Blue JC Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I've heard a lot of different theories about which is best practice. 1.) Turn it off to save energy, thwart hackers and boot up everyday to load automatic updates. Also safest if there's a power failure. 2.) Leave it on because cold start-ups are cause of most hardware failures and the energy consumes is relatively small compared to other household appliance. 3.) Go into hibernate if you're not going to use it for more than an hour to save energy and it's a safer mode if there's a power failure. What do you do? Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer. W. C. Fields Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delirium Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 2.) Leave it on because cold start-ups are cause of most hardware failures and the energy consumes is relatively small compared to other household appliance. number 2. is the right answer. I never switch off my main desktop computer and thus it never breaks and I have access to my database 24/7 instantly. But I do put to sleep my notebooks, which are usually not designed to work around the clock. ♫♫♫ motif XS6, RD700GX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eric Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I'm in the habit of shutting down at the end of each day. No particular research done on my part to see what is the best practice, but seems prudent in my mind to power off when day is through or I'm simply not using it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicWorkz Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 #3. I only turn it off completely when I plug or unplug my firewire drives. Yamaha (Motif XS7, Motif 6, TX81Z), Korg (R3, Triton-R), Roland (XP-30, D-50, Juno 6, P-330). Novation A Station, Arturia Analog Experience Factory 32 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realtrance Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I leave it on unless there's weather or construction likely to cause fluctuations that might blow it up (I don't trust any kind of surge protection, which I use anyways, in such circumstances). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linwood Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I turn mine off at night before I go to bed. I bought a new iMac yesterday that now sits at the little desk/nook in the kitchen. I was reading the book as I installed the software and it said to turn it off if you're not gonna use it for a few days, otherwise put it to sleep. Pretty cool having one in the kitchen. I was listening to Speak like a Child on itunes while looking at a recipe online for meatballs and cooking last night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanS Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I turn mine off. The office machine runs warm inside the desk I have it in, so I give it a break at night. The DAW is only on when it's being used, as it can go a day or 3 without seeing any action. I won't show your post to my wife Linwood, she'll get ideas... What we record in life, echoes in eternity. MOXF8, Electro 6D, XK1c, Motif XSr, PEKPER, Voyager, Univox MiniKorg. https://www.abandoned-film.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobadohshe Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I turn my desktop on at the beginning of the day, turn it off at the end. My macbook I usually just close so it's put to sleep. Kawai C-60 Grand Piano : Hammond A-100 : Hammond SK2 : Yamaha CP4 : Yamaha Montage 7 : Moog Sub 37 My latest album: Funky organ, huge horn section https://bobbycressey.bandcamp.com/album/cali-native Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyOwnWay Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 Depends on the computer. Desktops I always shut down properly, but my laptop takes about five minutes to start up if I do that (I'm not kidding! It's Vista, and although getting rid of Omnipass did help speed it up, it still boots much more slowly than XP), so I only ever put it in sleep mode unless it crashes and I need to reset. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoozer Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 2.) Leave it on because cold start-ups are cause of most hardware failures and the energy consumes is relatively small compared to other household appliance. With powersupplies going to the 500W range, I don't think so. Hardware failures are not an issue, provided that you have a good backup strategy. The danger of switching on or off is overrated; you can't hold off doing it, and leaving it on all the time increases the time it's fed with electricity - and if that gets capricious, you're equally out of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delirium Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 Hardware failures are not an issue, provided that you have a good backup strategy. The danger of switching on or off is overrated; you can't hold off doing it, and leaving it on all the time increases the time it's fed with electricity - and if that gets capricious, you're equally out of luck. bullsh*t. ♫♫♫ motif XS6, RD700GX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prague Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 The only thing that can fail on power-up is the hard drive. I can't think of too many other moving parts. Just shut them off when not in use. At least we won't have to hear any environmental arguments from those who leave them on. Pretty cool having one in the kitchen. I was listening to Speak like a Child on itunes while looking at a recipe online for meatballs and cooking last night. You'll make some man very happy as his new wife. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linwood Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 You think about me with men? Whoa... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ITGITC Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 Vista has a damn good implementation of the sleep mode. It works well. I use this most all the time. However, I often reboot the machine whenever I'm doing something memory-intensive. My machine has 2 gigs of RAM. I'm happy with that. I've been monitoring RAM usage and just haven't felt the need to install more. I also have UPS systems on my machines. This helps. Vista automatically schedules disk defrags, but you can start them manually. Same for Windows updates. So yeah, other than keeping the system on for maintenance tasks I put this puppy to sleep. "Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent." - Victor Hugo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andre Lower Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 My desktop (Vista too, slow and whimsy...) is put to sleep at the end of every day. My wife leaves her laptop on forever, and I am trying to convince her to do otherwise. "I'm ready to sing to the world. If you back me up". (Lennon to his bandmates, in an inspired definition of what it's all about). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidLifeCrisis Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 Been a sofware engineer for 25+ years. Have never turned any of my machines off. None of the software or hardware people I know turn then off either. Steve A Lifetime of Peace, Love and Protest Music www.rock-xtreme.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keyman_sam Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 ON all the time because its annoying to turn it on every day, and I'm lazy. Dont follow me....i'm lost too.