I've been doing all along, ie shut down
the PC for the night! BTW, when I said shut down all programs I meant like
Word and Photoshop and the ADSL connection, not Windows!
 
'SingaporeWebDesign' wrote:
| For (b), I believe you were referring to the Hibernate mode and not
stand-by
| mode.
|
| For (d), I believe you are referring to the "Stand-By" mode in XP,
although
| the word "Sleep" mode is also commonly used
_____

You are correct:
(b.) should refer to 'Hibernate' rather than 'Standby', keeping the
description of the as is
(c.) should refer to 'Standby' rather than 'Hibernate, keeping the
description of the function as is

In control panel you can choose whether the 'Sleep' button caused the system
to go into "Hibernate' or 'Standby' mode.

Thanks for catching my confused statements.

Phil Weldon

message | Hello,
|
| For (b), I believe you were referring to the Hibernate mode and not
stand-by
| mode.
|
| For (d), I believe you are referring to the "Stand-By" mode in XP,
although
| the word "Sleep" mode is also commonly used
|
| --
| Singapore Web Design
| http://www.bootstrike.com/Webdesign/
| Singapore Web Hosting
| http://www.bootstrike.com/WinXP/faq.html
| Windows XP FAQ
|
| ..
..
| >
| > I don't think you draw the correct conclusion, in fact the conclusion
you
| > draw is the opposite of the recommendations of the three posters you
| > thanked!
| >
| > (a.) "Plus the always present threat of a Windows malfunction at
booting
| > up!' is not a consideration. If anything, on boot-up many small errors
| > are
| > fixed.
| > (b.) 'Standby Mode' is a good compromise between always on and daily
| > shut-down. In 'Standby mode' an image of memory contents and machine
| > state
| > is saved to the hard drive, and the system powers off. When the system
is
| > next restarted, the image is restored to memory and the system is up and
| > running with no restart of Windows necessary; only the boot from BIOS is
| > required. No power is used during standby, and the time to restart
| > Windows
| > is reduced considerably, especially if you are not using Wi-Fi. In this
| > case, Windows should still be restarted from scratch a least once a week
| > to
| > roll up all the accumulating small errors.
| > (c.) The quality of the components is more important for hardware
| > reliability than start cycles. Systems DESIGNED for 24/7 operation use
| > components with a much longer Mean Time Before Failure. These
components
| > are designed to run continually. The typical home or small office
system
| > is
| > NOT designed to run 24/7 and the components have a shorter Mean Time
| > Before
| > Failure. These systems should NOT be run continuously and daily
| > shut-downs
| > that cut operation time to 1/2 or 1/3 increase the lifetime.
| >
| > (d.) There are compromises such as 'Sleep' mode (memory is kept alive,
| > but
| > the CPU goes into a low power state and the hard drives spin down.) But
| > the
| > temperature cycle will still occur.
| >
| > Bottom line: if your system is not designed for 24/7 operation, don't
run
| > it as if it were. Restarting Windows periodically from scratch IMPROVES
| > system stability.
| >
| > Phil Weldon
|
 
When you use 'Hibernate' there is no need to close any programs. With the
exception of programs dependent on Wi-Fi, when you activate the system out
of 'Hibernate' you are good to pick up where you left off in open programs.
A real time saver.

Also see the correction of my confused use of the 'Hibernate' and 'Standby'
terms in my earlier post.
The disadvantage of 'Standby' is that if a power interruption occurs, memory
contents is lost and the results is the same as if you just clicked the
power switch to OFF without shutting down Windows properly.

Phil Weldon

| OK! Thanks, Phil. I'll do then what I've been doing all along, ie shut
down
| the PC for the night! BTW, when I said shut down all programs I meant
like
| Word and Photoshop and the ADSL connection, not Windows!
|
|
 
Jay Cee said:
I've heard that MS recommends letting Vista run with as few shutdowns as
possible. I use my present XP computer twelve hours a day and then turn it
off for the night. So twelve hours on, twelve hours off. Will not my next
Vista computer age twice as fast if I leave it on 24/7?
Click to expand...


Here's my take on this:

Though there is certainly a degree of component stress due to startup inrush
current...
component failure is directly related to time in use.

I do a lot of computer repair work and have seen the most HD failure in
machines that are left running 24/7

I'd just turn the machine off when you are not going to be using it.
 
Phil said:
_____

I don't think you draw the correct conclusion, in fact the conclusion
you draw is the opposite of the recommendations of the three posters
you thanked!
Click to expand...


Actually, as one of those three people, I didn't really make any
recommendation at all, and I don't think there is any "correct" conclusion.
Although, as I said, I personally power up once a day and power down once a
day, my advice was "it doesn't matter very much either way, and you should
do what works best for you."
 
Ken Blake said:
Actually, as one of those three people, I didn't really make any
recommendation at all, and I don't think there is any "correct"
conclusion. Although, as I said, I personally power up once a day and
power down once a day, my advice was "it doesn't matter very much either
way, and you should do what works best for you."
Click to expand...

Ken,

I didn't intend to make any recommendations either.

Sometimes my PC is running 24/7 for days (sometimes longer) at a time. Other
times it will be shutdown every night - it all depends on what I'm doing.

In terms of lifetime of PC my general opinion is "who cares?". PC prices
have dropped so much over the past few years anything that does fail due to
power/temperature cycles (or indeed through leaving it on 24/7) can be
replaced very easily.

Ed Metcalfe.
 
Jay said:
Right! That's what I've been thinking ever since I got this (my
first) PC.
....
Click to expand...

Interesting: I wonder why. Startup up problems maybe? It'd be nice to
know the source of that sentence for verification. Or might it be a very
long process for Vista to get booted? XP is bad enough...

I use my present XP computer twelve hours a
Not necessarily. It's a toss up. Besides, power schemes always allow you to
power down the drives and the monitor after xx minutes of activity too; so
that's kind of an in between that allows for not instant but faster
startupes.

Basically same here. I have backups that run 3 times a week, so I leave it
on those nights and power down others, or even power down on backup nights
if I know nothing needs backing up right now. Again, kind of a combo. The
world isn't black & white; power on/off doesn't need to be all one way or
the other either.
I've never had a hard drive failure in the decades I've used computers.
In fact, I have an old dual-processor server that came out of a heavy
working environment 4 years ago that's humming along at perfectly (knock on
wood).
Now fans, there's a different story; I've replaced a few fans. Now I
have enough laying around I usually put an additional one on any computer I
use daily <G>.

Pop`
 
That's inline with snake oil. People turn their televisions on and off, few
never turn them off. There's very few tubes if any in TVs these days, so
don't go down that ignorant route either.

Dave
 
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