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AFOS Champion Author Chicago Posts:30,400 Points:3,073,140 Joined:Jul 2001	Message Posted: Dec 12, 2011 6:08:03 AM Ignore AFOS Report Abuse I don't, not since the on off button went bad on my previous PC and I had to have the power supply replaced. I just put it into standby at night.

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Chicago

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Message Posted: Dec 12, 2011 6:08:03 AM

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I don't, not since the on off button went bad on my previous PC and I had to have the power supply replaced. I just put it into standby at night.

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DKeystone All-Star Author Allentown Posts:511 Points:85,980 Joined:Feb 2013	Message Posted: Feb 26, 2013 11:03:35 AM Ignore DKeystone Report Abuse It turns itself off
eccerr0r All-Star Author Fort Collins Posts:991 Points:594,615 Joined:Apr 2011	Message Posted: Feb 26, 2013 7:44:34 AM Ignore eccerr0r Report Abuse In relation to the other thread about growling fans, one of the machines I've left on 24/7/365 for several years was the machine that had its fan's bearing seize. Oh well, that's what hardware monitoring should do but I never thought the fan would seize. At least I had a spare PSU so it wasn't down for long while it was being repaired.
KentuckyWildcat Champion Author Maryland Posts:9,217 Points:2,196,330 Joined:Mar 2005	Message Posted: Feb 26, 2013 3:30:44 AM Ignore KentuckyWildcat Report Abuse Nope..stays on
kabbott50 Rookie Author Newfoundland Posts:9 Points:1,000 Joined:Feb 2013	Message Posted: Feb 19, 2013 8:22:39 AM Ignore kabbott50 Report Abuse Best practice would be to turn off every night, or at least put it to sleep/hibernate. Doing this will help clean the crap out of your system and keep your speeds the highest possible. [Edited by: kabbott50 at 2/19/2013 11:22:52 AM EST]
bmxstud Sophomore Author Chicago Posts:246 Points:93,695 Joined:Jan 2013	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2013 10:52:46 AM Ignore bmxstud Report Abuse Nope stays on year around. Never turn it off.
musicreporter All-Star Author San Antonio Posts:626 Points:134,740 Joined:Dec 2012	Message Posted: Feb 2, 2013 11:28:47 PM Ignore musicreporter Report Abuse no, leave them on, on sleep mode or hibernate
DaveRTX Champion Author Austin Posts:7,211 Points:1,510,570 Joined:Aug 2008	Message Posted: Jan 31, 2013 7:48:18 AM Ignore DaveRTX Report Abuse I reboot about once a week.
ImAnArmyMan Rookie Author Florida Posts:3 Points:16,235 Joined:Oct 2010	Message Posted: Jan 31, 2013 2:01:07 AM Ignore ImAnArmyMan Report Abuse Well I have a custom built high end gaming rig, and I tend to leave it on at all times, without using the sleep function. The reason why is hardware related and what programs I am running. The main factor for me is that the constant heating and then cooling off ,when turning off PC at night, does have an effect on the components in my PC. But on the other hand, each hardware also has a running life time and by always keeping it on that would cause my hardware to fail faster. Another reason for keeping it on is the programs I am running. I have game servers with rcon and other admin tools that need to be running at all times. I have 32gb Ram memory, so I tend to restart my PC once every 2 weeks. I have been doing this now for 5 years with no issue other then my electric bill has a slight increase.
grim_farva Champion Author Kansas Posts:1,495 Points:328,650 Joined:Jun 2008	Message Posted: Jan 29, 2013 7:01:55 AM Ignore grim_farva Report Abuse I turn mine off everynight
MsPeachi747 Sophomore Author Cleveland Posts:204 Points:10,530 Joined:Dec 2011	Message Posted: Jan 25, 2013 11:22:45 AM Ignore MsPeachi747 Report Abuse Yes.
