Should I turn off my computer...?

[gkedrovs]

I have always been in the habit of powering down my system at night, but lately I've caught wind of the "mine is bigger" uptime contests. I saw a guy in KCMO that had an uptime of like 3 or 4 years! He was using, for sure, an older kernel, but it was stable and still did everything he needed it to do. Crazy.

Anyway, it just seems weird to me to leave my computer on all the time. But... I also understand that the most wear and tear that we do on our machines (outside of getting pi__ed and whacking it with a hammer) is the boot sequence.

Anyone have any advice about leaving it up and running, or powering down each night?

Thanks.
-Greg

[Zoist]

All the uptime stats have been proven, so leaving your machine on for 4 years won't prove anything :)

I leave mine on all the time. It doesn't actually bother me when sleeping either. It seems to bother a lot of people though.

I usually would turn off my machine if I am going away for more than 2 days, because there isn't much point leaving it on. But if I had a server or something, I'd just leave it on all the time. The energy drawn isn't near as much as monitors.
And turning the machine on and off could possibly do more damage because of the cold going to hot situation which I have heard about from numerous people.

Cheers ;-)

[Hayl]

i leave all mine on all the time

monitors have auto power off

[mdwatts]

I leave my home servers on 24/7 though will my main desktop (420w power supply), I turn it off whenever I am not using it.

Also since I have to pay my own hydro and my electricity bill has doubled over the past year.

[Zoist]

Originally posted by mdwatts
I my main desktop (420w power supply),

Even though a power supply is capable of this much power output, it doesn't mean it is drawing 420w constantly. It would take a heap of devices to start drawing this much power.

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by Zoist
Even though a power supply is capable of this much power output, it doesn't mean it is drawing 420w constantly. It would take a heap of devices to start drawing this much power.

All the slots are in use, plus I have 3 HD's (two on the Promise Fastrak Raid Controller), floppy, LS-120, DVD, CDRW and 12 Fans. It's a dual AMD MP.

[Zoist]

Alright smarty pants, you win :D
12 fans? Gosh your PC must almost be taking off!!!!

[FoBoT]

all computers should be left on all the time
and
run a distributed computing program

[gkedrovs]

Originally posted by mdwatts
All the slots are in use, plus I have 3 HD's (two on the Promise Fastrak Raid Controller), floppy, LS-120, DVD, CDRW and 12 Fans. It's a dual AMD MP.

Help me! HELP ME!!!! I'm drowning in my own DROOL!!!

mdwatts is my hero.

Now I know what I want for Christmas. :-)

-gk

[gkedrovs]

Originally posted by FoBoT
run a distributed computing program

Okay, I'll bite and show the world my ignorance...

What the heck is a "distributed computing program."

-gk

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by Zoist
Gosh your PC must almost be taking off!!!!

Got it bolted to the floor... :D

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by gkedrovs
Help me! HELP ME!!!! I'm drowning in my own DROOL!!!

mdwatts is my hero.

Now I know what I want for Christmas. :-)

-gk

Forgot to mention it's a dual MP 1800 with 1GB Registered/ECC. Enermax case and power supply.

Had it for nearly a year now and not one problem with the hardware or the OS (Linux of course). :)

[Fryguy8]

I leave my computer on all of the time, if only because I have a mail server running on it with a dynamic dns entry on cable..

[gkedrovs]

Originally posted by mdwatts
Forgot to mention it's a dual MP 1800 with 1GB Registered/ECC. Enermax case and power supply.

Had it for nearly a year now and not one problem with the hardware or the OS (Linux of course). :)

Post a photo! Post a photo!

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by gkedrovs
What the heck is a "distributed computing program." Check out www.distributedfolding.org for the one I'm doing (and FoBoT is as well).

There are others littered around the Internet. SETI@Home used to be one of the more popular ones (until cheating got rampant...), but there are tons of others. Genome@Home (might be done now, though....), Folding@Home, etc., etc.

If you go to www.free-dc.org/forum you can see a list of a bunch of them, under the "distributed computing projects" heading. There are websites for each of those, somewhere. Note, though, that this is not a comprehensive list.

The whole premise is that your CPU is sitting idle on average 99% of the time, so why not donate that unused power to a worthy project? Most of them run at niced priority, which means they're the first to give up the CPU when something else (that isn't niced) needs it.

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by gkedrovs
Post a photo! Post a photo!

Photo? Everything is in a dark blue and black tower case so you wouldn't see much.

I'm thinking of moving my 21" Trinitron over to my other pc and getting a pair of 19" LCD's. Just need the price to go down a bit more.

Of course I will then have to throw the GF3 Ti-200 in the garbage as it only has single monitor output (besides the SVHS) and get a new GF4 with dual display. Oh well...

Then I'll post a picture. :D

[gkedrovs]

Originally posted by mdwatts
Photo? Everything is in a dark blue and black tower case so you wouldn't see much.

I'm thinking of moving my 21" Trinitron over to my other pc and getting a pair of 19" LCD's. Just need the price to go down a bit more.

