Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!wciu!art
From: art@wciu.EDU (Art Nicolaysen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Leave the PC on vs. Power it off daily?
Message-ID: <1990Sep19.115137.22763@wciu.EDU>
Date: 19 Sep 90 11:51:37 GMT
References: <1990Sep17.205845.12803@pdn.paradyne.com>
Reply-To: art@wciu.edu (Art Nicolaysen)
Organization: William Carey Int'l University
Lines: 49

>In <1990Sep17.205845.12803@pdn.paradyne.com> dixon@pdn.paradyne.com 
>(Tom Dixon) writes:
>
>With todays pc hardware, exactly how dangerous is each power cycle?  
>If you power your office unit off every night, are you in for early 
>hardware failures?  Or is this all propaganda spread by electric power 
>companies?
>

Having worked in a large multiuser environment, my prejudice is to
leave a computer powered up unless setup, repairs, etc. dictate
otherwise.  I have never observed 24-hour operation as a sole cause of
downtime for computers or peripherals.

I leave my machine on all the time because:

1)  The hassle factor is less for paying power bills* than for getting 
    dead equipment repaired or replaced.
2)  Equipment will become obsolete before rotating parts (e.g., disk 
    drive bearings) fail.
3)  A constant application of power doesn't stress non-moving (ICs,
    resistors, etc) components as much as power cycling does (consider 
    the thermal stresses caused by heating/cooling).
4)  Subjective experience.  In my last job, over a 2.5 year period, 
    I replaced 1 terminal in office A vs 4 terminals in office B.   
    The difference?  The users in Office A left their terminals on all 
    the time (after an explanation of the above points).  The other 
    users insisted on powering down every night.
5)  Varied inflammatory arguments that have resulted in shouting
    matches and are best confined to alt.religion.computers.

In any case, I am a strong advocate of powering down the monitor if
no screensaver utility is available.  Images burned into the screen
are inimical to getting work done.

BTW, I see this as more of an emotional than a factual decision.  In
our office, we have a mixture of XTs, ATs and 386s.  Half the users 
leave their machines on all the time, and the rest turn them off
at the end of the day.


* The utility bills vs. repair bills analysis is left as an exercise 
for the reader.  Failure rate analysis... I don't have the statistics
to attempt it.  Anybody got some?


--
Art Nicolaysen          William Carey Int'l University (Global Mapping)
art@wciu.edu            Pasadena CA 91104