Computer on or off?

[Chuck52]

Me too on the 24/7. I've never lost a hard drive or a motherboard or a power supply, for that matter.....knocking very hard on wood right now. I don't know how many computers I've had at work since we get upgraded on a semi-regular basis, with the semi depending on the state budget and such, but I've always left them on.

Chuck

 

[Soundguy]

Me too on the 24/7. I've never lost a hard drive or a motherboard or a power supply, for that matter.....knocking very hard on wood right now. I don't know how many computers I've had at work since we get upgraded on a semi-regular basis, with the semi depending on the state budget and such, but I've always left them on.

Chuck

I still have a couple OLD 486 machines ( AMD DX40, clocked to 50 on asus MB ) still doing some dedicated work.. old WD 1080meg drives... I am really convinced that power cycles do more damage than sheer age to electronics... inrush current isn't nice to some junctions.. etc..

soundguy

 

[arrow]

I still have a couple OLD 486 machines ( AMD DX40, clocked to 50 on asus MB ) still doing some dedicated work.. old WD 1080meg drives... I am really convinced that power cycles do more damage than sheer age to electronics... inrush current isn't nice to some junctions.. etc..

soundguy

In your case, you'd be absolutely correct but to the new stuff, that is not an issue any longer. Cycling on and off for the new stuff and for that matter to many types of electronics is in no way as damaging as power surges ( lightning, brown out recoveries, line work, etc.) which an off machine would be less prone to experience.

 

[SnowRidge]

In your case, you'd be absolutely correct but to the new stuff, that is not an issue any longer. Cycling on and off for the new stuff and for that matter to many types of electronics is in no way as damaging as power surges ( lightning, brown out recoveries, line work, etc.) which an off machine would be less prone to experience.

Why is it no longer an issue for the "new" stuff?

 

[MossRoad]

I still have a couple OLD 486 machines ( AMD DX40, clocked to 50 on asus MB ) still doing some dedicated work.. old WD 1080meg drives... I am really convinced that power cycles do more damage than sheer age to electronics... inrush current isn't nice to some junctions.. etc..

soundguy

We too have several old machines doing dedicated tasks, still running Win for Workgroups 3.11 and DOS 6.22. We typically lose a box after a power outage... they just don't up and die on us. What happens is the power goes off for some reason, then they do not come back. Usually the power supply or NIC, not the mother board or HD. We lose a few monitors that way each year, too.

 

[MossRoad]

Why is it no longer an issue for the "new" stuff?

Not sure. New computers are never really off, even when you turn them off. You have to pull the power cord or shut off the power source to get them to go off. The power switch is not really a power switch as it doesn't disconnect the power like the old boxes. Maybe that has something to do with it?

 

[SnowRidge]

We too have several old machines doing dedicated tasks, still running Win for Workgroups 3.11 and DOS 6.22. We typically lose a box after a power outage... they just don't up and die on us. What happens is the power goes off for some reason, then they do not come back. Usually the power supply or NIC, not the mother board or HD. We lose a few monitors that way each year, too.

My wife is a 'nix sys admin. They never power down anything if they can help it. If they do lose power despite their massive UPS, they sometimes have failures when the power comes back. Most often, it is a hard drive or two.

 

[MossRoad]

My wife is a 'nix sys admin. They never power down anything if they can help it. If they do lose power despite their massive UPS, they sometimes have failures when the power comes back. Most often, it is a hard drive or two.

The dependability of Unix is amazing. It reminds me of a funny story. Many years ago, on the first system with Unix that I ever dealt with, and no training thanks to my cheap boss back then, we ran out of disk space. He told me to find any large files and move them to another disk. Soooo, I start looking around and move some big files to another disk, we gain enough space and off we go. Several weeks later, we have a power outage and everything goes dark. After power is restored, the Unix box comes up and complains about a file missing.... I do not recall the exact file name, but I do remember it had the word "kernal" in it!

One other story and then I'm done. Remember when some virus or something came out for Win98 (I think) and it would take over the machine if it stayed logged in for 45 (or something) days. The joke in the IT world was something like, "How would anyone ever be affected by that as most folks couldn't keep their Windows machine running for a day, let alone 45!"

 

[BigE_]

Not sure. New computers are never really off, even when you turn them off. You have to pull the power cord or shut off the power source to get them to go off. The power switch is not really a power switch as it doesn't disconnect the power like the old boxes. Maybe that has something to do with it?

Hard drives are still affected by power cycling. I've been involved in the actual design of hard drives.... Granted, that was 3 years ago, but still fairly recent.

The issue is the spin-up of the drive, which means you have a power surge through the motor inductance, which means you just shortened the life of that drive.

Things are better than they used to be with hard drives -- most cheap drives are single platter, which means they don't have as much mass to spin. Manufacturers are also controlling the spin-up time to try to reduce the effects. Not all hard drives are built alike: some cheap Western Digitals or Maxtors come with a 90 warranty. The expensive WDs and Seagates come with a 5 year warranty.

Non-moving electronic parts typically don't have an issue with power cycling, but moving parts definitely do.

Side note: For those of you who choose to use the World Community Grid to allow those spare CPU cycles to be used, be aware that it is definitely shortening the life of your computer (every 10 degree C rise in temperature cuts the life in half), and it is also costing you dollars in power bills. A modern computer at idle (screen off) is only drawing about 30 watts. Get those numbers crunching on it, and that easily rises to 100 watts. Turn on the screensaver (graphics card CPU) and that can jump another 50 watts.

 

[Tig]

Side note: For those of you who choose to use the World Community Grid to allow those spare CPU cycles to be used, be aware that it is definitely shortening the life of your computer ........ and it is also costing you dollars in power bills.

I consider it a charitable contribution.
I did tune my CPU usage down to 80% last summer due to heat concerns.