Leaving computers on 24/7 - effect?

[Maniacal]

My roommates, while I generally like living with them, have a few "habits" (all of them are entirely due to laziness), such as ALWAYS leaving their computers on because waiting for the few seconds it takes to turn on is too difficult for them.

Besides the power bill (which for us would be absolutely ridiculously high at the end of this month if we weren't on a set amount per month), what effect would leaving a computer on all the time be?

And I mean all the time, two of the three computers have no screensaver in use, monitors and speakers are always on, no sleep mode, and never get turned off. The only time they restart is via windows update or if they have to when installing something.

The third computer, owned by a computer illiterate female (prone to getting angry and petty over little things, and is currently angry at me because she blames me for her internet randomly cutting out because of some unknown reason. No one else has had problems). Anyways, before I start a rant, she likes to leave Sims 2 on, all the time, sometimes minimized (luckily for her it apparently minimizes well).

I know it doesn't really matter to the computer if itsl eft on for a few days or turn off daily, but what about the long-term effect on the software and OS (windows 7 and XP)?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Personally, as someone who leaves his desktop on 24/7, I have not noticed any issues I would attribute to the 24/7 running of it. Most of my problems are due to my silly choice of motherboard over a year ago (4th or 5th RMA coming soon!)

There is more dust intake as your fans are running 24/7 and some of the components may not have time to cool down, thereby slowly creeping up in temperature. This is not a real issue when you have quality components, but if you use some cheaper parts, they may show some wear.

Other than that, as long as you regularly clean the system, don't install a bunch of crap on it, and generally take care of the computer as you should be, 24/7 or 8/7 doesn't matter. It'll still be chugging by the time its obsolete. Your power bill will definitely be higher though.

As an aside, it's been theorized that turning the computer on/off can put more stress on some parts, especially those that have a high start-up draw, like HDD's. Every boot is a potential failure if the heads dont start moving just right.

 

[Fëanor]

I only leave my server on 24/7, when it ran on XP it would crash and reboot once every couple of months with no apparent damage, last month i expanded the server's HDD capacity to from 1TB to 3TB and installed Windows 7 so i cant tell just yet how Windows 7 performs on PC's left on 24/7 (though i would be surprised if it would be bad since in my experience many people working in offices leave their PC's on 24/7 and if Windows 7 couldn't handle that Microsoft would lose a massive chuck of well paying customers).

 

[Maniacal]

I figured as much, but I am kind of hoping their computers crash because they have left them on so long without any power saving modes.

I can't sleep with my computer on (its in my room, the others are downstairs in the lower living room), so if I am gone during the day I generally put it into sleep mode (or turn it off if I click the wrong button).

 

[warpus]

Do computers really use that much power, though? I'd think that you shouldn't really notice much of a difference on your power pill if you leave your computer on 24/7, but hey, maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Maniacal]

Mmm power pills.

On that subject, is there a program to measure the power consumption of a computer? And possibly a way to measure how much of one's internet connection is being used and by what/or by that computer?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Do computers really use that much power, though? I'd think that you shouldn't really notice much of a difference on your power pill if you leave your computer on 24/7, but hey, maybe I'm wrong.

My pc idles at between 200 and 300 watts. Multiply that by 8 hours per day, 30 days per month and you get minimum 48kWh per month. Depending on your other usage (I live with my family. The 4 of us combined use a good chunk of electricity) this can be significant.

 

[GoodGame]

I think it's around $10 month/computer that you leave on 24/7, going off an old electric company stat in my head.

Isn't there an issue with OS usage of the RAM degrading over time (i.e. some kind of memory leak), hence the need to re-boot?

 

[dirtyparrot]

I presume that you mean that you don't put your computer in sleep mode. Is it really that much effort to push one button. My present computer, which is in the neighbourhood of 8-9yrs old, still works fine even though I rarely shut it down. But I do put it to sleep always unless I running a virus scan.

 

[Zelig]

I presume that you mean that you don't put your computer in sleep mode. Is it really that much effort to push one button. My present computer, which is in the neighbourhood of 8-9yrs old, still works fine even though I rarely shut it down. But I do put it to sleep always unless I running a virus scan.

My computer doesn't have sleep mode.

And if I was going to bother putting it in sleep mode, I could just as well turn it off.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

I think it's around $10 month/computer that you leave on 24/7, going off an old electric company stat in my head.

Isn't there an issue with OS usage of the RAM degrading over time (i.e. some kind of memory leak), hence the need to re-boot?

Not that Ive noticed. I havent had any major issues with running a computer for a month straight since the days of Windows 2000. I reboot about once a month, but that's mostly due to windows patches.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Isn't there an issue with OS usage of the RAM degrading over time (i.e. some kind of memory leak), hence the need to re-boot?

I think only on the older DOS-based Windows (e.g. 9x). The NT ones have better memory management. This is if I understand the question right.

 

[Cutlass]

Many business computers are on 24/7. And only occasionally crash or have to reboot do to a power failure. They last a number of years.

 

[Mise]

It's the electricity bill you should be moaning to them about. 50 kWh is about £6.50 ($10) in the UK, off the top of my head. CBA to check it exactly... You sure as hell wouldn't want to pay an extra $8 a month (say) on your electricity bill, just cos you can't be arsed to turn on and off your PC...

 

[GrandAdmiral]

It's the electricity bill you should be moaning to them about. 50 kWh is about £6.50 ($10) in the UK, off the top of my head. CBA to check it exactly... You sure as hell wouldn't want to pay an extra $8 a month (say) on your electricity bill, just cos you can't be arsed to turn on and off your PC...

I would if I was using it as media center. I also would if I had requirements such as remote access to the machine etc. Another common scenario would be people that use torrents a lot when they are away from the machine. Most people that make reqular use of the machine should be using sleep instead of turning the machine off. You will probably save more power that way as you will save on power consumption even when you forget or are unable to turn the machine off.

 

[taper]

This comes up in the Folding@Home thread every so often too. Here's my latest post on it. Basically, as long as your computer temperatures are reasonable, no damage is done by leaving it on 24/7. There are valid reasons for leaving a pc running, or turning it off, so do whatever works best for you.

 

[Esckey]

I leave my computer on all day and night, but it does regularly reboot itself as part of some schedualed computer maintence thingy(also defrags and scans itself)

I'm only really concerned about the dust and heat build up.

 

[mdwh]

Computers are fine to stay on 24/7. Our work leaves all the computers on all the time. And I agree with Genocidicbunny's point - there's just as much argument to say that turning them on and off has a risk of problems too.

As for the energy use, don't forget that the electrical energy will all end up as heat - so if it's in the cold months of the year when you'd need heating on anyway, you get it for free anyway (well, there's the point that gas heating is more efficient than electricity, but even so, most of the energy isn't being wasted).

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I don't turn on the heat in winter in my room as I like the computer to run cool. I use a blanket.

 

[Maniacal]

The human body is a better heater than any computer I've used...