Continuous running of desktop pc - advisable?

Charlton_King

I've heard it said that quite a few people leave their home pcs on overnight and only power down for weekends away or longer holidays.

What are the pros and cons of this?

Browntoa

knackering the fans by running them all the time (also sucking more crap into the PC and clogging it up and making it run hotter) thereby accelerating the demise of components

obvious cost of electricity

I realy don't see any pro's

totalsolutions

Less heat cycling / components last longer / fast ON time

robt_2

Browntoa wrote: »

knackering the fans by running them all the time (also sucking more crap into the PC and clogging it up and making it run hotter) thereby accelerating the demise of components

obvious cost of electricity

I realy don't see any pro's

Sorry, but that post is totally inaccurate apart from the (minute) electrcity cost.

Blacksheep1979

As long as you have decent cooling it's the best thing for the computer as most failure comes at startup/shutdown

System

Apart from the electricity - no drawbacks.

I've had a desktop PC running 24/7/365 (apart from power cuts) for the last 3 years as my main server.

robt_2

To put it another way, say your CPU runs at 40C. It is better to keep it at 40C constantly than going from room temperature to 40C, and in reverse when you turn your computer off, think if the stress it could cause over thousands of cycles.

What about computers in offices overnight? Computers that control traffic lights? Computers that emergency services call center operators use? They are all left on constantly.

fwor

I ran my desktop with one processor continuously at 100% utilisation for about a year for the BBC Climate Change Experiment and it came to no harm.

I used to work as network manager for a cheapskate insurance company which used desktop PCs as servers in their offices, and pretty much the ~only~ time they failed was when we had to turn them off to do network maintenance!

GreenNotM

Blacksheep1979 wrote: »

As long as you have decent cooling it's the best thing for the computer as most failure comes at startup/shutdown

I think this post will split opinions - but most frequently failures are discovered at startup time..

Robt wrote: »

Quote:
Originally Posted by Browntoa
knackering the fans by running them all the time (also sucking more crap into the PC and clogging it up and making it run hotter) thereby accelerating the demise of components

obvious cost of electricity

I realy don't see any pro's

Sorry, but that post is totally inaccurate apart from the (minute) electrcity cost.

Browntoa post is very accurate. As for the minute cost - well consider a home PC will run for 4 hours, the proposed running of a PC for 24 hours will use 500 % more electricity. An office PC on for for a working day of 8 hours but left on for 24 hours and weekends again will use 320% more electricity, this is the money saving expert forum :rolleyes:

As for the point that servers are on for 24/7, they are usually run in a controlled environment, dust free, temperature/humidity/power supply all filtered and controlled but still with hot pluggable components..... yes it is possible to run a PC but over heating via dust build up will kill a pc before a daily power cycle 360 or so a year not even near 1000's ....

Little_John

The only thing you need to do if you intend running a PC 24/7 is to try to keep airways clear of dust. Which if you have an air duster is pretty easy to do without shutting the machine down.

I have a former workstation with a few mods running as a server in an enclosed space without any heat problems, my desktop is also on 24/7 infact my laptop is pretty much on all the time too. The only Pc we have problems with due to 24/7 use is an asus barebones system that has very limited space inside in a bed room it just takes in so much dust and it requires a little more regular de dusting.

robt_2

GreenNotM wrote: »

I think this post will split opinions - but most frequently failures are discovered at startup time..



Browntoa post is very accurate. As for the minute cost - well consider a home PC will run for 4 hours, the proposed running of a PC for 24 hours will use 500 % more electricity. An office PC on for for a working day of 8 hours but left on for 24 hours and weekends again will use 320% more electricity, this is the money saving expert forum :rolleyes:

As for the point that servers are on for 24/7, they are usually run in a controlled environment, dust free, temperature/humidity/power supply all filtered and controlled but still with hot pluggable components..... yes it is possible to run a PC but over heating via dust build up will kill a pc before a daily power cycle 360 or so a year not even near 1000's ....

I did stress that apart from saving money that the post was inaccurate. It is often quoted that for a domestic PC to leave on 24 hours a day would add around £10 a month to your electricity, assuming your monitor is switched off when not in use.

I'm quite aware that large servers are kept in controlled conditions, but I didn't mention any in my examples. For example, a lot of call centres have desktop clients as opposed to dumb terminals.