Could you go ahead and take it all apart for us? Maybe you could get one shot with all the pieces and parts grouped nicely together. Then, a shot of each piece individually. Would that be okay?

My Dad just got a dual-proc G4, and popped for the 22" Cinema Display. He thought he was good to go for a while, until a friend of his posted pic of his set-up: same G4, but with DUAL Cinema Displays. Incredible!

Me? Shoot... AOC 19" with a wee bitty normal PIII box. *sigh*

-gk

[zmerlinz]

Originally posted by mdwatts
Photo? Everything is in a dark blue and black tower case so you wouldn't see much.

I'm thinking of moving my 21" Trinitron over to my other pc and getting a pair of 19" LCD's. Just need the price to go down a bit more.

Of course I will then have to throw the GF3 Ti-200 in the garbage as it only has single monitor output (besides the SVHS) and get a new GF4 with dual display. Oh well...

Then I'll post a picture. :D


what do you do for a living, that lot must cost an absoloute packet ??

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by zmerlinz
what do you do for a living, that lot must cost an absoloute packet ??

Technical Analyst

Cost around $3000. without the monitor.

[carrja99]

Whenever I'm done with my computer, I rapidly turn the power on and off and unplug it. I think that is the safest way to turn your 'puter off! :D

[vbp6us]

6:44pm up 8 days, 19:28, 4 users, load average: 0.55, 0.88, 0.76

whats your uptime?

[bwkaz]

22:12:39 up 20 days, 1:17, 0 users, load average: 2.17, 2.17, 2.06 ;)

It may go down soon, though. :(

My server/firewall box:

10:11pm up 11 days, 7:54, 1 user, load average: 1.01, 1.01, 1.00 And that'll stay up for quite some time. I upgraded the kernel a week or so ago, so that's why the reboot.

[arkaine23]

On 24/7 for nearly 60Ghz of computers( a few are part-timers). Folding@home! http://folding.stanford.edu


Shameless plug- Join Team 32!!!

[gkedrovs]

Originally posted by vbp6us
whats your uptime?

One hour, 2 minutes. One user. >:-( Had to boot into WinSTINKINdoze for a project for one of my "clients."

Now, I'm grumpy.

gk

[Zoist]

3:01pm up 1 day, 22:19, 3 users, load average: 1.42, 0.33, 0.11

Had my machine up for 2 months once. But the power in my area sometimes decides to turn off every now and then :mad:

[red_over_blue]

I rapidly turn the power on and off and unplug it. I think that is the safest way to turn your 'puter off!

That's what I always thought too :)

Sometimes if I am in a hurry, I just pour a glass of water into the case and that seems to do the trick. It is always dry by the time I get back, so I just power it back up and it runs like a dream. It also helps to keep things clean and dust free.

[EvilFlyingCow]

Originally posted by mdwatts

Of course I will then have to throw the GF3 Ti-200 in the garbage

Can I have it, plz??



http://www.bull****job.com/officespace/mystapler.wav

[retoon]

I shut my machine down every night, because my PS fan makes noise. Until I invest in a better one, which I plan to do soon, I will continue to do so. Plus, I am using rh8 which for some reason takes up my gig of ram, and doesn't let it go, so I have to restart. I figure once a night won't hurt too bad. Just a tid bit, after shutting off your computer properly, unplug the power cable, then hit the power button on the front of the computer. It discharges the capacitors. Neet trick for when you have to work on the guts of the system.

[janet loves bill]

Originally posted by FoBoT
all computers should be left on all the time
and
run a distributed computing program

I did this for 13 months or so, SETI@HOME!
he he, had 3 boxes going at one time. ran up 1800 work units.

[sasKuatch]

9:30pm up 2:02, 4 users, load average: 0.06, 0.05, 0.01

Uptime? What uptime? laptops don't get a chance to rack up uptime when constantly being powered up and down all the time.

Now my desktop, I could leave that up, but it's mainly a BeOS box and serves no useful purpose in linux. The harddrives and fans are like shrieking banshees on that thing (and it's in my bedroom). It's old as heck too:

Pentium 166 O/C'ed to 233mhz with 48 mb RAM.

Runs Unreal tournament and everything below like you wouldn't believe:D (thanks to that O/C'ed Voodoo2)

[Ludootje]

I turn off my comp every night, because of the electricity cost + the noise... it really makes a lot of noise imo. I'd like to leave it on though, so I could run some stuff like eggdrops etc :)

[Ludootje]

Originally posted by bwkaz
Check out www.distributedfolding.org for the one I'm doing (and FoBoT is as well).

There are others littered around the Internet. SETI@Home used to be one of the more popular ones (until cheating got rampant...), but there are tons of others. Genome@Home (might be done now, though....), Folding@Home, etc., etc.
Everyone should join the distributed.net grasshoppers team!
http://stats.distributed.net/team/tmsummary.php?project_id=8&team=940185915

SETI is still the most popular one afaik, but I also find it the most useless one.

