hey guys, i was just wondering what your stance is on the old question...How often do you reboot? I've heard arguments on why you should shut your computer off every night and turn it on every morning...but i've also heard that you should just keep it running all the time, as long as you use it on a semi- regular basis...I usually keep my computer running all the time, and only reboot when i have to... I was just wondering what your opinions were.

Dad always said to turn off the light when I'm not in the room...
It's cheaper if I turn off the computer and have every light in the house on.

yea thats true, but i was thinking along the lines of effecting the computer....i hear its stressfull on the hardware for a computer to be started up everyday..just wondering if thats a myth

According to Scott Mueller's Upgrading and repairing PC's, the issue with turning computers off and on, is the issue of different expension rates of different materials as they are heated and cooled.
For example : If you have a piece of steel strip welded to a copper strip so that the two strips lay along side each other and heat them both. the two strips will twist as the metals have different rates of conduction expansion etc. In fact this is how temperature gauges work in ovens etc.

Therefore if you have a processor with a copper heatsink being heated and cooled two or three times a day then sooner or later, if the the heatsink-compound between the two drys out, then the heatsink may not connect properly to the processor affecting the cooling of the processor and allowing it to overheat.

Moral of the story, either leave the computer on OR have a maintenance programme that includes correctly reseating the heatsink ( with heatsink compound ) . However I doubt whether that would need to be done more than once every couple of years or so. More an issue with computers as they age.

floppy

sounds official

I leave my boxes on 24/7. Just turn off the monitor, that's what really sucks the power.

i usually keep my laptop on for about a week, then turn it off
so far no ill effects

a related question...i keep my computer on my bed when i sleep, especially when its on..(when its off, i tend to put it on the table)... is it bad to sleep with a turned on laptop next to you? (i close the monitor, so no light)

See, my laptop I only have on when I'm using it, because it gets so freakin' hot. I swear to god this thing is going to make me sterile.

If by 'bad' you mean "is this thing leaking radiation and frying my brain" I think you can sleep easy Home electronics are certified to not leak unsafe levels of radiation...thats what the FCC(?) blurb on the second page of your user manual is all about.

yeah thats what i meant.... thanks, i will sleep better now... i really should have RTFM

yeah same exact thing here...then one LQ member (forgot who) suggested that I use a vacum cleaner to clean the fan and stuff. So I unscrewed the bottom, where the fan is...and found that my heat sink was blocked with about 3 inches....maybe you should try the same thing

edit:
i meant 3 inches of dust... so the dust was blocking the heat sink, so very few air could exit

My SuSe laptop goes off when I'm finished using, but I do leave my Slackware main pc up and running always, unless I'm leaving the city for an extended period.

I have several boxes going 24/7. Some of those boxes are 10 years old

Mind you I think my oldest working hard drive would be a quantum bigfoot 2gig that's in a going machine. the 24/7 print server - P200MMX - still running mdk 7.0 I think. Must upgrade that or reboot it or something... Not sure where I left it so I guess I'll have to trace back the cable on the printer to find it

I turn mine off when I get off of it.

So I turn it on / off several times per day.


It's always been my experience that the longer the computer runs, the more unstable it becomes.


Also, after copying / deleting 3 GB or more the RAM has a big drop in performace. The performance drop lasts until I shutdown or leave it sitting running only the screensaver for 45 mins. If I reboot the performace is back to normal.




My thoughts on computers can be summed up with "we don't leave our TVs, GameBoys, Palms, Microwaves, PS2s, Xboxes, Nintendos, Segas or other electronics on when we're done with them so why the heck do we insist on having our computers on 24/7?"

Granted I'm refering to computers used as personal desktops; I can under stand why a server remains on all day.

Not to mention I've had to recover several computers that didn't wake up from hibernation properly.

I didn't take quiet fans so I turn it off always. If I'm away I'll also put off anything but the tower itself (don't know what to call it else)

Actually PC's leak radiation like crazy, especially the monitor part, but luckily it's just the benign type known as "light"

Sorry, just kidding around here and I couldn't resist -- J.W.

I have a print server box that has been on 24/7 for several years not counting power failures. It shows no stability problems. All the desktops here are on 24/7 and they show no stability problems and only reboot for power failures and kernel upgrades generally.

I think you might be talking from a windows perspective where this can seem to be the case. This is not true with linux boxes. But even win boxes can stay up long periods, tho mem management seems to kill them now and then.

I leave them up as I'm on and off quite a lot and it would be too much switching on and off and too much waiting. I get on for frequent short periods. Also it checks my mail when I'm not there and often other little background jobs encoding or compling...