Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!decwrl!shelby!portia!mmaston
From: mmaston@portia.Stanford.EDU (Michael Maston)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Leave it on?  Or once a week?
Message-ID: <9160@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 14 Feb 90 02:34:44 GMT
References: <77800007@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Sender: Michael Maston <mmaston@portia.stanford.edu>
Reply-To: mmaston@portia.Stanford.EDU (Michael Maston)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 34

In article <77800007@m.cs.uiuc.edu> thompson@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>I just read a note in c.s.m claiming that it was better (for the Mac)
> to leave your Mac on all the time than to turn it on/off *once a week*.
> Is this true?  That seems incredible to me (and I doubt anyone who has a Mac
> uses it less than once a week).
>
>I could maybe buy "once a day", although even that seems to be stretching
> it to me.  But "once a week?" Really?
>
>And how much extra power does it suck up?  Per week/day or whatever?
> (i.e., will it be cost-effective?  Or at least cheap enough to
>  justify to myself?)
>
>- Mark Thompson
>  TA from Elysium
>  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Hi Mark,
	It is good for any electronic device (including the Mac) to minimize
the number of power cycles (turning it off/on) you put it thru.  Just as
you might have noticed that light bulbs almost always burn out when you 
turn them on, all such devices are put under a great deal of stress when
voltage/current are applied to them suddenly.  If you leave them on all the 
time, you (theoretically) should be extending their life expectancy.

As for cost effectiveness, that is pretty much a function of the cost of
electricity in your area.  If it is cheap, who cares?  If it isn't, well...
Computers really don't gobble THAT much power.

Mike
Hardware/Software Engineer
GTE Government Systems Corp.
Mountain View, CA  94043