[sasKuatch]

Now, does this cover also rebooting? I ask this out of concern for when I am using Windows, and if rebooting is just as harmful as booting, I should stop:eek: :eek: ;)

[retoon]

I just finished getting seti up and running about two days ago. Its pretty cool, but I think Im missing the basic concept of it. Every one downloads the same data from one centralized server, each pc processes the data, then it sends it back to the server automatically? or do we send the file to them? I know its in search of extra terestrial life, but I don't know how. Any way, running it verbose makes me feel like a super nerd. I like it.:p

[vrek]

Originally posted by retoon
I shut my machine down every night, because my PS fan makes noise. Until I invest in a better one, which I plan to do soon, I will continue to do so. Plus, I am using rh8 which for some reason takes up my gig of ram, and doesn't let it go, so I have to restart. I figure once a night won't hurt too bad. Just a tid bit, after shutting off your computer properly, unplug the power cable, then hit the power button on the front of the computer. It discharges the capacitors. Neet trick for when you have to work on the guts of the system.
For the fan if your willing to do some work check this out: http://tweak3d.net/articles/casecutting/

As for the the trick with the capacitors thats not ture. the only way to discharge a capacitor is to short the leads preferbly with a resistor in the ~300 ohm range for safty and quality of the capacitor. just pressin the switch won't do that(atleast on any computer PSU I ever seen) as the switch is in series right before the transformer normally. if you don't believe me test it, take a srewdriver and a think wire(with proper safty gear) strip one end of wire twist it wound the metal of the screwdriver, twist other end, touch screwdier to one lead of capacitor and while touching the insulation of wire touch it to the other lead. If there is still a charge you WILL be able to tell. That is after you try your little trick.

[bwkaz]

the switch is in series right before the transformer normally

The power switch on AT motherboards was on the AC side of the transformer, in series with it. That's why AT boards needed a switch that stayed pressed after you let go.

The power switch on ATX motherbords, OTOH, is on the motherboard side. It may or may not discharge the capacitors; it depends on how the motherboard was wired. It just connects the PSU's 5VSTBY line to its "wakeup" line, so that the PSU turns on power. This switch had BETTER NOT stay on after you let go!

[carrja99]

Originally posted by red_over_blue
That's what I always thought too :)

Sometimes if I am in a hurry, I just pour a glass of water into the case and that seems to do the trick. It is always dry by the time I get back, so I just power it back up and it runs like a dream. It also helps to keep things clean and dust free.

Well, on my next computer I was thinking about using an icebox as the casing, so I can ensure that my overclocked processor will always remain adequately cooled. How can I avoid the problem that may result from moisture though? :confused:

[sasKuatch]

Originally posted by carrja99
Well, on my next computer I was thinking about using an icebox as the casing, so I can ensure that my overclocked processor will always remain adequately cooled. How can I avoid the problem that may result from moisture though? :confused:

Not such a good idea, as the hard drives don't like to be frozen (mine didn't). Above 40-50 F should be ok.

I guess you could try sealing (as in varnishing) the whole mobo and running cables out for everything else. That way, even if there's water running down the sides and there's a big icicle on the CPU, it shouldn't matter much. I'd try this on a spare PC first, and make sure you use an acrylic sealer as that's safe on plastic (enamel and and petroleum based ones can and do melt plastic).

[retoon]

Try this, turn off your pc, once turned off, unplug the power, then push the power button. What the leds light up. Its true, and it helps us paranoid technicians get through our day a little faster. Holding the power button on an atx pc sends out a request for the 5v which the psu can't supply. So, it takes whatever voltage is stored within the components on the mother board and uses what little is left to light the leds. Your supposed to hold the power button down for about one minute.

[EvilFlyingCow]

The only time I turn off my computer is when I want to upgrade or clean dust out, or when I'm gonna haul it off to a LAN party.


http://www.danasoft.com/vipersig.jpg

[MMA]

Originally posted by EvilFlyingCow
The only time I turn off my computer is when I want to upgrade or clean dust out, or when I'm gonna haul it off to a LAN party.


http://www.danasoft.com/vipersig.jpg


GGOOODDD DDAAMMMMM..:eek: :eek: :eek:

Jeeezzzz. How did you do that? Maaann you got that exactly right. :eek: :eek:

You got my IP, what are you gonna do about it :D:D

[gkedrovs]

Originally posted by EvilFlyingCow
http://www.danasoft.com/vipersig.jpg

Has someone been reading _Hacking Exposed_?

-gk

[MMA]

My computers a webserver, email server, webmail server, pop3 server, soon to be ftp server, it even downloads my emails from hotmail so that i can access it through my webmail.

But i never keep it on when i don't need it.

Its too loud, big, hot and waste of electricity.

In the near future i'm gonna buy a small PC, like a shuttle or a cappuchino (is that right?). Those look great. Gonna turn that into all the above and file server, router, firewall. and will stay on 24/7 :D