Verified answer

I leave my desktop on 24-7. The weakest part of any computer typically is the power

supply. Leaving the computer on saves the power supply from the stress that occurs to

power supply components during the in-rush of current when starting up. While I'm no

computer expert I have been an electronics technician for 30 years and have repaired my

share of electronic devices.

Well, there are two groups of thought out there, but let's look at it logically. Let's assume you have an endless supply of gasoline in your car, just for examples sake...but you keep the motor running endlessly. What is going to happen to the parts over time? What if you never change the oil or the transmission fluid?

Well, keeping a computer on 24/7 is something like running your car without ever turning it off. You wear out all the ball bearings in the fans and the ball bearings in your hard disk(s). Eventually, something fails - usually the first time you have a power outage. You think the damage was done by a power out, but it actually was done by continuously running the computer until you exceeded the wear and tear on the parts.

Any moving object, incurs friction and friction is the number one killer for ball bearings.

Not only this, but you are eating up electricity for no reason. If you are not using the computer and its just sitting there idle, it is still consuming electricity and that means you are wasting electricity for no reason, and you get higher electric bills. Do you just like flushing money down the toilet for no reason? It could be $20 - $30 a month on your electric bill. You might as well take three ten dollar bills, tear them up into pieces and flush them down the toilet for no reason othere than the kicks and thrill you would get out of doing it.

I could think of a much better reason to save $350 a year - maybe save the money to buy a new computer in the future?

There are businesses that do run computers 24/7 because they are NEEDED to run - there is a practical business reason for keeping servers on all the time. Companies also want their satellite individual user computers to stay on, because after work is when the updates to the server and the satellite computers are downloaded and installed - you never even know it happened at work, you just come in and use your desktop like nothing ever happened - but the IT manager knows! System wide updates are very typical at midnight on business networks, that is why people are told not to shut their computer down at work. And a business could care less if a local hard disk crashes or a power supply goes out. They either get anew hard disk or power supply or they just toss the old rig and get a new cheap computer. So there are a whole bunch of people out there that run their small business or corporate desktop and think that is the right thing to do - but they are not the ones paying for the maintenance and they are not paying the electric bill either.

So you got my opinion on this, right? Shut the freekin thing down when you aren't going to use it. In the long run, the parts will last a lot longer and your electric bill will be less and you will save energy for the environment, all good reasons to click the SHUT DOWN button.

This is a big controversy, but there are pros and cons for each, nothing bad though.

Pros for leaving it on:

Faster access to your computer and applications when you sit at the computer.

Cons for leaving it on:

Electricity use is 24/7 and the RAM never refreshes.

Pros for turning it off:

You save electricity for not having it run throughout the night and you allow the RAM to clear out.

Cons for turning it off:

You have to wait for it to boot up. (really not that bad)

So ultimately it all comes down to personal preference, there really isn't a right or wrong thing to do.

Naw, when you are done... Turn it off. They consume A LOT of power, why pay for nothing. Business computers are shut down several times a day for years and years on end.

When they are running... they are being used also. More dust sucked into it, more heat on the chips, more wear on the fans.

If you don't, at the very least you can put it in hybernate

It is a matter of personal preference. Mine are on 24/7 and I've never had a problem (but I built them myself w/o inferior parts).

turning of always bad for PC, but it is not necessary keep it turned on 24*7

forgot about this it is applied for servers

- safe energy

- safe your money

and sleep well

i'm pretty sure it shouldn't be kept on over

night because you're wasting electricity

and i think it overheats the computer too