[COMP] Re: Should I shut my computer down every night?

On Wed, 26 Apr 2000, you wrote:
> I have a quick question.  Should I shut my computer down every night or
> just leave it on?  Will It hurt to leave it on for long peroids of time?

Interesting question. :) 

I _never_ turn any of my computers off.  Power management will cut the
electricity usage to a minimum, so that shouldn't really be a concern.  

I've heard that it's better for the electronics of the PC to not have power
constantly surging on and off, so leaving your machine on all the time may
extend the life of your components.  This is especially true for hard drives,
where the spinning up and down is the hardest thing on the disk.  

Will it hurt to leave the machine on for long periods of time?  Well, no, it
isn't bad for the *hardware,* but Windows machines that are left on for long
periods of time tend to choke themselves, so you should reboot them ...
daily?... just for the heck of it.  Same goes for Macs.  Unix/Linux machines
will usually run longer than the hardware lasts, so this isn't an issue.  With
that said, my win98SE laptop at work has been running for over a month now
without rebooting (I'm astonished), but I should qualify the situation with a
"it doesn't really *do* anything anyway," since all I run on it is Remedy.

Consider, too, just how often you use your computer.  For me, there are about 4
hours a night where I'm asleep, and thus not using it, and about 8 hours during
the day where I'm at work.  I like to be able to ssh into it though, to get to
my files, so I leave it running anyway.  So maybe keeping it on all the time
isn't for you?

John


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