LilRedWagonIN Champion Author Indiana Posts:7,776 Points:1,555,135 Joined:Oct 2008	Message Posted: Jan 25, 2013 5:49:52 AM Ignore LilRedWagonIN Report Abuse I fall asleep at night with the computer on. On all day.
scavs Champion Author Cleveland Posts:5,034 Points:1,308,530 Joined:Jan 2008	Message Posted: Jan 24, 2013 5:41:03 AM Ignore scavs Report Abuse Yes
MILNICKEL Rookie Author Michigan Posts:11 Points:11,320 Joined:Jan 2008	Message Posted: Jan 18, 2013 1:22:10 PM Ignore MILNICKEL Report Abuse Very rarely do I completely turn off my computer. Normally, if I feel that it needs to be refreshed, I just reboot it. I think that I will start having it hibernate instead.
scoutmaster Champion Author Pittsburgh Posts:81,330 Points:3,254,445 Joined:Mar 2003	Message Posted: Jan 9, 2013 3:53:24 AM Ignore scoutmaster Report Abuse You can turn them off! Well I'll be!
ber5 All-Star Author Chicago Posts:664 Points:132,445 Joined:Sep 2012	Message Posted: Jan 8, 2013 5:33:22 PM Ignore ber5 Report Abuse try not to ... win 8 desk top. my lap top i shutdown during commute. computer / desktop at work win 8 and don't shutdown.
mrxyz999 Sophomore Author Houston Posts:117 Points:53,970 Joined:Jul 2012	Message Posted: Jan 8, 2013 11:18:20 AM Ignore mrxyz999 Report Abuse I have a Win7 ultimate laptop that I have not rebooted for usually 2-3 weeks at a time. It does go to sleep after 4 hrs, then wakes with no problem. I reboot it only after a patch requires it or it starts to run slow. Runs pretty stable so far.
Snowchoux Champion Author Missouri Posts:1,003 Points:145,635 Joined:Sep 2012	Message Posted: Jan 8, 2013 9:22:27 AM Ignore Snowchoux Report Abuse Laptop-yes
Cirdan Champion Author Nevada Posts:2,020 Points:124,585 Joined:May 2006	Message Posted: Jan 7, 2013 10:17:27 PM Ignore Cirdan Report Abuse Read a good article on Win 8 (sorry, don't have the link). Apparently they've changed "sleep" mode in a way that eliminates most of the prior problems. When you put it to sleep, it really shuts down all the programs so you don't have all that baggage left in RAM when you wake it up. Based on that, you shouldn't have to turn off a Win 8 machine.
Muskegon Rookie Author Michigan Posts:8 Points:2,150 Joined:Jun 2008	Message Posted: Dec 26, 2012 1:42:03 PM Ignore Muskegon Report Abuse I only turn my machine off when I notice that it starts to run sluggish.
Titanic1985 Champion Author South Carolina Posts:6,265 Points:358,320 Joined:Dec 2010	Message Posted: Dec 23, 2012 9:15:31 AM Ignore Titanic1985 Report Abuse Good morning. After reviewing these posts, I think ALL of us are saying the same thing in one form or another. I also feel that those posting are not from the normal user. I spent the last years of my career working on Fault Tolerant Unix Enterprise machines made by a third party company. As has been said, these machines have literally stayed running for years without a reboot. I think the key here is that the machines MUST be administrated and maintained. From past posts from people like bytebug, eccerr0r and herbie, many users/administrators fail to keep their machines updated. One other issue with some operating systems is that corrections are often, not always, done after an event. No, every scenerio is not always thought of, especially years in advance. That is the reason for IBM and other companies to DEMAND documentation of any changes. IBM calls these "Delta Documents" (delta is the Greek word for change) and other companies use the term "White Papers". These documents are gone over in great detail by both hardware and software experts. My last project was stress tested by the manufacturer, AT&T/NCR and AT&T Lucent Technologies (formerly called Bell Labs). The test consisted of ten weeks of testing on multiple machines in three locations. We had spent thousands of man hours discussing thoughts, ideas, knowledge of programming and simple administrative commands. You would think that this would be perfect, but in the final week of testing, Lucent Technologies had a need for a processor board worth $100,000.00 which was one of three in the system. They did something not thought of as all sub-assemblies could be "hot swapped". The did a shutdown and then removed the circuit pack. Why? We never found that answer, but when the system was rebooted, it would not launch with the processor board absent in slot 0. We tried it in all three locations and had identical results. The decision was made to issue the release with a note of this anomaly with the intent to integrate the fix in the next release. To everyone's credit, we know how computers operate and have many years of combined experience. This has been a good discussion. I hope other GBs understand the importance of computer maintenance.
