Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

[c_hegge]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

^I call them Can't Read This monitors. They take up too much space on my desk, use too much power, the picture isn't quite as sharp as an LCD and I don't even notice the colour differences and refresh rates. The rubbish tip won't even take them unless you pay them to

[Pentium4]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

I'm not really sure about that.

Perhaps true for PSU. Bet even then, I doubt it would matter over the useful lifetime of the PSU.

As for HDDs...
From what I've seen at work, most Seagate HDDs that have bad sectors are the ones with over 10K hours, and we have mostly 7200.7 and 7200.8 models. Most also have a low Power Cycle Count as well (200-500 usually).
In contrast to this, my family's computer has a Seagate 7200.7 HDD with 9k hours and 5k power cycles - that's 10x the power cycle count of the ones we have at work - and yet it has 0 bad sectors.
Of course, this is only my observation for the Seagate 7200.7 and 7200.8 HDDs. I'm not sure how other drives will do.

Either way, I never leave my computers running 24/7. The noise just bothers me too much, even if the computers aren't in my room. I like my house as quiet as possible.
Another factor is that as a kid, I was raised during the 90's crisis years in Easter Europe, and back then my parents have always thought me to turn off stuff if I'm not using them. It's still in my mentality, and definitely not a bad thing.


Don't worry man, I'll be compensating for you. My computers are mostly Pentium 3s that don't use more than 60W of power, if even that much . The only power hogs are my CRT monitors, but there's no way in hell I'll be changing those for some flimsy LCD crap with inferior colors and refresh rates.
I've had people call me "not green" for using CRT monitors. I say, fuck 'em. Sure they use more power, but at least they've lasted me for a very long time.

I recently posted about my neighbors Western Digital that has just under 64K hours and only 200 power cycles (not kidding) I checked it and it had 0 errors. My parents also taught me to turn them off but I changed my mind As for Pentium 3's, the same computer with the 64K hour hard drive idled at 17 Watts including inefficiency, they don't use anything

[Toasty]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

>>What are the specs?<<

All: P4's, XP Pro, dual NIC's

1) ASUS P4C800E Deluxe, 2.8G oc'd to 3.1G, 3G RAM, 40 & 80G HDs, ATI Radeon X700 256mb, AGP 8x, TV/Cable tuner card

2) Abit SR7-8X, 2.8G, 2G RAM, 80 & 80G HDs, nVidia GeForce4 MX 4000 128mb, AGP 4x

3) ASUS P5AD2-E Premium, 3.6G, 3G RAM, 200 & 80 & 250G HDs, ATI Radeon / Sapphire HD3870 512mb, PCIE x16

4) Dell Dim 4500, 2.53G, 1G RAM, 40G HD, ATI Radeon X1050 256mb, AGP 4x

Also have 2 Precision 670 Dual Xeon workstations that I am slowly getting around to.
Migrating systems 1 & 2 to Windows 7 on those.

Just recapped a duplicate mobo for #3 and will swap that out when time permits.

1 & 3 are running on recapped Antec PSU's. 2 is running the 550w AcBel of forum fame. 4 is stock Dell.

.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

I've got a 24/7 headless fileserver/torrent box/print server/VPN gateway box. It's a SFF Compaq Deskpro EN with a 700mhz Pentium 3 and a 5400rpm SATA HDD. I've never taken the kill-a-watt to it but I'd be very surprised if it drew more than 30~40 watts.

Then there's my C2D box and two P4 boxes, those see a few hours of use a day. No CRTs left in the house monitor-wise.

[stretch0069]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

say what you want about CRTs, but I have 19" that has a resolution no LCD can match.

