New
#11
I hope you have house insurance for when your house burns down due an electrical fault from an unattended powered on PC!
7/24 computer power on, is it bad for the hardware's lifespan?
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New #12
I'm going on the other direction.
I shutdown the computer when it's not in use.
I live in Brazil, where there are frequent lighting storms, specially from October to June (Spring - Summer- autumn).
In 2021, 154 million lightning strikes hit Brazil’s territory.
If a lighting discharge hits the low voltage (220/127V) or medium voltage (13.8KV) distribution line, even many miles away, it can toast any electronic device that is on or even on stand by.
I had a friend that has a small office. One day, during a storm, she went to watch it by the window. A lighting discharge hit the medium voltage (13.8KV) distribution line far away and the light went off. When she got the energy back, ALL the electronics were toasted. A damage that cost her almost US$ 10,000.
My TV and computer are connected to a voltage arrester with a hardware switch (TV and computer has it's own) and the washer machine to a ground fault circuit breaker. When not in use they (switch or circuit breaker) are off.
As I have a SSD it boots and it's ready to use in less than 25 sec so I don't see any reason to leave it on.
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New #14
The short answer is yes you can keep your machine on 24/7. The long answer is no.
Meaning you can have a machine on 24/7hrs a day and forget about it. However anything could happen one day out of a million.
Less moving parts the better. Meaning lets say your fan-blades was to pop-off one-day. No air-flow = instant fire.
What is the solution ? Your machine would have to power-down via a safety default ( if it is fast enough to respond ).
Like putting the computer to sleep-mode or even shutting down or emergency power-off ( via the BIOS / UEIF ).
Tons of people are literally still using OSX PPC Power Macs with Tiger as servers in their homes and workplaces. Even tons of labs with OS9 machines still running. Of course the same could be said for the Mars Express.
Mars Probe Running OS Developed in Windows 98 Receives Software Update in Space | Tom's Hardware
I never had any problems with Windows 98 until I much later problem with the internet usage. I had my machine on 24/7, all day and night. No problems. However my Windows 10 machine uses mounds of memory just for touching base with the internet.
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New #15
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New #17
Your computer can stay on no different then having your internet-modem ( or cable box ) on 24/7hrs a day.
It depends on what you do with your machine and how long. Imagine if I remote-PC to run an GPU intensive game. Not only am I using GPU, Processor, Internet, Memory, HD-access, and a wired or wireless connection ( feel that NVME get hot ), I am also using juice for a connection. Think about it being 199X and running DOOM or DOOM2 online, wherever you are present, when ever you are present.
But your not doing that. You have your machine on as a file-server, remote or local, and it just sits there Idling waiting for you to
return. Using next to no power, at all. You could even put the machine to sleep and wake remotely over the internet.
...............
Again if the fan was to decay, thus preventing heat-transfer, there would be a fire, however the fire would not spread it would be inside the machine, maybe smoke.
The only real fear is if you know your machine is on it's last legs and you know there is a possibility of failure.
I could keep a Power-Mac on 24/7hrs a day from 2006 but that same power-mac eats like 90W in comparison to something
that eats 10-20W. Think about your electrical bill!!!! However even that number is not absolute.
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