Do I need to keep my modem on all the time?

[rabidbunny]

This is probably a stupid question, but I was curious as to if I should I keep my Cable modem on all the time.

My dad doesn't think it to be a problem to turn the modem on and off with the PC. My friend said otherwise. He said that the Roadrunner guy told him to not turn the modem on and off frequently because in doing so, the capacitors would wear down sooner than normal and you would be buying a new modem soon.

If anyone has a reason why it should stay on all the time, can you please send me a link to a site that proves why so my dad will believe me?

Thanks.

 

[bastion]

The modem should be left on at all times, it will not hurt the modem to be turned off or on, is your dad hitting the button on the top of the modem or killing the power to it? The button on the top of most cable modem is a standby button which means the modem stays powered on it just turns the connection off between the modem and the pc or router. Turning the power off and on on the modem just makes it cycle which sometimes take a few mins.

When I was a tier 2 tech I hated it when alot of people would turn there modems off because when I would monitor the network through the Cisco CMTS router it looked like we would have a small outage and I had to look up address's to make sure it wasn't a confined area (street or area) which can be time consuming.

PS: make your DAD read this, lol good luck.

 

[rabidbunny]

My dad doesn't hit the standby button, he just turns off the power to the whole modem. So, is it ok if he turns the modem off and on all the time?

 

[bastion]

Im sure its fine but the modem is designed to be left ON all the time. Turning the modem on and off will shorten the lifespan I do not have that answer. Think of it this way if your dad ends up killing the modem doing this 2 great things will happen, 1st he will learn his leason and leave the modem on and you can say I told you dad seeeee!! 2nd you end up with a new modem, botton line you come out the winner and your dad is out the cost of a new modem. hahaha this is one way to look at it. I wish more dads would listen to there kids cause most of the time the kids know more. hope this helped bud.

 

[rabidbunny]

Thanks man. What you stated does make ALOT of sense. I have told him things in the past and it turns out I was right!@
It's very funny when he codes webpages and stuff alllllll day! He murdered his old Iomega 20 gb peerless backup drive for work because he wanted to defrag it. So, he had to FORMAT it from something like FAT but in doing so, the Iomega program he used to access the drive would not recognize anything other than that specific format and the drive is now PERMANATELY murdered. I tried to get it to work, but there is no work around.....

He also thought that the USB ports on his laptop were firewire!!! I told him they were usb, but he said no, they were firewire because they supply power to the devices....

I could probably work along side him at his job on computer hardware!!! (wouldn't that be sweet on a resume! "I worked along side my dad at Kimberly Clark on computer hardware.")

I suppose, he 'understands' software better than I and I understand Hardware better than he does.


Sorry if this was boring, but I felt like ripping on him...

 

[bastion]

HAHHA cool man.