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From: adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk (Adrian Hurt)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.terminals
Subject: Re: Does Turning off PC's everyday do any real damage?
Summary: Our policy is, turn 'em off
Keywords: I hate Keywords
Message-ID: <1734@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk>
Date: 7 Mar 88 11:11:47 GMT
References: <1727@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Science, Heriot-Watt U., Scotland
Lines: 35

In article <1727@ssc-vax.UUCP>, dmg@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Geary) writes:
> I am interested to know, from a TECHNICAL viewpoint, whether
> or not it causes any damage to turn a PC off everyday.
> 
> Personally, I have an Amiga which I leave on ALL the time.
> However, here at Boing, we are supposed to turn off all
                   -----
Is that their new nickname? :-)

> pc's every night to save electricity.  This strikes me
> as a stupid idea, because I believe that it will damage
> the monitor after an extended period of time.  Also,
> we have workstations, which occasionally get turned
> off by well-intentioned people who think they are
> pc's, and thus loose everything on disk...

You may damage the monitor if you turn it off and on frequently, i.e. once
every couple of seconds. You may also damage the monitor by leaving it on
continuously, and don't give the EHT circuits a rest. For one thing, if there
is anything on the screen, it will eventually get burned onto the phosphor.
Here, ever since our old Televideo terminals started blowing capacitors on
the monitor boards (despite circuitry which turns off the display if inactive)
our policy has been, turn the terminal off when not in use. This has not
resulted in any harm, and the terminals haven't blown their capacitors in a
long time.

One exception is the console terminal of a multi-user Sun system; if that is
turned off, it causes the system to crash! Fortunately, the terminal isn't a
Televideo, and hasn't suffered from being left on (yet).

-- 
 "Keyboard? Tis quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk