Can you leave your box on 24/7?
A UPS can protect your machine from many of the dangers it’s likely to face.
Additional failure modes come from the stress of cycling a computer on and off.
Dimitri Otis / Getty Images
But it’s not just your box’s semiconductors that are affected.
There are other failure modes to consider that originate externally to your rig.
All of these failure types need to be considered.
The graph demonstrating failure rate over time is commonly called the bathtub curve.Wyattsderivative work: McSush / Public domain
The question then becomes, which is best: on or off?
Turns out, at least in our opinion, its a bit of both.
Computer manufacturers have a few tricks up their sleeves to reduce the failure rate seen by end users.
Computer and component manufacturers use various tests to ensure the quality of their products.
Devices in their middle years rarely failed, even when exposed to conditions just outside their expected operating range.
Components fresh off the manufacturing line would display ahigh failure rate when first turned on.
Life testing showed that components were highly reliable once they were beyond the infancy period.
Manufacturers would then offer their components after using a burn-in process that aged the devices beyond the infancy period.
Customers who needed high reliability would pay extra for these burned-in devices.
Typical customers for this service included the military, NASA contractors, aviation, and medical.
In essence, you extend the length of time the unit remains susceptible to early failures.
This is especially true as your box ages and comes closer to the end of its expected life.
Use a UPS to help keep voltage surges at bay, and keep voltage levels constant.
So, new computer, turn it on and off as needed.
Teenage to adult, it’s up to you; there’s no real benefit either way.
Senior, keep it on 24/7 to extend its life.
When Running 24/7 Which is Better, Sleep or Hibernation?
Depending on your rig and the OS it’s running, it may support multiple types of power-saving options.
Generally speaking, sleep mode is designed to reduce power consumption while keeping the computer in a semi-operational state.
In this mode, your box spins down any hard drives and optical drives it may have.
RAM is powered down to a lower activity state.
Displays are usually dimmed, if not outright powered off.
Processors run with a reduced clock rate or in a special low-level state.
Most open user apps are still loaded but are in a standby state.
There are exceptions, depending on your OS, but you get the idea.
Sleep mode conserves power while keeping the computer turned on.
At that point, RAM and the storage devices are powered off.
Most peripherals are put into standby mode, including the display.
Once all data has been secured, the computer is essentially turned off.
So, you may not be realizing the effect you wanted to achieve by not turning your setup off.
You probably dont need the display to be active to run any of the tasks.
The method for using only display sleep is different for the various operating systems.
In this mode, power is conserved but processes that need to be run are allowed to continue.
In the Mac OS, this is known as App Nap.
Windows has an equivalent known as Connected Standby or Modern Standby in Windows 10.
It’s not something you should worry about until the computer reaches old age.