bytebug Champion Author Orange County Posts:26,394 Points:4,124,605 Joined:Oct 2001	Message Posted: Dec 23, 2012 6:27:56 AM Ignore bytebug Report Abuse >> it's not uncommon to have several hundred day uptime I've administered various *nix machines that have literally run years between reboots. If it weren't for a company having electrical work done over Christmas holidays, necessitating shutdown of all computers, several could have continued to run and gotten up to more than six years continuous use. On the Windows and Mac side, Macs lead in longevity, requiring fewer reboots. But I've been responsible for support of machines that have run for months between reboots, which in nearly all cases have been due to software upgrades or hardware failure.
eccerr0r All-Star Author Fort Collins Posts:991 Points:594,615 Joined:Apr 2011	Message Posted: Dec 22, 2012 8:06:47 PM Ignore eccerr0r Report Abuse Memory leaks are a real issue but yes they should be fixed by software updates. Once I even had a leak in the Linux kernel that basically leaked 10MB every day. This was in locked kernel memory so it could not be swapped out. I was wondering why after a few days the machine would start swapping like crazy as if it ran out of RAM when I had a technically "plenty" 512MB then... And in fact it did run out of RAM. A reboot was the "cheese" fix to it. It took a while before they finally fixed the true underlying problem, and now it's not uncommon to have several hundred day uptimes whereas I was out of ram in well less than 51 days (as that machine needed the RAM to do other things of course!)
scoutmaster Champion Author Pittsburgh Posts:81,330 Points:3,254,445 Joined:Mar 2003	Message Posted: Dec 22, 2012 4:51:29 PM Ignore scoutmaster Report Abuse I seldom turn my laptops off. But there are times that restarting them is a good idea.
bytebug Champion Author Orange County Posts:26,394 Points:4,124,605 Joined:Oct 2001	Message Posted: Dec 22, 2012 4:38:34 PM Ignore bytebug Report Abuse More urban legends. Unless you've avoided software updates for years.
Titanic1985 Champion Author South Carolina Posts:6,265 Points:358,320 Joined:Dec 2010	Message Posted: Dec 22, 2012 10:05:05 AM Ignore Titanic1985 Report Abuse >> This is mostly urban legend. Not so. This eHow article states: "For always-on computers, this has a significant impact over time. Restarting your computer will refresh the memory allocation, but there could be another problem that needs to be addressed." Windows XP Memory Leaks Another article to support my earlier statement: Memory Leaks Yet another article regarding Memory Leaks from Microsoft: Microsoft - A Memory Leak Causes Windows XP To Become Unresponsive
bytebug Champion Author Orange County Posts:26,394 Points:4,124,605 Joined:Oct 2001	Message Posted: Dec 22, 2012 12:44:26 AM Ignore bytebug Report Abuse >> I know MS Windows XP became healthier with a reboot. This is mostly urban legend.
tdhawk Veteran Author Virginia Posts:454 Points:564,320 Joined:Apr 2006	Message Posted: Dec 21, 2012 9:10:48 PM Ignore tdhawk Report Abuse Hardly ever. It is usually a Microsoft uodate that requires a reboot.