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marino Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 My computer is usually on when I'm at home, but I turn it off when I leave the place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Klopmeyer Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I keep my MacBook Pro on 24/7. I just let it sleep at night (which I feel is a good time to sleep). Marketing Communications for MI/Pro Audio My solo music and stuff They Stole My Crayon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kanker. Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I keep my MacBook Pro on 24/7. I just let it sleep at night (which I feel is a good time to sleep). You running maintenance scripts regularly? A ROMpler is just a polyphonic turntable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RABid Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 1. I don't just turn my home computers off, as a CIO I require computer users at work to turn theirs off each evening. Why? Well, I'll tell you my reasons. If connected to the Internet the best defense against hackers and worms is to have the computer off. Cold startup issues is not what it used to be. Your hard drives shut down anyway and start up again out of sleep mode. That is the most likely component to fail. When you are away scheduled computer routines are likely to wake the drive several times through the night. Power surges and blinking power is the worst thing for your computer. Being off is the best protection against those. Even better than a surge protector. The OS works more efficiently after a restart. Even IBM and Microsoft suggests we restart out servers once a week if possible to clean temp files, the database, and memory fragmentation. We run both Win 2003 server and AIX. When a computer has been on a long time you one problem run into hashing issues in both memory and virtual memory. Hashing happens when available memory locations become very fragmented and the computer uses a lot of resources to manage those very small bits of memory. Restarting the computer does to memory what running a de-fragmenting routine does for the hard drive. A lot of perceived memory leaks is really the effect of hashing slowing the computer. If something goes wrong with a computer you need to be there. Most computers are set up at factory to run defrag and update routines at night. If the computer tries to defrag a hard drive and starts running into issues you stand a chance of loosing your data because were were not there to notice it flagging sector after sector as bad. If you are there you can cancel the process and copy as much data as possible to another location. My question How much trouble is it to hit the power button on the computer and THEN grab what you need before starting a session. By the time you are ready, it is ready. My routine at work is to start both of my desktops and then go get a glass of ice and a Pepsi from the machine. When I am ready to get down to work the login is waiting for me. This post edited for speling. My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delirium Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 My question How much trouble is it to hit the power button on the computer and THEN grab what you need before starting a session. First - when you don't do that your computer will run longer without problems. Second - I need access to my home base pc 24/7. ♫♫♫ motif XS6, RD700GX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delirium Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 If connected to the Internet the best defense against hackers and worms is to have the computer off. even better method to keep hackers off is not having computer at all... ♫♫♫ motif XS6, RD700GX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Muscara Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I keep my MacBook Pro on 24/7. I just let it sleep at night (which I feel is a good time to sleep). You running maintenance scripts regularly? If you're running Leopard, Apple finally fixed that issue!! The due scripts will run when you wake the computer. "I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck "The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kanker. Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I keep my MacBook Pro on 24/7. I just let it sleep at night (which I feel is a good time to sleep). You running maintenance scripts regularly? If you're running Leopard, Apple finally fixed that issue!! The due scripts will run when you wake the computer. One more reason for me to upgrade - I've sudo'd myself to death.... A ROMpler is just a polyphonic turntable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoozer Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 bullsh*t. Yeah, thanks for the elaborate explanation. Since you didn't bother to name any sources, I will. Hardware will fail. Not if, but when. Harddisks live for 5 years. Those, not the RAM, not the CPU, not the graphics card - contain what's actually important, and that's what you've created. Kick my computer. In fact, rip the cables out of the wall and drop it from 3 stories. I don't care; what I create is backed up and safe. Makes much more sense than trying to game the probability statistics by trying to stretch the hardware's lifetime. You're still sampling a single factor; e.g. your particular hardware in your particular configuration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RABid Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 ... The danger of switching on or off is overrated; you can't hold off doing it, and leaving it on all the time increases the time it's fed with electricity - and if that gets capricious, you're equally out of luck. If I had read the thread before making my long post I could have left that one off. This post edited for speling. My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RABid Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I keep my MacBook Pro on 24/7. I just let it sleep at night (which I feel is a good time to sleep). That is the one computer in my house that I refuse to leave on unattended or overnight. Not after seeing those videos of Mac laptops going up in flames because of battery problems. (And I just happen to be posting from my MacBookPro while sitting in a hospital. If it blows here I will not have to call for an ambulance.) This post edited for speling. My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Muscara Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I generally leave all my computers (all Macs) on 24/7, unless I'm going out of town for a few days or something. They are all plugged into UPSes too. When I have PCs or even run Windoze in Parallels, I always shut 'em down when I don't use them, and minimize their time on the internet. "I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck "The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Klopmeyer Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 I keep my MacBook Pro on 24/7. I just let it sleep at night (which I feel is a good time to sleep). You running maintenance scripts regularly? If you're running Leopard, Apple finally fixed that issue!! The due scripts will run when you wake the computer. Leopard here. Marketing Communications for MI/Pro Audio My solo music and stuff They Stole My Crayon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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