I used to turn my pc off before bed RELIGIOUSLY, but without thinking...now that I'm older and lazier, I leave it on for weeks at a time if not more.
My pc is 10 years old and I want to keep it running as long as possible. Fuck upgrades (market is shit right now, too). Is this bad for my pc? Wont it wear out quicker because of constant voltage?
Just suspend to RAM. This powers off everything but the RAM and when you resume the computer will "boot" instantly.
install gentoo
voltage will wear the thin wires in pc boards
i do that, very useful
Isn't turning your computer on and off (fluctuating voltage) more harmful than keeping it on at all times (static voltage, assuming of course you don't live in a shit country)? Take light bulbs as an example. I've never had a single one break during usage, it all happened when I was turning the light on.
maybe user, but isnt the very nature of 1s and 0s to be turning on and off rapidly? Just like AC/DC waves always touch zero on both sides of the arc.
There's never really been a reason to not use suspend to RAM.
for some reason my gfx card fan still spins and the card is warm to the touch when I suspend to ram. Power Off it is!
You guys
what sort of power usage does leaving it on all the time consume?
i've left mine on constantly since 2010 no problems yet.
If only modern OSs didn't suck so bad at suspending to ram I'd be for it but it's just a mess.
Uptime screenshot pls
My parents' PC has been on since 2011, the only exception being when the HDD started failing last year, but other than that never had a problem. Granted they don't play videogames and just use it as a regular home/office PC to browse the web and play movies, but I don't think it matters much anyway unless you care about your energy bill
First, max our your components. You can get a top of the line CPU for like $60
second, no, its not gonna wear. My PC is 6 years old and has a 99% uptime. Not a single thing has failed. Other than a chassis fan.
the biggest factor is temperature cycling
constant temperature is better than constantly changing temperature
a computer running at a safe, constant temp is better than turning it on and off often
depends on how much power your particular machine uses
he could be rebooting/kexec'ing, which resets the uptime counter but doesn't actually power off any hardware
Some parts will wear more if you leave it always on, some maybe less. But I wouldn't worry about that. In the end you're just wasting energy for no good.
Obviously moving parts will wear out quicker, but I do the same thing and nothing bad has happened to me.
note this is impossible with full disk encryption, in which case, you could suspend to disk instead.
What do you mean? I've used it for years with Linux and never had a problem.
> fluctuating voltage
Turning a computer on once per day & then off at the end of the day is fine. It gets stable, runs 'til end of day, then sits stable. What you suggest used to be far more harmful to hard drives than almost anything else, but modern HDDs are a lot better than they were in the early 2000s & before (especially mid-90s & earlier).
Constant voltage & power is much better regulated by having a good UPS feeding your system. Ideally a true sine wave, but the higher-end simulated sine wave UPSs are fine these days.
To address OP, - cycling a desktop or workstation once per day has benefits. Mainly that your power supply will generally last longer. Which isn't a huge deal since it's not that expensive to replace ... so long as it fails gracefully and doesn't take out other hardware with it.
Invest in at least a gold certified PSU, make sure that ~90%-95% of your general usage doesn't usually exceed about 80%-85% of its capacity beyond brief spikes. Make sure the system is well-ventilated & cool, and dust it out regularly ... like twice a year minimum and maybe 4x / year if you've got majot dust & dog hair problems, etc.
As mentioned, make sure you have the system running off a solid UPS with voltage regulation and enough capacity to run your system at least ten minutes if the power goes down.
You've just taken most of the major steps to protect and extend your system life. If it's off for half of each 24-hour period, you're doing no harm and probably a fair bit of good.
I'm posting from a 12-year old system that runs about 16-18 hours a day and is powered off each night. I've replaced the battery in the UPS once and I just swapped in a new PSU about a year ago after it burned out from age. I open the system & clean it out thoroughly 2-3 times per year, and pulled the CPU once about three years ago to re-apply thermal paste when I noticed CPU temps climbing.