- Azure -

Hi, a lot of my friends shut down and a lot of them leave their PCs running for weeks at a time on hibernate and standby mode etc.

Does anybody know the implications of both in terms on hardware longevity and software because id really be interested to know.


Thanks anyone.

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Dyre Straits

I leave my own PCs running constantly.

Per Bill Husted, author of the TechnoBuddy column in the newspaper, his advice is to shutdown whenever one leaves the PC unattended for long periods of time.

He discourages shutdown too often due to the wear on the circuitry everytime a PC is turned on. That surge of electricity can actually cause problems if there's a 'weak link' anywhere.

BUT, for me, I've left my own PCs running 24/7 for years.

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Judas

No on leaves there cars idling do they?... i mean overnight.... let them idle.


It's a waist and unnessary. There is just as much wear in tear to scale on a computer as there is on a vehicle everytime you fire it up.

Computers have a few moving parts, yes, meaning overtime, they will wear out. But even in the case of "moving parts", the eletical movement across parts and various other things will cause deterioration over time.


Going to bed? Shut it down over the course of the night.

If you have plans on leaving your machine for more then lets say, 2-4+ hours or have absalutely no plans at all to fire it up within that period of time or longer, shut it down.

Ok, so some people figure standby is gonna cut it (hibernation actually does technically shut the machine down, but it stores a fair chunk of the memory still resident in the RAM to hardrive so that you can resume from the previous state, so it doesn't actually count as leaving your machine running).

Standby will generally shutdown the hardrives, some newer machines will slow hell even stop cpu fans if possible (throtle back the speeds to extremes). This still have constant power going to various devices. It's still "on".

The only reason you need something on 24/7 is if it's in uses 24/7 by various people, or is a dedicated server, or a multimedia center. And even then, it doesn't always need to be on.

My main rig is shutdown nightly, usually when i fire it up, it remains up all day. My dedicated server has ran for a full 3 and a half years straight now. Only time it gets a break is during maintence that requires it to be turned off. And standby or hibernation is NOT used on any of the machines i build.

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- Azure -

Thanks Judas, great post.

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mkk

I agree, and when going to sleep or away from home I usually flick a switch on my desk that breaks the current to all of the equipment. Saves some electricity and improves safety.

Judas

mkk, if you have a CRT, there should ALWAYS be power running to that type of monitor enless your away for weeks at a time.

I've noticed alot of people have a surge bar with a switch on it that connects everything, although if you shutdown everything properly and hit the switch it isn't going to hurt much, But people with CRTs are doing this as well, it's quite hard on them. That's the only device that i think standby is good for sometwhat.


Heres where the confusion is:

CRTS even with the front button off, when connected to power, will charge up. Yes, it's on even if it's "off". When it's completely turned on, it does the full powerup. Now standby basically shuts the same things off, but i think shutting it off in the front would be just as good. Completely shutting the power off however is not good.

It's no different then cutting power to the PSU on your computer as well, keeping a steady charge in the PSU is better then letting it drain and then replenish... It wears things out quicker.

Leave your powerbar on, turn the computers/monitors off LCDs i think have excellent standby though.

Might need swimtech to comment on the lcd part though.

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Zelig

Mine stays on almost all the time downloading. Uptime on this install of windows is over 70%, as is bandwidth utilization on my internet connection.

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TJ-

what about if you have a laptop and you r constantly moving it in a laptop case. You should leave it on? standy? or hibernate? I always hibernate it when im going to work or comming home.

Im probably hibernating or putting it in standby at least 3-4 times a day.

What would you do in this case judas?

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Matth

Maybe I should revise, but I normally shutdown even for an hour - at one time, my old machine would not standby (lost display on return) - my current one can standby.

The mechanical parts of a system will wear while running (particularly the fans), while the hard drive has a balance between starting loads and run time.

For electrical safety, I would never consider leaving a machine in any state of power overnight (unless specifically required) - reluctantly, things which require clock maintainence are left powered, as are cordless phone base units.

The CRT monitor is an interesting case, since the cathode & cathode heater have similar issues to a hard disk, starting stress versus operating life, though the monitor's power saving can look after it quite well.


