All that is just a matter of opinion and each person will give you a different answer about it. ;-) I always shut mine down because I don't want there to be failure of something when I'm away. That seems logical to me. I have alarms for everything, but what's the use if you're asleep and it wakes you up then you have to go to the PC and investigate it, when you could have just shut it down. Also wasting power and $ seems dumb...to me at least. But there's the option of hibernation or STR like I mentioned which would cut power and fans, but you then have the potential problem of a PC waking up and "not knowing where who or what it is".
Assuming everything is cooled well with fans, and it SHOULD be, there's not going to be any issue of cold solder joints. Mine has been running for several years, I check it regularly, and all the solder looks fine. But my huge case has about 22 fans in it. LOL. I look at it sort of like this way: you ever run a desk fan, you know the typical oscillating fan or box fan for a real long time? When you shut it down, many times they won't start again. Now PC type fans are of higher quality, don't give off any heat to speak of and that might not be an issue with them, but I still don't gamble with it. It could be more of an issue with HD's because they DO give off much more heat than a PC fan. Running all the time Vs. shutting it down is usually talking about things like running all the time Vs start-stop-start-stop quickly in succession, that's not good for anything. A PC always works best right after a restart, so one should at the very least restart daily if running 24/7. I just don't like leaving anything electrical running unattended, that just doesn't seem like a smart thing to do. I know, many will say they do it for years with no problems, but just because many do it without any problems doesn't mean there will NEVER be any problems. -Clint God Bless Clint Hamilton, Owner http://www.OrpheusComputing.com http://www.ComputersCustomBuilt.com http://Computer-Hardware-Sales-Consumer-Electronics-Sales.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harold B." You're answering me yet not getting to the point; maybe I wasn't clear. Going back to Win 95 I remember they said one should avoid completely shutting down the computer (unless resources are low and restarting the computer is the only way to renew resources) because putting the circuits from hot to cold and then back to hot is wear and tear on the circuitry's soldering points. Restarting then seemed to be the best choice. Then came Win 98 and hibernation came into the picture (I don't recall hibernation in Win 95). I'm trying to do what is best for the system, what's best for my computer. For examtple, it always strikes me that the fan, although strong plastic and very light, since it is the only continuously moving part in the computer, that when spinning without a rest, that it will eventually wear out. I can't imagine anything going forever without a rest ... maybe I'm wrong in thinking of a computer as having a life of its own, as needing a rest etc :-) Given that all the options suggested below are available (including screensaver) ... turn off monitor, turn off hard disks, system standby, system hibernates, plus the option of having the computer always "ask me what to do" and assuming that all the options work well and nothing is "problematic" ... my question is, what is the best thing to do? For example, overnight ... should I use screensaver, shutdown, or hibernate? I always feel that when choices are given, one choice has to be better than the other, and that's what life is; deciding among choices. What I do now is if the computer will not be used for any extended time (arbitrary), I shut it down. If overnight, I use hibernation (and shut the electricity so the monitor is completly off), and if for an hour or two, I use a blank screensaver. Are there better choices I can make? --- Harold > Hibernation is really a laptop device to save battery power. > It's often > problematic, and has no real use in a desktop.Look in control > panel and > you'll see power options where you can control the Monitor > and the hard > drive power, which are the biggest power users. --- Hugh > It depends on what you want. The SS mode of course does > nothing but keep > a monitor from getting screen burn-in. That of course can be > used with > having the also monitor power down (amber LED) or the monitor > power down > mode used by itself in lieu of a SS. Neither of these have > any effect on > the PC's functioning. Hibernation or STR (suspend to RAM) or > sleep mode > cuts the power use way down but it's pretty common for some > PC's "not to > like" that, they sometimes act strange "waking up". Not all > PC's can do > this, the mobo has to have these power-saving options in the > BIOS and they > usually need to be setup there. --- Clint > > When using a screensaver (how simple it might be; let's say > > a blank > > screen), one still has the system on, the fan or fans > > spinning, and some > > resources are being used. When putting the system into > > "hibernation" the > > system is virtually shut down and I suppose again, some > > system resources > > are being used. Question: Which is better for the overall > > operation of a > > computer? --- Harold ============= PCWorks Mailing List ================= Don't see your post? 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