To better understand what this question is all about, you need to know about what evil forces are at work. 1. Current surge (most evil of all) 2. Heat 3. Expansion & Contraction (very close second to #1) 4. Moisture 5. Friction Friction includes anything that moves. In a computer this would be your floppy drives, CD drives, hard drive and cooling fans. Modern floppy , CD & hard drives are designed to not spin unless called on to do a job, so these for the most part can be ruled out as a consideration, and so can cooling fans. Just how long cooling fans last depends on whether they have bushings or ball bearings, in either case they are cheap enough to not be considered, just check them often to make sure they are still running, MANY computer problems are caused by over heating. (read about one man who put 13 fans in his tower to keep his puter from over heating and become unstable) Moisture is not a real consideration as long as the computer is used in an A/C atmosphere. Heat, expansion & contraction go hand and hand together. When an object is heated then cooled it will expanded when hot and contract when cooled, it can also cause some inferior printed circuit boards to warp, this constant flexing of its' attached parts and connections can cause them to fatigue and break or pull apart. The only way to prevent this is to maintain a constant temperature. Current Surge ,,,,, this is the real killer, a common example of what it can do can be illustrated with the common household incandescent light bulb. How many times have you flipped on the light switch only to have the light bulb flash, pop ,,,, then go dark ,,,,,,, current surge did it. I will say that anytime something has deteriorated to the point that a CS (current surge) can knock it out, its' getting ready to go anyhow. The difference being that with on/off it may last 3 months and with constant on may last 5 months (example numbers only). CS can really damage your monitor more so than the computer, reason being that the monitor is the only remaining part of a system that still has a filament in its' picture tube, and on/off operation will accelerated its' deterioration to a point that the CS will finish it off. CS is caused by applying a source of current (voltage) to a device that has no control over it, so the current can run rampant until the device gains control. (this does not apply to a lighting strike) You don't have to worry about wearing out a solid state device, you can't do it, there is nothing to wear out. The only way to make one fail is to violate what it was designed to do which boils down to too much current or too much heat (which causes too much current). There are numerous situations that can cause an electronic circuit to go bezerk and destroy itself but that is outside the realms of this novel. So in summary, its' really a matter of opinion. Daily on/off should give you many years of service ,,,,,, and so will constant on ,,,,,,,, and God bless them all, may they out live us. Bob Hays ----- Original Message ----- From: "KHarrison" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2000 8:09 AM Subject: [OE] Leaving computer on 24/7 > Hello to all, > This may be a little off topic...but I was hoping that some of you that are so knowledgeable about OE would also know the answer to this. > > I have been told by two pretty computer savvy people that I should leave my computer on...always..never shut it off.....only turning off the monitor. > > Any thoughts on this???? > Appreciate it! > Kathy/MI > [email protected] > When this you see, remember me > > > ==== OUTLOOK-EXPRESS Mailing List ==== > To remove your email address from this list, visit this url: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~cheps/maillist.htm > > ============================== > Search ALL of RootsWeb's mailing lists in real time. > RootsWeb's Personalized Mailing Lists: > http://pml.rootsweb.com/ >