^ Exactamundo.

I used to leave it on 24/7, but my CPU fan started dying. Once I replaced it, I started turning it off when I go to bed and booting it up when I get home from work the next day.

[quote="Short Hand":7377e]You should always keep it on.


Why ?

I will explain.

Your hardrive is constantly rewriting information all over your drive. It rewrites this information in order to prevent magnetic corruption of the data. THE DATA IS STORED ON tracks within sectors on the hard drive platter. Thus why after constant writing, and rewriting of your files over and OVER...... you need to defragment your hardrive. It is reccommended for optimal HD speed, that it should be defragmented once every day. So keeping your computer on is actaully one of the best ways to prevent data loss itself.

Magnetics play a key role in data degregation. So if your computer is off, and not rewriting data.. then data can be lost and corrupted over time. It happens really easily as well. You may not notice, but it is happening. Speakers, and all sorts of things will cause your drive trouble if your computer is off. Also, the sudden surge of power from powering on the computer also has a slight damaging effect.[/quote:7377e]

Sounds plausible, however I've yet to lose a piece of data on either of my pcs or my laptop and I keep them on only when in use.

most will shut down if they get at or above a temp.

Short, good analogy but i'm not sold on it. We all know a HDD life is only a few years and most of us here perform enough computer upgrades as to not have a problem with a piece of hardware failing. By the time something may fail, we already swapped it out for a newer piece of hardware.

I've been turning my shit on and off since '98 and never once had a problem. In all those years, i had to actually replace 2 HDD's because of a breakdown. One had a bad sector and it affected the way HL started up. The 2nd HDD started to make a loud clicking sound and i knew it was on it's way out. I backed up all my data and replaced the HDD without any loss. I also had 2 CD/ROMs fail from normal use but thats about it in all those years.

I periodically open the case and use a vacuum w/brush attachment to clean the inside and i reformat every now and again. As for defragging, haven't done it in awhile and i know it should be done. as a matter of fact, perhaps after i enter this post, i'll do just that.

I just have an issue with leaving something on which could cause a bigger problem if something were to take a shit....like a cooling fan. I don't want to come home and see the fire department at my house. I'm not in the mood for that.

it'll turn itselfoff before burning out.

I'm just not gonna risk everything i own to test that theory. I'll risk frying my Mobo or HDD instead.

I get in trouble if I keep it on...but I prefer turning it off though.

Only leave it on if im downloading.

safety features are in place for a reason. Check your bios.. there is a setting that says at what temperature your pc will turn off at. It works... not sure if you've ever had an overheating issue before. But your pc will start giving warning beeps and then will switch off.

I turn mine off at night, dusty enviroment (dorm) so i dont need anything to burn up when im sleeping. But keep it on during the day with a 10min delay password protected screen saver so retarded roomate or his retarded friends dont go browsing around playing click and destroy, and so they dont see that i have my web cam on motion detector to catch them doing stupid shit biggrin:

Re: PC: on or off?
 

Do you know how much energy it takes to keep a computer in stand by? Next to nothing.

Re: PC: on or off?
 

when you pay the bills and have 2 pcs, 2 monitors, both with fancy riced out glowing cases. Every bit counts.

Ya, don't worry, it is more of a corporate backup thing. Most corporations sotre all data on 3 drives as backup, this is just another way for proper data storage and manage ment. I do the same as them. I just keep my comp on all the time. + I hate waiting for it to boot up lol.

I try to defrag like every weekend, but PC magazine said they aren't really sure if it actually benefits system speed.

not trying to convince you to leave it on, but ive had mine shut down while using it because it got too hot.

: and you are right about keeping the dust out ... all that dust generates heat.

its true, i used to have a shitty cpu fan and it would turn off all the time cuz of overheating. its not a "theory"

same problem happened to me. pc shuts off before damage is done.

Not really gonna do any "damage" to a p4 anyway because of the thermal throttling.

Mine is usually on, but my room heats up like a friggin oven because of the watercooling exhaust, also my mosfets on my motherboard have heatisnks attached to them and an 80mm fan over them cooling them, with the fan off they hit over 90c in seconds. ed:

Looking forward to more heat fun and games in a couple of days, got a "cheap" x850xt agp to replace my dead x800xt for the time being, should be here for friday.

heh, i think i defragged not more than 8 times in 5 years on my old comp..

biggrin:

I turn it off at night when i go to bed(from 7 am - 2-3am ish on weekends), during the weekdays its only on for like 5 hours or so per day and i turn it off.