Well, 3 years is enough for me. Thanks.

baldy3105-
Run it as you wish, but your 500,000 hours when consumed at 24x7 is a lot shorter of a duration than 500,000 hours consumed at 8x7, because 24 is 3 times as many hours operating each day compared to 8 hours operating each day.

Darin-
Moral issue: 3 million computers running 24x7 draw more power when left running normally than when placed in standby; 3 million computers in standby mode draw more power than 3 million computers which are totally disconnected from the powerline. Standby power draw of 15 watts each means 45 megawatts per hour spent idling. How many BTUs make a watt? Consider conversion efficiency.... Iraqi Oil is all the more necessary because you are too lazy to flip a switch. Morals? Yep.

baldy3105-
Thermal cycling was the issue I was mentioning has been improved. Initially, the heat generated by all the surge currents (power on) would fry components, back when thermal cycling was less understood. Now we have electronic components which include transient thermal impedance curves. My transistor databooks from the 1960s usually do not include even the simpler steady state thermal resistance; data from the mid 1980s is when I started seeing transient thermal impedance curves; 1990s for transient thermal impedance curves which considered heatsinking conditions. I spent 25 years in the field, pup.... how old are you? By the way, you'd better not calculate anything with your CPU, because the CPU core temp will rise when you do.... that would be a thermal cycle, each time the CPU gated a register, clocked the ALU, bumped something in the stack.....

That's still 19 years, though.

i've watched a lot of friends over the years that thought
both ways, and the computers that get left on all the
time age a lot faster than the ones that are on for
a couple of hours a day. A dirty environment makes a
bigger difference than anything. about 5 years ago when
the motherboards used to ground off all the extra cpu
voltage, those things would get super hot, and they
seemed to always burn up after 3 years
My current computer gets left on all day, and turned off
when i go to bed. My last 2 machines got turned on and
off 40 times a day. The on off switch in that at box gave
out after 5 years, but thats it.

I am a home user. Other than very rare circumstances & reboots, I haven't turned my computer(s) off in nearly 10 yrs. In almost 20 yrs. I have only had 2 hard drives die on me. I have had one motherboard die, but I think that was my own fault.

I have never had a monitor die. I still use (on another machine) the Viewsonic 15 I bought about 10 yrs. ago.

My wife's computer we bought in 2000 also stays on all the time.

The answer is simple. If you really need it 24 x 7, just leave it on. If not, just turn off when you go to sleep.

And if it is on watch out for you monthly electric bill I myself was running the machine on for about three month granted to say I was leaving X running all the time, so the result is a burnt video card, two days later a spanking new GeForce4 4200 Ti for $99 in place of aged down GeForce256, and it was really plug'n'play, no drivers to recompile, nada.

Lucky you! My beautifully crisp mag dx15t on my extra computers' portswitch just died on me and I'm stuck with something called a komodo, it runs like a commode.

I have '87 Sony 14" that does 1024x768 interlaced (onfigged it in X just for laughs once) that still hasn't bought the farm. Had a cheapo burner die on me, still have the CDROM I got at the same time, hi-val sucks! Defective WD drive they replaced free Power supplies seem to pop when they need to be bigger anyhow. Cheap CPU fans, REALLY cheap hub, a floppy drive, a BETA moboard. The cheap keyboard that keys fell off of doesn't count. Considering I have 3-4 machines and one runs 24/7 all my h/w has done well. Besides the mag and the replaced WD drive which still works it's all been either bargain basement parts or obsolete before it died.

I've got a KDS Avitron 17" FS, and so far it's treated me good. Funny thing, I returned the first one because I thought the lines @ 1/3 & 2/3 were goofs. Soon I found that it is a trait of FS monitors.

...worst comes to worst I still have the Viewsonic.

There's no way in the world I would be able to con my wife out of hers...

LOL! Previous generations think of that noise as sounding like baseball cards in bicycle spokes.

You might check to see if a drive cable hasn't gotten too close to the CPU fan. I had that happen once while relocating a system. Made a horrendous noise that scared the c**p out of me when I powered the system back up. A pull-tab on a SCSI cable had brushed up against the fan. Now if it's coming from a disk drive... I'd be looking for a replacement.

Monitors are probably the most power hungry piece of a system. Leave the system on but turn the monitor off. The power switch is the ultimate screensaver.

you guys are kidding!?? this box can be turned off?

; )

True story:
I had my windows 2000 machine running for about 6 months straight. It's setup to go to standby after 4 hours, but I rarely turned it off completely. (one thing to keep in mind: the case and powersupply have lasted me through 3 complete upgrades; I only changed out the internals.)
One day in November I decided to upgrade my 2 hard drives. I shutdown the system, unplugged everything, and changed the drive. I ghosted my old drives to the new drives, and kept the old drives for another machine. I had to shutdown completely 3 or 4 times to get all the data transferred between the drives. When I powered on the last time, i heard a *pop* and saw a puff of smoke from the back of the PC. Apparently, the powercycling in that short period of time was just too much for the old power supply and it blew out. I suppose I really don't have a point other than to say that as long as you aren't shutting down every hour and rebooting, the hardware should last quite a while.

Leave it on. My generic homebuilt machine has been on for over 5 years, 3 years with the current motherboard and 4 years with the harddrive. The old motherboard is in another computer. I just used the HD manf recert utils and low level partition on the HD before converting to Mandrake. My old system was up for 5 years continuously and is now in the hands of my mother inlaw.

I think at your age, pops, you could do some basic arithmetic. 500 000 hours at 8 hours a day will make it last for 171 years. Better than 57 years? Who cares, if we're not all running solid state in 20 years I'll be surpised. But I'd bet the on/off cycle will decrease that life considerably.

If the worlds energy supplies are your problem I think you've got bigger fish to fry.....


Oooooooh! Pup is it? We did get pinked in the quick didn't we?How long is it since anyone called me that I wonder? Got to be 20 years now. Never mind, old people tend to get tetchy, got to make allowances.

Thermal issues withing individual conponents is one thing. Thermal issues with electromechanical devices is another. Hard-drives, chip sockets, dimm sockets etc.

You are spot on though that everytime you use your Processor it shortens the lifespan of it by a tiny amount. Shit happens.

You seem so be suffering from the falacy that age brings wisdom to which I can only answer with a suitable quotation -

"Age does not necessarily bring wisdom, all to often it just changes simple ignorance into arrogant conceit."
- Robert Anson Heinlein

Bored with this argument, got to go and configure some BGP now.