Computer on [Long time]?

[Raydeus]

Question: What's the longest time you've had your computer on?



I ask this because I recently started downloading much larger files using torrent (nothing illegal or porn, eh? ), and of course these torrents always take a long time to load so you gotta leave your computer on for days. So I'm curious about how long has been the longest time everyone has left their computer on non-stop (for reference and stuff).

Torrenting small files of 200 MB or less is pretty fast, but once you go beyond 500 MB things slow down a lot unless you have more than 30 seed/peers.





(BTW if talking about this is against the rules just delete the thread )

[neighbortaru]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

had my laptop on for 3 days with some anime torrents (whole series).

[Icemage]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

My computer is always on. I may have turned it off once in the past eight months. I think my longest session without a reboot (usually forced by Microsoft) is probably somewhere around 120 days or so.

On the occasions that I use BitTorrent, I'll leave torrents up until they're at least at a 1.25 to 1 ratio, often more.

Not many people know this, but constantly powering up/down your computer puts more wear and tear on the expensive components than leaving it on constantly.


Icemage

[Raydeus]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

Thanks for the info, and I didn't know about that about turning your computer on/off.


I guess as long as I keep my computer properly cooled I should have no problems with it.

[Tirrock]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

I left my last computer on for months straight. Only turning it off when it crashed (me trying to play things where the minimum specs were 233MHz on a 180MHz processor with insufficent RAM...) or the power going out.

It was a used computer and managed to survive in poor conditions (60F inside during winter, 105F in the summer as the extremes on both ends) for about three years before the port for the keyboard fried on it. Booting up to see "Unable to detect keyboard, press F2 to continue" was pretty funny though.

I'm not much nicer on this computer, and aside from some strange issues with my DVD and CD drives (which is most likely them being worn out, since my new DVD burner I put in works awesomely) this computer works fine. It's a little over three years old.

I do put the computers into sleep before I leave them, so I couldn't tell you what effect having the computer actively being online all the time would have.

[Gentoo]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

Question: What's the longest time you've had your computer on?

For my personal computer? Just slightly over 4 months and the only reason it didn't make it longer is because a power outage lasted longer than battery back-up.

I had no real good reason to leave it up either -- I just wanted to let the Seti@Home and Folding@Home linux clients grind away.

[Macht]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

Not many people know this, but constantly powering up/down your computer puts more wear and tear on the expensive components than leaving it on constantly.

Icemage

Funny you should mention this, it was question I gave to my Uncle before when someone told me this (Uncle has a Professional Engeneering degree and his life work is designing and building computers).

According to him that is actually taken out of context in the way you are stating. Constantly powering up/down the computer is reffering to the span of time of doing it over and over within a minutes time. The reason is it's mostly beating up the motors that spin the cylinder in the Harddrive as well as creating a power surge effect.

Otherwise leaving the system on constantly actually causes just as much harm especially if it's not being properly ventelated. As anyone should know energy generates heat, the hotter the system gets over time the weaker soder gets around the connections and they become loose reducing performance and destroying the system on a grander scale.

It's really a win/lose if you leave it 24/7 or turn it on in mornings and off at night. I could go through and explain all the problems I've had with systems I've burned through. They were cheap system, old company my father worked for closing he gets all their computers he can and dumped them on my brother and I. We've taken apart HDs down to their smallest components even removing soder and everythign else and put them back together.

I've taken apart CD-ROM drives all the way and put back together and even have them still work. We've purposely destroyed drives in various tests, really even though people like to use the excuse that powering up/down the system is causing more damage. In truth it's not really much more then you do by just having it on.

As for me I've kept a system on before for 3 years, I can guarentee you though that M$ Windows does not like being left on that long. It becomes such a skeleton and rundown OS if you leave it on to long, the system just isn't stable enough for an infinite runtime.

If I recall right Windows 95 the OS is so unstable it only sustain a perfect run for 24 hours, after that the RunDll.exe starts to fail then the system starts lagging and performances starts crawling like it's dying.

[Icemage]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

According to him that is actually taken out of context in the way you are stating. Constantly powering up/down the computer is reffering to the span of time of doing it over and over within a minutes time. The reason is it's mostly beating up the motors that spin the cylinder in the Harddrive as well as creating a power surge effect.

Actually the power surge effect of powerup/down is negligible. My issue is with component heating. Modern processors, graphics cards, and memory run at very high temperatures at normal operation - powering up/down greatly increases the rate at which those (very sensitive) components deteriorate.

Otherwise leaving the system on constantly actually causes just as much harm especially if it's not being properly ventelated. As anyone should know energy generates heat, the hotter the system gets over time the weaker soder gets around the connections and they become loose reducing performance and destroying the system on a grander scale.

This is not true. If your system is not well ventilated enough to operate, that IS a problem but as long as your room isn't so hot that your chips aren't frying, non-excessive heat by itself will not overtly damage your hardware. It is when you exceed the safety boundaries of heat when damage tends to occur.

Heating/cooling cycles, on the other hand, can and do cause physical damage to semiconductors, and that is a much more dire threat than just normal operating temperatures.

It's really a win/lose if you leave it 24/7 or turn it on in mornings and off at night. I could go through and explain all the problems I've had with systems I've burned through. They were cheap system, old company my father worked for closing he gets all their computers he can and dumped them on my brother and I. We've taken apart HDs down to their smallest components even removing soder and everythign else and put them back together.