....and once I can get everything sorted....all my machines will be back on 24/7

[Pentium4]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

>>What are the specs?<<

All: P4's, XP Pro, dual NIC's

1) ASUS P4C800E Deluxe, 2.8G oc'd to 3.1G, 3G RAM, 40 & 80G HDs, ATI Radeon X700 256mb, AGP 8x, TV/Cable tuner card

2) Abit SR7-8X, 2.8G, 2G RAM, 80 & 80G HDs, nVidia GeForce4 MX 4000 128mb, AGP 4x

3) ASUS P5AD2-E Premium, 3.6G, 3G RAM, 200 & 80 & 250G HDs, ATI Radeon / Sapphire HD3870 512mb, PCIE x16

4) Dell Dim 4500, 2.53G, 1G RAM, 40G HD, ATI Radeon X1050 256mb, AGP 4x

Also have 2 Precision 670 Dual Xeon workstations that I am slowly getting around to.
Migrating systems 1 & 2 to Windows 7 on those.

Just recapped a duplicate mobo for #3 and will swap that out when time permits.

1 & 3 are running on recapped Antec PSU's. 2 is running the 550w AcBel of forum fame. 4 is stock Dell.

.

Wow, those are all awesome setups! As you can tell from my name, I love P4's

I've got a 24/7 headless fileserver/torrent box/print server/VPN gateway box. It's a SFF Compaq Deskpro EN with a 700mhz Pentium 3 and a 5400rpm SATA HDD. I've never taken the kill-a-watt to it but I'd be very surprised if it drew more than 30~40 watts.

Then there's my C2D box and two P4 boxes, those see a few hours of use a day. No CRTs left in the house monitor-wise.

Wow that's really cool. Pentium 3's are great for that kind of stuff because they are pretty powerful little chips and they don't use much power at all

[dumpystig]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

I turn off my PC when it's not being used. Same with my lights, my TV, my car...

^I call them Can't Read This monitors.

Haha I've always called them Can't Read Toss

[buffy]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

Always turn my desktop off since i started using my spare room as my office, it has no heating in there and i have noticed how warm the room feels when the computer is left on,complete waste of energy to leave it on when not using it.however i use my laptop alot so i hibernate during the day when not in use, and switch off at night. both years old with no problems.

[Ami Sapphire]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

Of course, my web server is on 24/7. Aside from that, my main laptop and the family's MagicJack phone are on 24/7 as well. The other computers in the house? They usually get shut down when we are finished. (Key word: usually.)


The web server is being set up again because of a different array setup along with new hard drives, but here are the specs:

Motherboard: Intel SAI2 Server Motherboard
CPUs: 2 x Intel Pentium III-S 1.4GHz/512KB L2 Cache [ SL5XL ]
RAM: 4x 1GB (4GB) Micron Technologies PC133R ECC SDRAM
Hard Drives: 1x IBM Deskstar 180GXP 61.5GB IDE Hard Drive (OS drive), 4x Maxtor MaXLine Plus II Hard Drives in RAID10 array (2x ATA/133 and 2x SATA/150) using a modded Promise Fasttrak S150 TX2 RAID card (it is now a TX2plus! )
D-Link DFE-530TX+ 10/100 Network Adapter (for local use)
Optical Drive: LiteOn DVD+RW DL (Multi Recorder) SHW-160P6S10C
Floppy Drive

That system is running Ubuntu 11.10 Server as of this post.

---

I also have a Dell Dimension 8200 desktop computer (Intel i850 model) that used to run Windows XP Pro for nine years straight, but the hard drive died, and now it's just sitting there, being a test computer. Possible FTP server plans? Who knows.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

What are the specs?

And dang Uranium, that Poweredge 1800 must use a lot of power xD

dual redundant 645W power supplies, I only keep one plugged in

[dood]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

I have two PCs in the house... both get left on 24x7. My main PC folds when I'm not using it, so it stays on all the time... and the other is a GX280 that's pulling HTPC duty, so that gets left on so I don't have to wait for it to boot. The only time they get shut down is if I'm going to be away from the house for several days.

My desktop at work stays on 24x7 and also folds 24x7. It's an Optiplex 960.

