David Howard wrote:
Power saving features

An earlier thread suggested that it was kinder to a pc to be left turned on
( but presumably disconnected from whatever e-mail service one is using ),
as there are then fewer power surges to harm the gear. However, are their
not problems inherent in leaving the pc turned on all the time, eg. as the
hard drive is constantly spinning, does this not reduce the life span of the
moving parts?

--
David Howard

--
David Howard
djph@btinternet.com
"Brian H¹©" <no.spam@no.spam.thank.you> wrote in message
news:Krjbg.294$435.180@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net...


Thanks Brian , but which is best, 'turn off hard disc' or Hibernate?
Regards, David H.

"David Howard" <djph@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:4d5ubsF1958k5U1@individual.net...
Some say, leave it on. Some say turn it off, when not being used.
It comes down to a personal choice (at the end of the day !).
Leaving it on wastes electricity, and ups the bill.
It also, must, reduce the life span of some parts.
Switching it off must reduce the life span of switches, and create
slight power up surges.
The choice is an individual one I think
Altho` I like to keep my electric bills down <G>.

On Fri, 19 May 2006 14:10:04 +0100, "David Howard" <djph@nospam.com>
wrote:

Years ago I produced a service call logging and fault tracking system
for a large company. They had thousands of PCs. The design and
development departments left their PC's on all the time while the
admin and service people switched theirs off every day when they went
home.

The PCs that were left on had a much lower call rate.

The cost in wasted power makes up for the cost of service calls.

--
Steve Wolstenholme Neural Planner Software

EasyNN-plus. The easy way to build neural networks.
http://www.easynn.com

"David Howard" <djph@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:4d5v94F18nh2hU1@individual.net...

You can also configure your power options to spin down the hard disks
and turn off the monitor before Standby mode engages. I have my power
options set to spin-down the hard disks and blank the video after 1 hour
and Standby engages after 2 hours of idle. I find less than an hour
inconvenient for spin-down and video blanking because I could get
interrupted for that long in a meeting, and I don't want an overly short
idle interval for Standby mode because I'd like the host ready to user
on my return. How you configure these options depends on how you use
your host.

Hibernate powers down your computer just like you hit the power button
(in fact, you can configure the power button to do the hibernate). The
only difference between hibernate and powering off is that the memory is
first copied into a file before powering down (and the file is used to
write into memory on bootup).

--
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"David Howard" <djph@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:4d5v94F18nh2hU1@individual.net...
<snip - everything below is the signature>

When you edit your post to bottompost, be sure the sigdash delimiter
line ("-- ") is BELOW your post and any content you are quoting.
Otherwise, in the case of your reply, everything in your post was in the
signature because you left it at the top.

Since SP-2 for Windows XP, there are registry edits to make OE
bottompost and put its signature at the end. See
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886340/. I don't believe the "end" data
item makes much of a difference if you configure for bottomposting (and
you need to add it to each signature under that registry key and not
just for the first one of "00000000" which may no longer exist). The
bottomposting registry edit is a global option for OE but the
signature-at-end registry edit is local to the signature.

--
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David Howard wrote:
These days it doesn't matter either way.

Turning the pc off does NOT prevent power surges.


--
http://www.bootdisk.com/

If there are thunderstorms in your area when you have your computer
on, it may switch off the electricity and turn the computer off for you
if not temporary, permanently which would give you a big repair bill..
So I would turn off the computer during thunderstorms, unless you want
a risk having a dead computer.

Bun Mui

Plato wrote:

No, he's saying fewer power surges if you *don't* turn it on and
off all the time -- surges *from* powering it up frequently, not
surges from the power company.


--
Blinky
Kill-filing all posts from Google Groups
Details: http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html

"David Howard" <djph@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:4d5ubsF1958k5U1@individual.net...

In news:bMjbg.1872$_04.623@newsfe1-gui.ntli.net,
beenthere spewed forth:
I'm with you. The systems that don't need to be used should be off. I have
one running as a print/file server that also records TV shows for me. That
one stays on because of the randomness of the TV schedule. But the other
systems are off if I'm going to be away. When I turn one on, it stays on all
day. But (except for the one exception) they all go off at the end of the
day. I usually have 3 or 4, sometimes more systems hooked up - mostly for
access to different operating systems, or testing, setup, etc. I don't want
to waste the power if they are not actually being used.