I've taken apart CD-ROM drives all the way and put back together and even have them still work. We've purposely destroyed drives in various tests, really even though people like to use the excuse that powering up/down the system is causing more damage. In truth it's not really much more then you do by just having it on.

For physical components, obviously leaving the computer on causes more damage over time. However, unless you do something unusual, the only things that should be moving inside your computer when it's not in active use are fans.

Fans are much less expensive to replace than semiconductor components like memory, CPUs, and graphic processors.

If I recall right Windows 95 the OS is so unstable it only sustain a perfect run for 24 hours, after that the RunDll.exe starts to fail then the system starts lagging and performances starts crawling like it's dying.

That's the original release of Win95. It was fixed in a later update (though even Win95 SE isn't really the most stable OS on the planet.

I've had zero issues running Windows XP for months on end without a reboot.


Icemage

[Macht]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

Actually the power surge effect of powerup/down is negligible. My issue is with component heating. Modern processors, graphics cards, and memory run at very high temperatures at normal operation - powering up/down greatly increases the rate at which those (very sensitive) components deteriorate.

Remember I was stating in the term of on and off constant with a short time. Turning it on then after an hr turning off is also negligible to any damage it would get. The component heating affects it more the longer it is on just like turning an electric oven on the longer it's on the hotter that plate gets till it reaches a maximum it can exert.

This is not true. If your system is not well ventilated enough to operate, that IS a problem but as long as your room isn't so hot that your chips aren't frying, non-excessive heat by itself will not overtly damage your hardware. It is when you exceed the safety boundaries of heat when damage tends to occur.

Heating/cooling cycles, on the other hand, can and do cause physical damage to semiconductors, and that is a much more dire threat than just normal operating temperatures.

I've melted soder off connections before to a point that a simple brush of the hand or a bump to the card could knock of transisters or other components. Not to mention that the soder is also acting as part of the conductor to carry the energy (data) from circuitboard to the components. Should point out it was non-excesive heat only heat it generated. It did take a long time, yes but one I turned off and on lasted longer just because to soder didn't take as much wear from the constant heat.

For physical components, obviously leaving the computer on causes more damage over time. However, unless you do something unusual, the only things that should be moving inside your computer when it's not in active use are fans.

Fans are much less expensive to replace than semiconductor components like memory, CPUs, and graphic processors.

Can agree with that.

That's the original release of Win95. It was fixed in a later update (though even Win95 SE isn't really the most stable OS on the planet. I've had zero issues running Windows XP for months on end without a reboot.

Icemage

Never used Win95 SE, I went from Win95 to Win97. So never saw Win95 as being anything better. Some old computer in my company even use only Win95 not the SE. It's release was pretty much pointless as I see it.

[Mhurron]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

That's the original release of Win95. It was fixed in a later update (though even Win95 SE isn't really the most stable OS on the planet.

I've had zero issues running Windows XP for months on end without a reboot.


Icemage

Similar problems plague all the 9x series and the NT line, its just that with progressive releases of Windows the systems ability to manage itself and the resources available to it have become much better.

I still wouldn't recommend running anything for long periods of time on XP, though it is much better then it used to be.

Never used Win95 SE, I went from Win95 to Win97. So never saw Win95 as being anything better. Some old computer in my company even use only Win95 not the SE

Unlike 98 SE it was not branded Release 2 or Se or what not. the only way you knew you were running OSR2 was by looking at the System Properties dialog. If you only ever used a disk that was released during the early days of 95 and never updated it, you may not have run OSR2, but the chances are higher that you did. There were also C and D releases of 95 but they were only released to OEM's, mainly for new hardware support.

Double Post Edited:
hmmm, girls to represent OS's. Give me a moment here.

[DakAttack]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

My computer is on a lot. Frankly, Windows is always first to go, and I've yet to have any sort of issue with hardware. I've probably had three different computers over the span of ten years, each I've treated exactly the same. One of them ended up with 575 RAM when I scrapped it.

BTB, those manga comics need to be color coded or numbered or something so I stop reading the end first. There's nothing more confusing than not understanding how backwards those things are.

[Mhurron]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

2k-chan and XP (not mine)
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/6...2061136se3.jpg

As you can see, Microsoft made a lot of progress in its OS's.

[Raydeus]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

All things considered I think it should be ok, and I don't intend on leaving the computer running for more than a week at a time.

The system is propely cooled (it's been running for 3 days now and it's so cool it seems like I just turned it on ) and I'll reboot every few days just in case.

[Icemage]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

All things considered I think it should be ok, and I don't intend on leaving the computer running for more than a week at a time.

The system is propely cooled (it's been running for 3 days now and it's so cool it seems like I just turned it on ) and I'll reboot every few days just in case.

Nothing wrong really with restarting once in a while. My notes above really just apply to powering up/down.

P.S. Macht, if you've melted solder on an running system without the aid of a solder gun, there's something very seriously wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solder

Standard solder melts at about 360F, and even the lowest melting point I can find is no lower than 244F.


Icemage

[Moaku Hyena]

Re: Computer on [Long time]?

I think 3 weeks here.

But with Windows XP, something fouled up (i.e. my Tablet, avatar rendering on FFXI) which forces a reboot from me.