06/01/2013
So I have been asked this question numerous times by friends and clients from my A.M.L days... Is it best to leave your PC on or turn it off when you are not using it. Well the answer in my opinion is as follows.....
The worst thing for your computer, believe it or not is turning it on. The surge of electricity that goes through the components of the system to fire it up, over time will kill the capacitors on the main board (motherboard) and eventually you will get capacitor leak which will stop the system from turning on. Please keep in mind, I am referring to turning the machine on and off many times; 500 power cycles is not going to kill your machine, but if the machine is powered on and off thousands of times, that is another story! Now capacitors and other electrical components are designed with this in mind, (unless you have a cheap motherboard) and the duty cycles on these components are increasing it seems with every new motherboard that is being released. OK enough of the technical mumbo jumbo..
On the other hand when you turn your computer on, excessive heat is created. No matter how well your are cooling your system, stress in the form of heat is placed on your systems processor, hard drive, motherboard, power supply etc. Thus leaving your system on when it is not needed to be on creates un-necessary stress and will burn out your components faster.
So what is the answer to the question... Well it is a double edged sword in a sense. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't. My advice is that if you plan on using your machine through out the day you should leave it on. If you have an old CRT monitor (The big fat thick ones) turn them off whenever they are not needed as they consume a lot of electricity. Today's LCD monitors are very efficient and require a small amount of electricity so leaving them on is not going to hurt the pocket book with the utilities bill. Laser printers are also huge power hogs so unless you have a function that you can set to put the laser printer to sleep after x number of minutes you should always turn these units off.
A note to mention is that leaving your system on is a risky move if you don't have a GOOD surge protector in place. A surge protector will help to keep the power regulated to your system. I do not know about your power but we get spikes and surges in our power frequently in Pickering and it doesn't have to be weather related. One surge through your computer can kill EVERYTHING even your data! Making sure you get a good Surge protector or even better a Battery Backup system (UPS), with surge suppression is essential to protect your system.
Notebooks are a different animal as they can not be affected by surges if they are not plugged in. However, when you are charging the battery you are definitely at risk to lose data if there is a surge.
I hope this info helps some of you out and if you need more info on UPS (Battery Backup systems) or surge protectors please let me know. I can acquire a wide range. Please feel free to share comments about this post.
Take care for now and enjoy your day!