Titanic1985 Champion Author South Carolina Posts:6,265 Points:358,320 Joined:Dec 2010	Message Posted: Dec 2, 2012 6:05:28 AM Ignore Titanic1985 Report Abuse Hello eccerr0r. You said something that caught my attention, "Then again, computers shouldn't start getting slow just by the virtue of being turned on." I think where that is theoretically true, but not reality as past operating systems by Microsoft and other companies experienced memory leaks. We dealt with this issue on a continuous basis on large Enterprise AT&T UNIX systems and I know it was an issue with MS XP throughout the years. It is not only the OS that has this problem, but also many poorly written application programs which literally use memory addresses allocated for the OS itself. While it was literally impossible to reboot an large Enterprise system due to the nature of it's being (e.g. E911 Systems, World-wide reservation systems, etc.) due to a three hour boot time (really!), I know MS Windows XP became healthier with a reboot. Later versions such as MS Windows 7 are much more stable being on for extended periods, but an occasional reboot won't hurt reconfiguring the memory. Baron62 also brought this issue up, but he doesn't mention the Operating System or applications he is using. One other issue for rebooting or turning off a computer is the installation or upgrading of driver software. Often this is mandatory to complete the process. Thanks for mentioning this :-) . MGY
sunite All-Star Author Virginia Posts:926 Points:225,595 Joined:Dec 2011	Message Posted: Dec 1, 2012 8:52:38 PM Ignore sunite Report Abuse Every night
OceanArcher Champion Author Mississippi Posts:5,708 Points:1,328,375 Joined:May 2004	Message Posted: Dec 1, 2012 5:00:42 AM Ignore OceanArcher Report Abuse Nope
LXH18 Champion Author Los Angeles Posts:15,725 Points:3,212,675 Joined:Jun 2004	Message Posted: Dec 1, 2012 12:53:09 AM Ignore LXH18 Report Abuse Yes
MikeCapeCoral Champion Author Cape Coral Posts:1,938 Points:420,820 Joined:Feb 2012	Message Posted: Nov 28, 2012 9:51:10 PM Ignore MikeCapeCoral Report Abuse Not too often.
Baron62nd Champion Author Illinois Posts:7,023 Points:1,671,240 Joined:Sep 2007	Message Posted: Nov 28, 2012 8:33:25 PM Ignore Baron62nd Report Abuse Yes, once a day or the PC keep running slower and slower and slower.
Linjoyo Veteran Author Iowa Posts:251 Points:258,425 Joined:Dec 2010	Message Posted: Nov 27, 2012 4:00:41 PM Ignore Linjoyo Report Abuse Laptop yes....desktop on hibernate...shut down every other night...why? Habit!
npothier Rookie Author Ontario Posts:65 Points:131,060 Joined:Sep 2012	Message Posted: Nov 27, 2012 5:09:38 AM Ignore npothier Report Abuse I always shut down when I'm not using my computer. Hydro is expensive and I'm always worried about power surges damaging my computer. And yes, I do have a power bar, but I'm a nervous Nellie :)
AFOS Champion Author Chicago Posts:30,400 Points:3,073,140 Joined:Jul 2001	Message Posted: Nov 14, 2012 7:03:17 PM Ignore AFOS Report Abuse Going out of town for 3 days. Time to shut it down.
WilW Champion Author Atlanta Posts:12,223 Points:2,672,880 Joined:Aug 2004	Message Posted: Nov 11, 2012 10:45:09 AM Ignore WilW Report Abuse Unless I'm running a virus scan or defrag, I shut it down every night before going to bed.
eccerr0r All-Star Author Fort Collins Posts:991 Points:594,615 Joined:Apr 2011	Message Posted: Nov 10, 2012 6:16:46 PM Ignore eccerr0r Report Abuse In the ideal world, yes, fans/cdrom/hdd's can be shut off temporarily during ideal conditions. But it's never ideal... And fans only shut down because of acoustic reasons, if the rest of the machine continues to heat up and the fan is held off to save power...