--
Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

"Toolman Tim" <frack.this@no.spam.invalid> wrote in message
news:4pobg.20$Ab6.15@fe05.lga...

"David Howard" <djph@nospam.com> wrote:

The "rule of thumb" that I have always used is that turning the
computer on and off once has about the same impact on longevity as
does leaving it running for 24 hours.

There are a number of different effects that are relevant to this
discussion, such as startup load effects, repeated heating and cooling
effects (metal fatigue), and cumulative wear (electric motor bearings
etc).

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

Blinky the Shark wrote:
OK thanks for the correction oh boneless beast.

Bun Mui wrote:
Well, while a surge can damage hardware, it can also damage files on the
hard drive. So yes, keeping the pc off is recommended during a storm no
matter what type of surge protection you have.


--
http://www.bootdisk.com/

Plato wrote:

Cartilage makes the world go round.


--
Blinky
Kill-filing all posts from Google Groups
Details: http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html

On 20 May 2006 08:01:13 GMT, Blinky the Shark <no.spam@box.invalid> wrote:

I thought it was excessive flatulence that made the world go round. There's
certainly been a lot of it in 24HSHD recently.

"I sure missed the bus on that one, I guess."

--
www.jlaforums.com, among other sites, steals usenet newsgroup posts, and tries to
mislead the public into thinking the posts come from them. They do not. If you see this sig,
or this nic, in *any* post, the post originated in 24hoursupport.helpdesk, and jlaforums or
one of the other thieving sites has deliberately stolen and reposted it in their site forums.

"Meat Plow" <meat@meatplow.local> wrote in message
newsan.2006.05.20.13.03.24.100000@nntp.sun-meatplow.local...
I do. Several times: hard drives that physically quit, and power supplies
that burned out (smoke and all), motherboards that fried (bad capacitors,
leading to voltage regulators burning out) and harder-to-diagnose
unexplained system failures.

@}-}-------Rosee wrote:
Yes, power cycling causes damage. For example, a power switch has a
rating of 100,000 cycles. Powering cycling that computer would wear
out that switch.

A disk drive with an extremely low power cycle number was 40,000
power cycles. Again, power cycling does damage disk drives.

And then we do what junk scientists don't do. We do the numbers.
100,000 power cycles - seven times every day - is 39 years. 40,000
power cycles five times every day to that disk drive is - 22 years.
Subjective reasoning - that is technically correct -suddenly becomes
foolish once we do numbers. Demonstrated is why junk science reasoning
fears numbers. This thermal cycle damage in electronics is classic and
bogus 'junk science' reasoning.

Power cycling does not cause significant failure. Let's see.
Those integrated circuits are made by temperature cycling 500 and 800
degrees repeatedly - and they don't fail. Now someone tells us
temperature cycling same IC by tens of degrees destroys those same
parts? Again, once we apply numbers, those myths become 'junk
science'.

What does a transistor do powered in a computer? Power cycles
repeatedly. Some parts of a processor go from very cool to very hot in
quick order as, for example, the Pentium goes from less than one amp
consumption to tens of amps .... and within microseconds ... and
does this often. When is strain most? During normal operation - AND
is still no where near to thermal cycling of 800 degrees. Massive
power consumption causes massive heating AND very quickly - where
computer is running. Transistors are at most strain when switching.
At so much stain when switching - in normal operation - as to even emit
IR light during that switching. The junction - where failures would
occur - is doing massive temperature cycling only when computer is
powered. Hours of operation - not manual power off - are really when
destructive thermal cycling occurs.

But somehow all this got forgotten because thermal cycling is
'rumored' to be destructive to everything. How convenient that they
forget to learn when most thermal cycling occurs by using numbers -
during normal operation.

Long ago and well proven for consumer and office products - power it
down or put it to sleep when done. Power it up, run it all day, then
power off when leaving.

If power cycling was so destructive, then we never turn off radios,
TVs, and other electronic appliances. We power off because energy
consumption far outweighs any other reason AND because power cycling is
only destructive when myths are promoted without numbers.