Of course there are a whole variety of states a system can be in:

1. Mains off (it really is off, and better protected that the best surge limiter can achieve) - other connections need to be disconnected or protected as well.
The drawback is additional cycle loading to PSU components.

2. ATX Soft Off - there is still standby power and some components are still active, particularly those which support any form of triggered startup.

3. Hibernate (save to disk) - essentially the same final state as Soft off

4. Standby (save to RAM) - RAM is powered and operated at minimum refresh, seems possible for this to be performed under ATX standby, with PSU and CPU fans inactive.

5. Partial powersave - all other modes where individual components operate in low power modes.


One golden rule that should always be followed, with almets all electrical items, is to avoid "short cycling" - for some items, you can make a resonable assessment of how long it needs to be off for, to compensate for the additional load of an extra power cycle. The same issue occurs with things like hard drive spindown, as you do not want a drive to wait and spin down after an hour, if it's likely to be used again in an hour and ten minutes - in that case, you would have the drive spin down sooner, or not at all.

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Judas

i think your doing well.. laptops or notebooks i setup with hibernation... usually the moment you shut the lid, it'll wait a given period of time before going into standby mode and then later hibernation to save power and whatnot.

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H3X4D3C1M4L

I leave every damn piece of equipment I have on 24/7 nearly But I follow rules!

-If the machine is acting funny or being weird it goes off when I can't watch it
-When I leave for more than 5 days I turn everything but the server off
-If I'm gone for 1 - 3 days, anything not on a UPS goes off

Yes, things can be piggy on the power but I don't use many lights and the ones I do are on the flourescent bulbs and I've got only 2 fridges running and the A/C is only on during really bad weather... so I figure it balances out.

I leave my P3 server/NAS box on all the time however. I have to get a UPS for it (stupid not to have one on a server but on my main box). But other than that... standby I usually set to activate after an hour of inactivity.. which is useless for folding/downloading machines (all my machines fold actually).

I usually only turn off the UPSs/breakers once in a blue moon after my cleaning/maintenance days which is every 3 months... just to cycle things every once in a while

Hibernate has left me with bad feelings since the Windows 98 days so its ALWAYS off. Space wasting crap.

kn00tcn

24/7 for me... unless as mentioned, funny sounds/problems (this 9800's fan originally died, yay for 5min gaming + freeze)

if i'm gone... gone gone that is (normally i'm home all the time & on one of the comps ), they'd go off, such as some family trip thing

& this comp was off for 2 weeks as it awaited its 3rd HD to put 2k on...

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The_Neon_Cowboy

If its not working on something I left it to on to get done, then I turn it OFF.
My computers are booted multiple time per day. I have among the least
problematic systems on these forums

(But it also helps I format and reinstall every 30-60 days)


thats whats said but remember the source of the information the same people
that said (and still print in some books) things like overclocking is not passable.
(the people who sole job existasts due things like low level failures of hardware )
It also old info, form way back when they 1st came out consumer wise. From
people who ran the machines in bussines applications. that are constaly "working"
like an active sever with data comeing in ad out. turing it off you probubly lost
data or what ever.

You realize all devices deteriorate every moment power is applied. it'd called
electromagnetic degradation. electricity degarades its on path. the more power
as in higher voltage, or more time the faster it happens. As when power is off
its not degradeing....

Many devices have a max life listed As MTBF (max time before fail). So besides
runing up you light bill, and loading you PC with dust your actully useing up the life
of the parts in your system.

Also, a windows system is much like a toilte bowl. you start it up, take your dump
(do your work), then when you walk out, what? your not going to flush? You want
to come back to a nasty used bowl? Or flush, and comeback to a clean fresh one?
Same is true of windows. A nice fesh startup vs enjoying the slowdowns and
increased chances of errors.

there is "no wear" to a circuit when it turns on or off. The only vaild argument is that
values change. Well no sh** they change while the PC is running, nothing is a
100% constant. So that make the argument point mute.