Sneakers55 Champion Author Houston Posts:51,307 Points:2,144,070 Joined:Nov 2005	Message Posted: Nov 10, 2012 5:02:35 PM Ignore Sneakers55 Report Abuse On Nov 4, 2012 10:06:05 AM, eccerr0r wrote: >Wear and tear on hard drives, cdroms, and fans... Bearings do wear... All the above shut down to prevent power consumption on a properly designed PC.
eccerr0r All-Star Author Fort Collins Posts:991 Points:594,615 Joined:Apr 2011	Message Posted: Nov 7, 2012 1:02:08 PM Ignore eccerr0r Report Abuse > All my computers run better if I shut them down often. Yes this is true but typically not because of power down, rather, a reboot usually clears up the issues that makes machines work poorly... Then again, computers shouldn't start getting slow just by the virtue of being turned on... It's all that #*($@ spyware...
HFA2012 Rookie Author Los Angeles Posts:21 Points:53,555 Joined:Oct 2012	Message Posted: Nov 7, 2012 12:30:10 PM Ignore HFA2012 Report Abuse If you are having power issues, like brown outs or black outs, keep it shut down when not in use. If not, and you don't want the inconvenience, keep it on but put it on a ups which will keep it powered up for about 15 minutes if the power goes. This way you have time for a normal shut down and not an unexpected shutdown that can corrupt Windows or the other programs on the PC.
andpren Rookie Author Oregon Posts:59 Points:114,685 Joined:Jun 2012	Message Posted: Nov 7, 2012 10:17:40 AM Ignore andpren Report Abuse All my computers run better if I shut them down often.
eccerr0r All-Star Author Fort Collins Posts:991 Points:594,615 Joined:Apr 2011	Message Posted: Nov 4, 2012 8:06:05 AM Ignore eccerr0r Report Abuse Wear and tear on hard drives, cdroms, and fans... Bearings do wear... Still trying to consolidate services of my multiple machines that I leave on, just that I end up going down to single points of failure...
ZZZoop Champion Author Virginia Posts:16,382 Points:3,127,310 Joined:May 2004	Message Posted: Nov 4, 2012 5:28:19 AM Ignore ZZZoop Report Abuse >>Wear and tear on your motherboard? What do you think's in there gears and bushings?<< I've changed to a full synthetic for my motherboard.
ihuey99 Champion Author Oakland Posts:1,015 Points:379,465 Joined:Oct 2011	Message Posted: Nov 4, 2012 3:31:05 AM Ignore ihuey99 Report Abuse With the rising costs of electricity I have started to shut my computer down each night. Used to keep it on, but cannot do so anymore. [Edited by: ihuey99 at 11/4/2012 6:31:27 AM EST]
KentuckyWildcat Champion Author Maryland Posts:9,217 Points:2,196,330 Joined:Mar 2005	Message Posted: Nov 3, 2012 3:37:48 AM Ignore KentuckyWildcat Report Abuse Laptop yes....Desktop rarely
willp09 Champion Author Houston Posts:1,275 Points:369,550 Joined:Jul 2009	Message Posted: Nov 1, 2012 9:37:17 AM Ignore willp09 Report Abuse hardly ever.
ihuey99 Champion Author Oakland Posts:1,015 Points:379,465 Joined:Oct 2011	Message Posted: Oct 27, 2012 7:13:38 PM Ignore ihuey99 Report Abuse Every night... electricity costs are too high. Used to keep it on, but not anymore.
bjm1026 Sophomore Author Gary Posts:101 Points:16,845 Joined:Oct 2012	Message Posted: Oct 20, 2012 10:08:40 AM Ignore bjm1026 Report Abuse I will let it go to sleep.
MikeCapeCoral Champion Author Cape Coral Posts:1,938 Points:420,820 Joined:Feb 2012	Message Posted: Oct 19, 2012 9:41:49 PM Ignore MikeCapeCoral Report Abuse Only when I am leaving for several days.