My computer gets rebooted the second Tuesday of each month. That is the day Microsoft sends out updates and patches. Installation of those files usually requires a reboot. Other than that, I don’t turn my computer off.
There has been a long debate concerning leaving a computer on versus turn it off when not in use. Leaving the computer on uses electricity and keeps the machine hot (heat is not good for electronics). Turning the machine on creates a surge of electricity that is not good for the electronic components. Quickly turn your computer off and on fifty times to see what I mean.
If you followed the instructions in that last sentence, you are probably reading the rest of this post from another computer.
I have not turned off my computers (in general) for more than ten years. I don’t know if it has increased the life expectancy or not. My computers last as long as anyone else that I know. I do know that every time I do a reboot it takes five solid minutes to get to a point where I can use the computer. That alone is reason enough not to shutdown when I walk away from the computer.
TSPY=30.4
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We keep the newest computer – a laptop docked in the kitchen – running nearly continuously with no problems. If I remember, I try to turn it off once a week or so just before bed. It comes right back on again first thing in the morning (some people drink coffee – I read email and my RSS feeds).
However, our older computer has a slow memory leak and is housed in the hottest room in the house, so if it isn’t turned off once a week or so, bad things start to happen.
Ironically, the oldest computer – which doubles as a server – runs 24/7 in the same hot room and seems to do fine.
We have noticed problems lately with Schinker Radio (the random continuous stream of our personal digital music files broadcast by the server) which seems to be solved by rebooting the server. I don’t know much about that issue, though, as my resident tech man handles that one. (-:
I think it’s unrelated, not that the world cares much about our private streaming server. Some of the music files are encoded at the wrong bitrate. When they get randomly chosen to be played, they lock up the stream.
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