[Shotimes] RE: OT - Computer- to turn off or not

[Paul L Fisher]

I used to work for a contractor that handled support calls for McDonald's.
Their POS (Point of sale) devices would run for years on end then they would
get turned off for some reason and then not come back up.

I still stand by that a properly configured, modern (W2K and up) system
should never be turned off.


Paul L Fisher

1999 Ford Taurus SHO TR 64K - Stock. Kirk'ed.
1993 Ford Taurus SHO ATX 183K with some stuff. Sold 3/27/04.

See information about my '93! http://www.paul-fisher.com/SHO

Visit my website: http://www.paul-fisher.com
SHOClub Member: http://www.shoclub.com

-----Original Message-----
From: shotimes-admin@autox.team.net [mailto:shotimes-admin@autox.team.net]
On Behalf Of Victor Allen
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 12:02 PM
To: shotimes@autox.team.net
Subject: [Shotimes] RE: OT - Computer- to turn off or not

In about 25 years experience with PC's (way more total MIS/IT years!), a
reasonable rule of thumb seems to be; 4 hours without use is a good cutoff,
less leave on, more power down.

Early on, many non-specific tech support calls involved machines powered
down between use, sometimes as frequently as 30 minutes, to 'save' the PC
and electricity.

The major cause of these early problems (not component failure) was thermal
'creep', a situation where temperature changes caused (still does) socketed
components (RAM, expansion cards, BIOS chips, etc.) to expand/contract at
different rates between the component and socket, causing the socket
(female) to force the pin (male) out of the connection.  The process is
totally dependent on thermal characteristics of each component (heat sink
capabilities), material used (tin/silver/gold, etc.),  kind of like a
thermally driven parastolic action.

There are time lapse photos of the action on the web, don't remember the
site(s).

Not as much a problem today, many more components are 'hard wired', and PC
cooling has improved tenfold (heat sinks, multiple fans with ducting, etc.),
but i still see it regularly, the symptom is 'acting weird', 'won't ...',
etc..  Standard procedure when checking an unfamiliar machine is to reseat
everything (power supply, all cables, RAM, cards, even CPU & BIOS), if no
specific symptom can be isolated.

Disk drives ('hard' disks) are a separate issue, these suckers are spinning
at 5400-10,000 + revs, tolerances are microscopic (approaching
sub-microscopic), thermal stability (steady temperature) can/does affect the
failure rate.  Frequent power up/down cycles don't allow temperature
stabilization, not a good idea.

Regarding current OS's and power management functions, i have never found
any combination of mode (standby, sleep, suspend to RAM, etc.) that is not a
problem sometime.  My comment is if you must use power management, good
luck.

Victor Allen
92X200K

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
Message: 2
From: bjshov8@comcast.net
To: shotimes@autox.team.net
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 15:31:12 +0000
Subject: [Shotimes] OT -  Computer- to turn off or not

This will be an eternal argument- do you turn it off or leave it running.  I
have been working with PC's about as long as anybody and have yet to see a
clear answer to this.  My procedure at home is to turn on my PC when I need
it, then leave it on until I'm certain that I'm through with it for the day,
then turn it off.  It's usually turned on for a couple of hours every day,
but only turned on once per day.  OTOH our computers at work run 24/7.  Some
years back I let my home computer run 24/7 also.

Here are some observations, certainly not scientific studies or conclusions
of any kind:
1)  My monitor left on 24/7 seemed to die an early death.
2)  Our computers running 24/7 seem to have more hard drive failures than my
home computer.  However my sampling at home is 1 out of 1 still running.
Our sampling at work is 3 out of 5 failed.
3)  Win98SE will work fine 24/7 but needs to be restarted every 3 or 4 days
or it will run out of resources.

> Who in their right mind shuts down a PC? I leave mine running 24x7 and
just
> let the daily (joke) security patch updates restart the PC for me.


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