that's one opinion. as far as I know, no one has actually collected DATA or performed long term studies. there are valid reasons to leave it on and valid reasons to turn it off.
there are wear mechanisms involved with turning it on and off (yes, even turning things off can add wear...), but there are also wear mechanisms that are only active or more active with it on. for instance, in the case of the cpu, every time it warms up or cools down there is stress on the bonding wires in the chip (which is actually usually what makes a chip fail, the little gold wire(s) get stretched and develop a thin spot that can stretch into a break), on the other hand, the warmer the chip is the faster metal migrates (the interconnects between each part on a chip) and this too can lead to an open circuit and has been observed, though mostly with much finer geometries (and at some level, even the dopants in the chip migrate, again faster at higher temperatures, it is these dopants that make it a semiconductor and form the individual devices). which failure mechanism will kill a chip faster? the plain truth is that no one knows, it's a guess and/or a "swag" (scientific wild assed guess) at best, at worst it's arrogance and ignorance to proclaim wether it's best to leave or turn off. similarly, everything else in the machine takes mechanical stress when the temperature changes, and the best way to change the temperature is to turn it on or off. by the same token, everything else in the machine is also vulnerable to accelerated wear at higher temperatures. it's a hard problem to figure out, because it's time consuming to do the testing, and by the time you were done the technology would have changed enough to make the results questionable for new machines. i've turned machines on and off many times in a day, and left them on long term, but i. doubt i'll ever have enough experience to know which is worse. i have done electrical engineering work, and i understand a lot about electronics and physics, but there just isn't enough data for a reasonable person to guess. there are other factors as well that confuse the issue, like the quality of your electrical power, cleanliness, etc. that may flip the argument in some cases even if you had data. the only thing that i can guarantee as bad is cycling the power rapidly, if you turn it off let the drives spin down etc. before starting it back up. there are a number of strains from turning it on and things aren't designed to take the burden of rapid cycling (because it's not "normal" use and would make it cost more). i do what i feel like that day, if the noise makes it hard to sleep (or watch tv etc.) in the room with the machine, off it goes (and i LIKE fans because i know what a huge difference they make in reliability, even in things that will tolerate not having one). on the other hand i do try to leave it on all day if i'll be using it sporadically and i "think" that's the right thing to do. I can tell you it's best to turn off the monitor or let it go to sleep if you'll be away from the machine for a while, but monitors are allot different than the cpu box next to it and have many more problems with heat and high voltage stress at levels way above what you find in the computer itself. of course monitors also don't have fans, and are generally built with lower quality parts that are working very hard. if any one knows of any actual study or data i'd love a link to it or more info, all else is speculation, which often leads in the wrong direction. Begin forwarded message: > From: Mick Ring <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Tue Jan 14, 2003 8:20:50 PM America/Denver > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (G-List) > Subject: Re: Date and time problem on G3 > Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (G-List) > > on 1/14/03 10:53, Bonnie at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> will be o.k. during any restarts I do during the day, but when I shut >> my >> computer down at night, the next morning I am back to 1957. > > Ideally, you shouldn't shut your machine down at night. I know this > isn't > the question you asked and you might have extenuating circumstances > that > force you to shut it down at night, but I thought I'd offer the > unsolicited > advice anyway. :) > - -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
