Why would you keep a computer on 24/7?

[JPNpower]

Many enthusiasts seem to leave their computers on 24/7, and let it idle during the massive time gaps that they don't use it. However, whatever angle I look at it from, I see absolutely no benefit in doing this. Why would somebody wear down components and jack up the power bill on purpose?

 

[smeezekitty]

So to wrap up, since component quality has risen so much, the difference between of/offers and 24/7ers is whether the person want's to save a bit of money, or if the person wants a constantly ready PC.

My final question is software. Sort of like thermodynamics, I heard that the longer a PC is on, the more entropy happens. For example, Windows becomes more messed up and weird. More crap gets piled on from various programs doing some unneeded tasks. More data gets mashed up into a mess. And that there is a greater chance that some data becomes corrupted.

That is true. A restart every few days will fix this. The memory gets fragmented, the swap file grows un-neccasarily and subtle memory leaks will show their ugly teeth if you let it go too long.

Usually it will be fine for months though.

 

[manofchalk]

Iv heard this as well, the Windows temporary files get clogged if you leave it running for too long. Never really looked into it, but just what I hear.

 

[Wolfshadw]

I agree. It's really not that big of a deal to reboot my system after a month or two online. It only takes about a minute to reboot. I can afford to be offline for that long.



-Wolf sends

 

[thesuperguy]

Am I the only one here who feels uneasy just leaving my computer on unattended or unused? I kinda crave the feeling of knowing my computer will not explode or something while I'm not watching.

 

[smeezekitty]

Don't use crappy PSUs. Otherwise the chance of something bad happening is negligible.

 

[ikaz]

Well with anything that realy depends on the software your running. If it has memory leaks then the longer its running the greater the chance you will problems. To me thats means you should get a different program. Now if your the type of person who only uses there PC maybe once day for less than 1hr they turning it off makes sense. The problem at this website is more people probably perfer to use there PC during there free time instend of say watching tV.

I personally would rather check news on my PC than say on my or even stream movies from my PC to my TV so it make sense not to turn it off.

 

[Darkman69]

Don't use crappy PSUs. Otherwise the chance of something bad happening is negligible.

I think you mean the chance of something bad happening would be emanate. Negligible would mean so small as to be a non issue.

 

[smeezekitty]

I think I wrote that wrong.

I meant the chance will be negligible unless you use bad PSUs.

 

[thesuperguy]

Meh. It just feels right turning it off when I'm not using it for 8 hours at night.

 

[JPNpower]

Thank you, I got all the information I wanted now. I personally will still stick to on/off but now I understand what the 24/7 people think.

Now I need to select a best answer. How the hell do I pick that? Somebody say something brilliant that wraps everything up.

 

[Darkman69]

Thank you, I got all the information I wanted now. I personally will still stick to on/off but now I understand what the 24/7 people think.

Now I need to select a best answer. How the hell do I pick that? Somebody say something brilliant that wraps everything up.

It's a matter of choice if you keep your computer on or off but ether way in not wrong rather the choice is yours. If Google shut off their computers every night Billions of people would be without internet so take that for what it is.