A question for those of you that know about Computers?

DONT LEAVE IT ON !!!!!!!!

I did that when I was in uni and my laptop is wrecked. It frys the battery so you can't have it unplugged from the wall when you want to use it. its such a pain I wish I used it properly.

Secondly your wasting loads of electricity thats going to cost.

I shut mine every night and hibernate (for a quick startup) during the day the reason being

1. Wastage of energy is not good.

2. The fan collects dust which in turn damages the computer motherboard and processor.

3. If u have had any errors with applications or a part of the system files they get reset on restarting the computer.

4. The temporary files get deleted.

5. Any programs still running from surfing the net will terminate also.

I'd recommend turning it off. This way you can let the electrical connections cool down, temporary files be deleted, and save on electrical bills. Another option is to put your computer into hibernation mode, which shuts down your computer but keeps your session in memory, so when you turn on your computer on you can start where you left off last. People may say that turning it on and off is hard on the computer, and I won't say it isn't, but in the long run you will get more out of it if you turn it off when you are done with it.

The mechanical parts of the computer tend to fail at turn-on, not during use, so leaving the computer on 24/7/365 tends to lead to longer life. I turn my laptop off when I take it somewhere, otherwise all my computers are on unless I need to turn one off to do something inside it. At the office we've turned computers off to throw them out when they get so old that current software won't run on them, but every computer in the place (a few hundred) run s long as we have power (most of them have been running since .we moved to this building, about 7 years ago).

The ONLY reason for turning a computer off when you're not using it is to save power. Compare the cost (money and environment) of electricity to the cost of waiting for the computer to boot up and the cost of something blowing or breaking due to start-up.

turn it off to save power...

if u dont have patience u can put it into standby

though turning it on and off can cause wear and tear, modern computers are designed to handle that kind of stress for 5-7 years.

Even if u kept ur pc on all the time and got some extra year or two, ur pc wud be quite outdated by that time and u will be needing a new one anyway.

So u r better off turning it off or putting it on standby and saving energy and money.

Many answers here and they all have their points, but one thing that was missed was that leaving your computer on 24/7 put a lot of dirt in the computer due to the cooling fan. A lot of computer breakdowns are caused by overheating. I remove the cover on my machine and clean it every six months.

You should not leave your computer on all the time unless its always actively running otherwise at least put it to sleep when its not active for most of the day and shut down at night if you aren't using it.

Put your computer on Standby.

That way, you save power because the computer will go into a Power Save mode, and when you need to turn it on, it will be significantly faster than a cold boot.

I will say leave it on! only because we leave our computer on at home and we use less power instead of cutting it on and off. it's a consist thing!!

P.S. If you turn your computer off its it is still using power just like you other appliances. If you want to save major power unplug you things if your not using them. That's include computers, microwaves, T.V.s and other large power consumers!!

You should leave it on. Reboot or turn it off once a week to let it cool down. Clean the fans once a month to prevent dust build up. (Even if you do turn it on and off, you should still clean your computer.)

But turning it on and off is like turning a car on and off in that it'll ultimately cause more wear and tear on the parts.

During the morning through whenever i go to bed its on then i turn it off. when i leave for school i usually put it in sleep or whatever but it dosnt really make a difference.