Leave on, Turn off

[arneson]

I have been aware of bad caps for about two years now and have recapped
boards.
Most recently was a gateway profile with good caps except the two right under the heatsink fan assembly which was slightly clogged with dust.
They definetely got hot and ruptured.
This leads me to ask the old question of leaving a computer on or off.
It seems even quality caps can only take so much abuse from spikes, brownouts, and temperature.
I have told people to turn it off when you get up to leave.
I have never had much luck with hybernate, sleep, standby or whatever
because an external cdrom, usb memory,wireless keyboard or some other device always conflicts.
Leave it on and expect bad caps?

[Topcat]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

My Systems run 24/7/365, and caps are all still good. They're good caps though. If they're still good in another year or so, I'll salute them!

[Fatal0E]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

2 of my systems are 24/7 the rest are only on when needed


So far OST caps last me about 7 months, nichicon hmm 2 years, g luxon 1 year, never had a rubycon, sanyo, or chemicon pop on my systems yet.

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

Leaving a 'puter on 24x7 accumulates hours and dust on the caps, heatsinks, and fans. Turning a 'puter on and off causes electrical stresses in the P/S and thermal change stresses in the sytem. With occasional cleaning, watching the fans, and good caps, 24x7 is probably somewhat better.

[Rainbow]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

Good caps will be still OK after 10 years or even more - see e.g. PSUs on old computers (the fans are often OK too - unlike the crap that's now on many VGA cards and chipsets and dies after a couple of months).

[willawake]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

a proper UPS like an APC smart-ups will assist by conditioning the power to the PC. it is worth the added expense. the back-ups do not work the same, the surge arrest strips are all bs. there are big strains on the power utility companies with the increased consumption due to more people having airconditioning and more electronics in their homes and companies. it is an important consideration and i have APC Line-R 1200VA line conditioners on my stereo, tv etc, they perform like the smart ups but without the battery backup.

secondly it is important to have a good quality psu that is adequately sized for your power requirements. the psu should have a good design that prevents the nuking of your nice components when things go wrong.

one you have those two items then you have ensured that your 24/7 pc's capacitors are supplied with good quality power.

then you look into cooling. as said before blowing out all the dust is important in caring for your pc. Also it is important to have a large sized case with exhaust fan(s) and reasonably tidy cabling to allow for good airflow. nothing special.

where am i going with this description? well many customers pcs dont even meet the above simple requirements so are bound to fail early regardless if they are on 24/7 or not. leaving computers on to make them last longer is not a very good decision due to additional electrical costs and of course environmental issues (we must reduce power consumption to what we really need). also windows is more healthy with regular shutdowns. i have also not had good success with hibernate etc. only the servers remain on in the office during the night. i like as much electrical equipment off as possible to avoid chance of fire when nobody is around.

anyway if the board has good caps they should work for years regardless of whether the pc is on 24/7 or not. more likely to have psu or hdd fail in the interim. there has been discussion regarding hdds repeated spin down causing early failure and it was thought better to leave them spinning all the time. but if am doing a reinstall of a pc after a few years i usually specify new hdd anyway. the time taken to install a pc these days with all the software now required is quite extended and much cheaper in the long run to put a new hdd than risk downtime/costs/my time for early reinstalls.

poor quality fans are another issue guaranteed to bring unnecessary call-outs. a cheap case fan costs say $5 but a papst can cost up to $20. but the papst will last many years. i knew around the time of PII Slot 1 that the intel stock fans were long lasting so i refused to accept any oem chips with aftermarket fans, i still do. yup, the pii slot 1 fans lasted the lifetime of the machines.

in the end, if it is not serving then it should be off when not needed

[Rainbow]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

Yes, boxed Intel fans are really good. They're not very quiet but I've never seen a failed one.

Switching off the power completely (by a switch on the back of the PSU or by a switch on power strip) will make even crappy ATX PSU last longer. At lest it will not catch fire when you think it's switched off.

[arneson]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

I remember in the first era of color tv, when sets would come in with ripply power, I was happy to know an easy fix was badcaps.
Just yank out that blown multi Sprague and she was good as new.
Now, not so happy.
I've had badcaps in outboard motor ccd modules, my motorcycle ignition control, but mostly in the camcorders, little ones, surface mount, dozens of them, and not just Sonies.
When is it gonna end?

