How long is it safe to leave your PC on for?

[sickroachman]

Originally posted by davidstone28
Some of you guys talk in a foreign language....

What is UPS? Expensive?

uninterrupted power supply

if there is a power failure it keeps things running for awhile.

[Todd a]

My computer runs constantly. I have a bit of a problem booting at my overclocked levels. I have to set it back to stock, go into BIOS and overclock, then reboot. I'm fine as long as I do not power it all the way down. I have only turned it off for two thunderstorms and to replace my dead motherboard twice in the last 6 months. I fave only had two lock-ups caused by my TV tuner and reboot only when needed for driver or application installations. Other than that it runs non-stop. I have downloaded many movies. I had KaZaA running non stop for almost 1.5 years downloading movies. I have a library of about 500 now. My other 1-2 of my 3 other computers stay on usually weeks at a time.

I built a computer and gave it to my neighbor. The memory was really cheap and gives me lots of errors during boot-up from a cold boot making you reboot about 10 times befor it comes on, so I told them not to turn it off EVER. It has been on for about 1.5 years now. I'm a bit worried that it will not want to boot up when I add a USB 2.0 card and CD recorder next week (just ordered it for them today) for their digital camera and USB2.0 card reader they just got. The computer is not the best, but it is used almost all day and night (both are retired and their son is a 40 year old deadbeat unemployed bumb who stay up all night playing because they are on the computer all day). The thing cost me $135 to throw together for them for a Celeron 900, Voodoo3 3000, 128MB PC133, 10/100 NIC, 20GB hard drive, 20x CDROM, 250w PS and genaric case. I dumped on Windows XP (like all my other computers) and they got a cable modem. They do not do all the downloading because of the smaller hard drive and no CD recorder (yet), but they are online all the time (or playing games).

If you are really woried, then install a temp monitoring program that can shut the system down if it overheats or a fan fails. Make sure your temps are within a resonnable level and your case is cooled OK. Also with all the harddrive activity, you will want some airflow around the drive so it does not overheat. Heat kills hard drives pretty fast. Nothing fansy is needed and a medium or low RPM 80mm fan works fine. Also clean the dust out every few months.

[agw_01]

Originally posted by davidstone28
As for you guys using servers / pcs for routers etc, I'm assuming that these sort of machines aren't oc'd, have extra cooling (or good) cooling and specialised power supply units?

I might as well reply to this as I just put my new server together last night!

Server Specs
AMD Athlon 800MHz
MSI 6340 Micro-ATX Motherboard
256mb PC133 SDRAM
6.4gb Hard Disk (another one soon)
Matrox Millenium 2mb Graphics Card
D-Link DFE-530TX Network Card
MicroATX Case w/ 300w PSU (Antec 80mm @ 7v / PSU cover removed to allow hot air from CPU area to flow straight into the PSU)
AMD (Barton) Retail Copper Base heatsink w/ 60mm Delta @ 7v
60mm Fan @ 7v as front intake

It does get a bit warm in there, but nothing to get worried about. It had been running Prime95 all night and when I removed the case cover and touched the hard disk, CPU heatsink or northbridge heatsink, they were a long way from causing me concern. I might mod this case so that I can have an 80mm fan as an intake.

This server will be used as a router, web/FTP server, file storage and acting as a dedicated server for a few games at LAN parties.

[grover]

Aside from the occassional reboot, my PC at work has been on for about 3 years straight; same for the other 3 thousand people here with PCs. (LAN policy prohibits shutting down, so they can do after hours software updates) Not a one has caught fire, though there are the inevitible failures from time to time.

[Andy_83]

I'm just wondering, from reading all these posts - what is the power consuption like when you leave a system on all the time? ie what I mean is - if the power supply is rated at 400W, does it draw 400 watts continuously because that would run up quite a bill, or does it depend on how the PSU is loaded...?

As for starting fires, i've never come across that happening but just to be on the safe side put it somewhere by itself where it could not ignite anything else if your worried, and use an all metal case to contain it

[K62]

does it draw 400 watts continuously because that would run up quite a bill, or does it depend on how the PSU is loaded

These modern psu's are "switching" power supplys, if your system is only drawing 300w, thats all it will use.

[Todd a]

Most systems actually only use about 150-250 under full load and much less at idle (with the drives parked and such and CPU and graphics idling). A monitor adds another 75-100 or so to the mix, but only about 5w in sleep mode. My power bills stay around $40-60 with I'd say about 2.5 computers running 24/7 in a 1400 square foot house with a finished basement. I think the computers cost me about $10 a month extra. Not a big issue.

Now when I'm running my LAN party on the 25th, I will have 8-10 computers running full load for about 4-6 hours strait. That pulls a bit more power. Luckily at least 3 are only laptops.