[Sparky]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

Mine stay on all the time. My main PC (Phenom II 955 @ 3.6GHz), my office PC (Core i7 950), and my dedicated crunch box (quad AMD Opteron Barcelona 1.9GHz quad core CPUs).

I pay the electric on the main PC and the crunch box. Work pays electric for the office PC but I remotely connect to it at all times of the day which is the main reason I leave it on. I run DC projects on all 3 boxes too (and the office PC is one I built for myself so I can do whatever I want with it hehe).

[ratdude747]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

Don't worry man, I'll be compensating for you. My computers are mostly Pentium 3s that don't use more than 60W of power, if even that much . The only power hogs are my CRT monitors, but there's no way in hell I'll be changing those for some flimsy LCD crap with inferior colors and refresh rates.
I've had people call me "not green" for using CRT monitors. I say, fuck 'em. Sure they use more power, but at least they've lasted me for a very long time.

amen.

plenty of CRTs here... mainly because there was never a reason to upgrade. they still work, and to be honest, the $$$ doesn't exist to upgrade.

some call me a noob for using crts, but it works for me.

[ben7]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

amen.

plenty of CRTs here... mainly because there was never a reason to upgrade. they still work, and to be honest, the $$$ doesn't exist to upgrade.

some call me a noob for using crts, but it works for me.

hehe, I still have a crt for my desktop, which somebody donated to me.
It is atleast 5 years old, and although it makes my room hot when running, it has decent picture quality too.

[mariushm]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

My system stays pretty much on all the time. I just turn the lcd screens and the speakers off when I sleep.

I've converted the video card to be passively cooled, the power supply is a 92% efficiency Seasonic X-650 which doesn't spin the fan at under 170w consumption, so there's only two fans in the whole system on low speed... one cooling the hard drives and one cooling the cpu. I can barely hear the system running when I'm near it.

It sucks about 150 watts on idle which equals to about 10-15$ of electricity a month - overall i'm paying about 35$ a month on average.

The startup and warmup to normal operating temperatures is still the most stressful part for components so in a way it makes sense to just keep the system running 24/7

I'm not sure what was all the talk about hard drives and hours... statistically, there's usually no connection between that and hdd failure. Mine are a mix of older and newer drives and I've been lucky enough to never have drives die on me so far.

[c_hegge]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

plenty of CRTs here... mainly because there was never a reason to upgrade. they still work, and to be honest, the $$$ doesn't exist to upgrade.

I used to use them, but once I got a few 17" LCDs for free, I never went back. The 22" one I use now I also got for free, but it had bad caps. A few panny FCs later, it was as good as new.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

In the summer they get turned off when not in actual use.
No reason to pay to heat the house then pay again to cool it off.

In the winter they get left on.
If they weren't adding heat I'd just be doing it with the furnace instead.
Have a well insulated house and mild winters.
I think I only turned on the furnace twice last winter.
.

[shovenose]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

Haha yes my bedroom is alwasys like 3x as warm as the rest of the house... great in the winter like right now
It's raining outside right now, but I had to OPEN my window so it didn't get too hot in here. lol!
If anybody cares, my servers are in the closet, but the closet doors are open during the day, so the heat goes into my bedroom

[Ami Sapphire]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

plenty of CRTs here... mainly because there was never a reason to upgrade. they still work, and to be honest, the $$$ doesn't exist to upgrade.

Seconded. Though, I will miss my old 19" Dell-branded Trinitron CRT monitor. Had that thing since January 2002. It had a very vivid screen and kept my room warm in the winter. Unfortunately, it died two years ago.

[Evil Lurker]

Re: Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

I used to use them, but once I got a few 17" LCDs for free, I never went back. The 22" one I use now I also got for free, but it had bad caps. A few panny FCs later, it was as good as new.

Amen. The best thing about LCDs is they don't hog up all your desktop real estate and are light enough to keep your desktop from warping slightly over time from their weight.