[willawake]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

of course it is not going to end. crap is here to stay. people like to buy cheap products and then throw them away. i hate to think of the environmental problems caused by the mountains of stuff thrown away because of badcaps.

anyway i used to worry but since i learnt to recap i dont. what i do worry about is all these products from china. i was given the choice of (i forget the exact prices) solder sucker made in china for 1 euro and one from piergacomi made in italy for 15 euro. am i an idiot to pay so much for the piergacomi no it is a superior tool and will last longer, my work is much better because the feel and action of the quality tool inspires my work. most of all a european's job partly depends on my purchase of the tool.

another thing i forgot is cooling for the hdds. if hdds are quite busy, it is good to have a case fan mounted right before the nicely spaced hdds, blowing air directly past all their surfaces. no need to buy expensive hdd heatsink cases etc.

i have been getting OT but the reliable pc is something i am interested in and it does not have to have expensive solutions.

the only problem is that for the office we dont want them to be reliable for many years. difficult to get authorisation for an upgrade if it still works. thank god some of the old ugly crts from PINE, SHAMROCK are now crapping out. they outlasted the SONYs and really outlasted their welcome. please crap out so we can have some more sammy tfts.

[arneson]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

I firmly believe in UPS and recommend to everyone.
Power here drops off at least once a month, large explosions in back yard.
When the lights go out those little buggers are beeping all over the house incesantly.
They do keep my stuff safe and it's good to have power when you have no power.

[willawake]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

with some APC models you can disable the beep via software

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

You can't test in or repair in quality. Good parts, good designs, good cooling, proper usage/maintenance go a long way. Papst makes good fans; I've also had good luck with Rotron, EBM, Nidec, NMB, and Panasonic. WRT P/Ss, size the P/S so that heavy usage will draw <75% of the rated power. It might cost $50 or so extra, but that's a cheap price for extra life.

[bushytails]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

I have everything except the laser printers and the ceiling lights on the UPS... and I mean EVERYTHING. the battery chargers for my cordless tools, my bedside clock, electronics workbench (not about to plug my digital LCD 'scope into plain power!), my stereo system (which draws more than any of my computers... heh), everything.

6-8 hours runtime based on what's turned on... plenty to keep everything running through most outages, or give me time to lug the generator out of the garage if it's going to be out for a while.

--Randy

[arneson]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

That is a big UPS.
What is it? home brew, Zantec? Heart?

[arneson]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

I'd love to go off the grid with UPS some day.
It would have to be Hydrogen fuel cells and the cost is way up there.

[bushytails]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

an apc smart-ups 1250 with some "slightly"-larger-than-stock batteries.

--Randy

[Rainbow]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

I have APC SmartUPS v/s 650 - but lying on the shelf because the battery died - bulged. Again. It seems that the UPS is not OK - maybe it overcharges the battery.

[arneson]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

I left a load a crap at the town dump a while back and off to my left was a large trailer.
It was full to the door with apc units, all sizes, all dead.
The guy there said take some if you want so I scarfed a couple 300's .
Radio shack has the two most popular batteries on sale, $14 , but not for the 650.

[willawake]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

I have APC SmartUPS v/s 650 - but lying on the shelf because the battery died

is it out of warranty? APC are supposed to be very good with warranty service....?

i dont have complaints with the APC units although the software is crap. Apcupsd on linux is a much easier solution. Powerchute on win2k i removed cos it was just shutting down the computer immediately on every event.

recently though i noticed the APC Line-R 1200VA making a loud buzzing when they are trimming the power. if you tap the box they stop.......

i definately prefer APC to the Merlin Gerin units which i threw away perhaps 10 units. out of warranty if the power went out they would not recognise being back on power again. one by one they eventually all displayed this problem. the support centre here could only suggest replacement boards for about the same cost as a new unit.

[Rainbow]

Re: Leave on, Turn off

When it was almost new, it turned off randomly - the logic board was replaced as a warranty repair. It's out of warranty now. It's a weird model - although it's "Smart" - has real serial port - it only understands a small amount of the commands.