I get this question quite often and I hear what I believe to be the wrong answer cintinually.
A home pc not on a network per se; with the exception of the internet; should it be left on all the time indefinitely or use it during the day and turn it off at the end of the or night.
At night I turn my pc off. My rationale is that turning it off reduces wear and tear, reduces the amount of heat generated, stops the CPU from running thousands of bits of data even in hibernate mode. Might it also subject it to the possibility of being hacked while you sleep???
I compare it to my truck. I come home get out leave the truck idling until the next time I get ready to go somewhere. I feel the same rationale should apply to single non-networked pc’s.
I understand the need to keep corporate, business, hopital, governmental network systems running at night. If you are on a Microsoft network, SMS pushes out updates, upgrades etc at night when the traffic is much lower.
Working for the SCDOT we replaced worn out computers every 3-4 years if they last that long. I had a 1995 Gateway that ran flawlessly for 10yrs. I honestly do not believe if I let it run 24 hrs day in and day out it would have lasted that long.
Can someone provide me with an acceptable rational answer to this question.
Randy Culbertson
