Leave Computer on or Shut down/Hibernate?

[terranova]

I had a PC that blew up when I turned it on the next morning :S.

My new one is on for about 12 hrs, then I turn it off at night. Its risky but I have to..it pumps out a lot of heat in my room D:.

[Shuemue]

IF its electronic it gets not only turned off but also disconnected from the source of power. I have 3 kill switches that I installed in a secure place in my bedroom that disconnect the Hot, Neutral, and ground wires for three outlets in my living room. One outlet is for my entertainment center and the other 2 are for the 2 desktop computers. Yeah its overboard but I was bored one weekend and decided to waste my time. I also don't trust surge protectors since being an electrician I have seen way to many blown up computers/tvs that had surge protectors on them. Also having a 2 year old running around that loves to push buttons it saves my computers from getting turned on and off all day long.

I'm buying a new house soon, fancy a visit to the UK to help me deck it out in fancy electronics?

[Muzner]

I always leave mine off.

I setup a script at work to shut off all of our workstations after midnight here since we have some people that do work late.

I'm not sure how much of a savings we have had since I implemented that, but its about 200 workstations not running 24/7.

[Therin]

I think a hibernating computer is a happy computer. I have a Vaio that I pretty much never use now, it has tons of files on it and that's just about all I use it for (a fancy external harddrive with a monitor attached to it, basically). It hasn't been "shut down" for quite literally a year straight and it still works fine, so I doubt leaving it on gives any negative side effects.

[Robert]

haven't turned my pc off in like 2 months, never have

[BIGSTIC]

I'm buying a new house soon, fancy a visit to the UK to help me deck it out in fancy electronics?

The house I am in right now is a rental but the land lords love me cause I seem to do at least one major fix-it project every month. I am trying to work my way into a rent-to-buy situation. Nice thing about being an electrician is I can get all the new fancy gadgets for free from my suppliers cause they want me to "try it out". I have 10 LED can lights I am trying to figure out were to install in the house right now but being that they are worth $140/each I am kinda nervous about installing them. The kill switches took me all of 3 hours and work like a charm. The wife wanted me to put them in a lock box so she could prevent babysitters/house sitters(her 16yo niece like to stay at the house while we are away) from messing with our stuff but I thought that was a little overboard. My coworker has his whole house set up so he can call in to the house and turn outlets on and off. He did it since his kids come home from school before he or his wife gets home and he can control weather the "Toys" are on or off. Someday's it can be pretty fun being an electrician.

PS:cover the airfair for me and the wife and the kids and I'll be in the UK tomarrow 8-)

[Avanarius]

hard drives are the one thing you have to worry about most when turning it on/off constantly and I've never yet had a problem with it, but I just turn it off at night and I think the money saves more in the long run.

[Lordwafik]

The wear and tear of machines apon turning them on and off rapidly was more of a problem a few years ago when there wasn't as much research into building safe components like they do now. Not as big of a problem.

As for the question, I turn mine off every night, it shares my room and is a noisy creature, so no plans on being an insomniac anytime soon. Haven't had any components die on me, and I shut down every night for the last few years.

[aurik]

My computers stay on, but I have them set up to automatically power down components not in use, which means when I'm not there it draws much less power.

[Julian]

As a torrenter, I'm seeding 24/7, so I never shut down my pc.

(*'-')