computer always on. yah or nay?

[HIVEmind]

I have excellent water cooling and is win11. it's a lga1150 haswell v3, heavly modded and will replace if it breaks. don't worry I take care of my stuff and this PC will retire to server duty. I heard it's best to always leave it on.

[PopinFRESH]

Not really, no. If you don't care about wasting $$ on a much higher power bill then knock yourself out. But there isn't really any benefit to leaving it on.

EDIT: other than it already being on when you want to use it... so spend a bunch more money so you don't have to wait 30 seconds or so for it to boot up and load up whatever you're wanting to do.

[HIVEmind]

I live in a country with hydro water power plants. electricity is cheap and reliable. yes I have it always on and just log in. it runs system47 when idle. the monitors are fine. by the time they show damage, I will replace with a new and improved lcd screen. perhaps bigger and faster refresh rate. currently I'm at 100 qhd

[nullable]

Originally posted by HIVEmind:

I have excellent water cooling and is win11. it's a lga1150 haswell v3, heavly modded and will replace if it breaks. don't worry I take care of my stuff and this PC will retire to server duty. I heard it's best to always leave it on.

Heard it from who?

At any rate, it's a non-issue. Letting the computer go to sleep, or running the default power settings which allow that isn't harmful in anyway and won't affect your future plans.

There's a lot of dumb one size fits all tropes in amatuer IT that just get repeated ad nauseam. People get hung up on some undefinable edge case, or get hyper focused on the most imperceptible technicality and blow it up.

If there was any merit there would be hard data to support the claim. Where's that data? If there isn't, why isn't there? Too hard? Too boring? Or *gasp* the effect is insignificant to the point that even mentioning it is an exaggeration?

[xDDD]

I say nay.
Plenty of people do leave their computers on 24/7 and it is fine but I've always shut mine off when not using it for extended periods. As a matter of fact I shut it off COMPLETELY but I think I am kind of weird in that regard.

Although if you do leave it on all the time, do be sure to periodically shut down (or restart because fast boot is dumb or something) every now and then, once a week or once a month or whatever.

[A&A]

If it is a laptop, yes
If not then no, unless there is a reason to.

[Nikonos]

I hardly ever turn the desktops off. They like it, and they keep working.
This one for almost 8 years now.

[fourfourtwo79]

What's the benefit? With SSDs the things boot so fast these days, I just don't see it. No matter the price for electricity, you're gonna pay for nothing, and it's waste of energy. Plus wear and tear -- obviously, frequently shutting off the PC and turning it on again causes that as well... or any use in general. Usually those things last longer than they're of use though for modern software or even games.

My last PSU lasted over ten years, never had any other PC part breaking of age since my first in 1994. I still use a case I bought in 2007, and the fan that came with it is still running. Only thing that broke was the damn plastic power switch -- years ago. Okay, now I AM seeing the benefit of leaving the PC just on. :-D

[¤☣wing☢zeяo☣¤™]

Gaming PC I turn off most of the time, HTPC is pretty low power and I just leave that on.

[_I_]

old 8in and 5.25in hdds could warp when spun up/down several times a day, enough to cause track errors
it was better to keep them spinning all the time while the pc was needed

3.5in hdds are much better about it, even with much higher data/track density

ssd dont care, no moving parts

as for windows, either keep it running, or shutdown
disable hibernate/sleep/standby modes, those can cause more problems
run 'powercfg -h off' as admin so windows will fully shutdown by default

if the board or some component has bad caps, its better to keep it on, warm caps can hold their charge better, if caps are going bad, it can take time for them to warm up to work again
both electrolytic and solidstate caps

[andreasaspenberg575]

if your pc is stable and can use hibernation without crashing, then you should turn it off. if you however have a lot of crashes related to startup, then you should leave it on.

[Alice Liddell]

Leaving a PC powered on 24/7 without purpose is literally handing over your wallet to the electric company (unless you are harvesting solar).

[Kobs]

Short answer Nay

Long answer... if you had no electricity and used candles, would you leave it lit when you're not there? Of course not it would burn for nothing.... Same happens with computer components, everything has a finite life, the longer you leave it on the shorter it's life is. It all depends if you're going to change it before it reaches it's end

[andreasaspenberg575]

my toshiba laptop takes very long to start up and hibernation does not work most of the time. it is easier to just leave it running.

[Midnight Aurais]

the debate about leaving your pc off vs on ended in a draw

if you keep your pc 24/7 on your pc will die likely from wear and tear
if you turn your pc off and on in the morning your power delivery suffers the most of the brunt and is often the first to die remember if you turn your pc on you are shorting it for a few milliseconds it goes above the rated spec

if you place both pc's in a controlled test both devices die around the same time which then comes down to the electricity bill being the only true deciding factor

if you are using a server that is a different story however there is a bug within amd processors that will restart your pc if a certain amount of days has passed

[↑↑↓↓←→←→BASelect]

Leaving it on 24/7 causes less wear and tear on your pc. But can leave it susceptible to power surges which can fry your pc. Yea surge protectors do work but only protect your pc depending on the joules and then has to be replaced.

The number of surges it can handle depends on the joule rating and the severity of each surge. A surge protector with a high joule rating can withstand more surges than one with a lower rating. It's also important to note that each surge damages the internal components of the surge protector, eventually leading to its failure.