Though I understand the logic behind/some what of where it's comeing from, But
I've always considerd it flawed and dispelled it as farce.

even if wht they said was some how true if there is a part thats "DEFECTIVE".
It's going to fail (or couse issues). You'd what to KNOW it's there VS struggle with
unknown issues. THeres just no logic to say runing with a graphics card that gliches
a while buch, vs the card dieing so you get it fixed/ rmaed repaired Vs liveing with
issues a bad part is bad part. Parts also have a threash like hold as in =+ or -10 %
as parts "vary". IE take 100 12V capasitors off a line and test them you probubly end up with like 75 to 100 diffrent values and they all Pass. As thier with in the built in margine
of error.

some applications, busness machines and severers run better left on. But as for the
home user and gamer, off, When its not working on something I left it to on to get
done. When ever it being left fora extended period of time (1+ hours)

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CJLMTLCA

I usually turn on my PC when i get home from work and then shutdown when i go to bed unless it's working on something, but i'll power off the CRT. I too have my H/W on powerbar/surge protector's, but never shut those off. On the weekend, it's on from am to pm unless i go out for more than a few hours. If i step out for 2 hours i'll leave it running, again, just switch the monitor off.

I don't think cycling puts too much wear and tear, if you have good quality components, otherwise what happens when you're troubleshooting? Like when i was testing my ram. Run tests with both sticks, off, on, test with 1 stick, off, on, test with other stick, off, on, try a different pair, etc... Sometimes you can on/off several times in an hour when building/troubleshooting/upgrading your system.

However i won't power on immediately after swapping parts, i'll wait until the LED on the MB is off and then wait another few minutes to make sure everything has had time to 'stop', then boot back up.

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H3X4D3C1M4L

MTBF = Mean Time Before Failure.

Its an estimated time figure on how long the devices should last on average before conking out.

I've seen CRT's last double their MTBF and seen just as many crap out before half their MTBF time was reached

The_Neon_Cowboy

just to explain my self I know I incorrectly (but on purpose) use Max Time Before Fail,
it expresses the same thing. Got to rember I'm used to explaing it to in technical terms
morons / competly unknowledgeable people. AS If I said "Mean Time Before Failure"
the next question would be "what do you mean?" or "what is mean time?". These
people already like to look at me like I'm speaking chinese, so I try to keep it as
simple and understandable as possable.

But to me MBTF =(adverage expected lifespan before failure).
AELBF just doesn't match up to MTBF

Also a falure doen't mean it stops working completely but that it stops working
properly. I have two old monitors here way past MTBF the one is discollored in
a spot. The other has fineite wavy lines in an area of the screen. Do they work
yes? are the defective? yes...

seems logical to me, but to each his own eh?

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H3X4D3C1M4L

Yeah... I usually discuss things on forums and with very tech savvy people so I can be a bit of a nit picker on the terms

Anyway, more to the point of the issue... leaving the system on 24/7 hasn't caused problems (power bill aside) for me, the tweaking of software and such does.

Look at it this way: Your car you expect or hope to last about 5 - 8 years before you buy a new one if you're an average joe.... if you're betting on needing to replace it you may as well floor the hell out of it as much as possible and just hope for the best. If you bought a quality car, it shouldn't be an issue. If you bought a crap can it'll give up the ghost soon enough anyway so you got your moneys worth out of it (considering you didn't pay much for it to begin with you cheap person you!).

Similarily: Buying quality PC parts, they'll last you alot longer. Quality ball bearing fans won't cause you issues and will last, good hard drives with good warranties will work a long time no matter the stress. Cheap crap will always fail.

The other factor is care. I care for my PC better than most things and better than most people on average. It will last me longer for the care I put into it, just like a car would if I change the oil frequently, make sure the fluids are topped up etc... Overclocking/flooring aside, quality and care will always net you the most out of your investment

PangingJr

as with any rules-of-thumb, there are general and there are some exceptions to them.
i have a friend who is always shutdown his system at every time he's finished with it, i mean he turn on the system, connect to the internet, check the email for a few mins or so then shutdown, and if he wants something like he needs to print a document off the system he'll turn the system back on again and then again... last time i stopped by his homeoffice he did the same things, he started the system and shut it down after he showed me some of vacation pics, then he went to start it up again during my visit... the same old system seems to be working okay for him. personally, i do the same as JD have said before, but a few of my workers likes to shut the system down many times per a 8-10 hours workdays, and i find all of the computers are fine for at least 5 or so years...

Judas

i put a 2-3 year upgradeable lifespan on all computers i build.

up to 5 years of use under just about any form of computer use. (aside from 24/7 running periods).

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