Wassup Guys?....... Something's been bothering my mind for a couple of days. I spent some days at a friends house last week, I was surprised to see that he never shut down any of his 3 hand built pc's, they run 24/7 and none have server functions. I asked him why they were on all the time and he answered that turning them on and off everyday shortens the life of a pc, and since they've been on for the last couple of months they've been running better.....

Does this make sense?... Does everyone keep their pc ON all the time?... Is there something I don't know?....... I am an extreme gamer and internet addict, I use my pc everyday but shut it down every night...... Please help me clear this one cause I'm confused now!

My system is:
Abit NF7 Mobo
AMD 2700XP Cpu
512 Mb Ram
Thermaltake Volcano 7 Fan (Noisy as hell)
80Gb 6 40Gb Western Digital HD
GeForce FX5900 128Mb
SB Audigy 2
Leadtek TV Tuner Deluxe 2000
MSI DVD/RW
LG CD/R DVD Combo
350W Power Supply

Thanx in Advance Guys!!!!!!

It is better for most hardware to be turned on 24/7 (turned on, not in use). It is better for software (esp. Windows) to be off.

Turning your PC off for the night has virtually no effect on the lifetime of your hardware. The fans will last longer and you will also get better sleep/smaller power bills. And Windows will run faster in the morning.

Of course everyone will laugh at you when you tell what your uptime is. Really cool people have it over 2 weeks.

I usually turn my machine off unless I'm downloading something because I sleep in the same room and I prefer silence.

Having a PC on normally happens only for business PC's or if you are hosting a website.
For the normal user, switching on once a day and switching off when you are done for the day, is common practice and highly advisable (think of your poor electricity bill).
Having them run all the time is wasting energy and causing unnecessary wear and tear on your PC.

Switching on and off a number of times per day, now that is stressing your PC and should be avoided if at all possible.

My $0.02 worth


PS: Nodsu and I must have been cooking up our answers at the same time. He probably types faster than I do

I run one system on all the time, and one shut off when not in use. I agree with the above, if you don't use it, shut it off. It doesn't really hurt anything, and saves the life of your fans. Also, you won't have to blow out the dust as much. If you decide to leave them on all the time, great, no big deal. Just remember to blow it out at least once a month.
Bug

Monitors eat up more power than the acutal PC.

Im not sure who it was around here, maybe Didou P66 or Rick [just guessing] say its better to leave it on 24/7.

Something about it turning on and off constantly wears it out? :dead:

Hard drive failures typically happen on booting up...so the less often you boot, the less chance of having a hard drive failure.

There are pro's and con's to each, I prefer to leaver mine on 24/7

If new hard drives are rated at 50 000 start-stop cycles by the manufacturers then even if you turn your computer off twice a day it will still take decades to wear off that limit. That is if you actually believe the HD makers of course I mean they say your HD should last 3 years and when you get it its DoA..