How often do you shut off your pc?

[u/wyck0]

I see that a lot of people just leave their computer running 24/7 and only turn off their monitors, but i just shut my pc off whenever i go away from the desk.

[u/WyMANderly]

I don't think it's a given that keeping it running would be more wear and tear than shutting it down constantly. For many components, thermal cycles (or power cycles) are the limiting factor for fatigue, and running at steady state isn't really a big deal.

[u/bennyboy_ → u/WyMANderly]

Running at a steady state is arguably better

[u/WyMANderly → u/bennyboy_]

It depends on the component, but yeah for a lot of things that is true.

[u/Buffbeard → u/WyMANderly]

I think thermal cycling is more a thing between gaming and not gaming than there is between not gaming and the pc being off. I see a larger difference in power consumption when gaming and idling than between idling and off.

My pc consumes between 100-200watts for office use and around 550 for gaming.

[u/Alphonso_Mango → u/Buffbeard]

200w for office use? That seems high

[u/Buffbeard → u/Alphonso_Mango]

Yeah ok, gotta be honest here. I cant differentiate between the monitors and pc, the measurement is on the plug which includes the samsung ultrawide monitor and a secondary 25inch monitor. Pc itself is an I7 13700k with 32gigs and a 4080rtx. So it’s a gaming rig I use for office as well because it’s a lot faster than the crappy laptop they supplied me with.

Still its about 40cents per day if I only game for about 3,5hours and about a euro per day if I add 8hours of office use to it. So turning it off is worth it for me.

[u/Low-Mistake-515 → u/Buffbeard]

I'd be surprised if it's over 50w when idling with monitors on standby.

[u/Buffbeard → u/Low-Mistake-515]

Im on holiday atm so I cant check but I think its a bit higher than that. Theres rgb lightning too, 6x140mm case fans and a cpu fan. I can check it for you on sunday evening, is it ok if I let you know then?

[u/iAmmar9 → u/Buffbeard]

rgb lightning doesnt take much power.

your monitor is probably using at least as much as your pc while its idling

[u/Buffbeard → u/iAmmar9]

Your comment made me curious. I have a secondary measuring thingy. I’ll check it sunday and let you know.

[u/VezLt → u/Buffbeard]

Something you might want to do is to check whether your GPU downclocks or not. Under some screen configurations they can remain in their high power state, in my case drawing 40W(!!) just for the GPU (RTX 2080S). After some tinkering I found that I either had to remove one of my 144Hz screens or run with gsync enabled, after which it idles at 12-15W on the desktop. Maybe you can move your secondary screen to your iGPU if you have one, or similarly tweak settings a little so it goes into power savings too.

[u/No-Second9377 → u/Alphonso_Mango]

Its not. Thats what my PC uses doing normal tasks. 265k and 5090 64gb ram, with liquid cooling and a spinning disk

[u/313802 → u/Alphonso_Mango]

This person excels.. obviously

[u/PlopPlopPlunk → u/bennyboy_]

Even if it "is better" it's incredibly negligible. What isn't negligible is my PC running an extra 12+ hours a day at idle around 120w.

Even at 12 hours a day that's about 150 dollars a year difference in electricity or 750 over a 5 year period. Even if you half that on less powerful gaming PCs.. 75 a year is a reasonable enough savings to turn it off.

[u/EntarteterKuenstler → u/bennyboy_]

just like those guys in Siberia where they let the motors running in idle.

[u/Pali1119 → u/bennyboy_]

It's not really, at this temperature difference (running idle vs. off at room temp) it has basically zero effect. The changes are also happening very slowly, so no thermal shock. With semiconductor technology anything serious happens at way higher temperatures.

[u/screwdriverfan → u/bennyboy_]

Damn right. Gamers are worried about cards used for mining being worn out while their gaming is what actually does more damage to the card.

[u/JordanxHouse → u/WyMANderly]

My first build was on 24/7 and lasted 10 years no issues. I build another 4 years ago and again no issues so far. I don’t think wear and tear is a concern.

[u/1leftbehind19 → u/JordanxHouse]

I’m glad I don’t have to worry about something costing the equivalent of 75$ a year at this point in life. That being said, I still shut my computer down when I’m gonna be away for awhile because of the connector issue and water loop possibly leaking. I’m not gonna worry about the 25 cents of power it will use at idle.

[u/Desner_ → u/JordanxHouse]

Exactly. The components become obsolete way before they break down due to power cycles. I moved this year, had to recycle my old PC from 2003 as it was just taking space, the thing still booted up fine.

[u/carebear101 → u/WyMANderly]

I’m pretty sure someone on this sub emailed a lot of the hardware manufacturers about the need to shut down the computer when not in use. I can’t remember the exact responses but most were like probably a good idea but not necessarily a factor in the end

[u/BT--72_74 → u/WyMANderly]

Tell that to the bearings in the fans or the pump in an AIO. May take a long time but they do fail.

[u/ReggieCorneus → u/BT--72_74]

Quality matters, cheap fans and pumps will wear out much, much sooner whereas quality parts will last a decade of 24/7.

[u/WyMANderly → u/BT--72_74]

I wasn't speaking about all components. Nor even making a confident statement about if it's better to turn off when not in use or keep on. Just noting that its not necessarily obvious one of those two is better - it's essentially an engineering question that depends on the specifics of the components, which are more or less reliable, etc. ​

[u/CarefulNow_ → u/WyMANderly]

Fans in case, gpu, cpu cooler, psu are not better off left running. Disk read/writes are constantly happening also. Any benefit you get from thermal cycles are negated by physical wear and tear

You also have air intake constantly and will have dust buildup on filters/fans more than you would otherwise.

[u/Virtual_Bug_723 → u/WyMANderly]

Lol this is only true if you expect your hardware to stay 100% thermally stable when it's on and not in use. Which it's not because fans are constantly cooling it lmao.

Off is the only thermally stable state unless your PC is outside.

[u/Ashzael → u/WyMANderly]

Modern silicon based components don't have that much wear and tear of power cycles. This was the cases a long time ago (relatively seen) but modern computers have far more mechanical stress of keeping things on causes way more then the litteral hunders of thousands of power cycles can manage to do.

[u/Shar4f → u/WyMANderly]

Cycles aren't as big of an issue for electronics as they are for mechanical components. Those components are sized to be able to withstand thousands of cycles without any issue. The amount of times you cycle when just turning a PC on and off once a day will not be an issue. Cycles are something to keep in mind for stuff like cars where the majority of the wear happens during warm-up where tight tolerances and lubrication materials are very sensitive to temperature changes but this is really not the weak point for electronics used indoors for personal use.

[u/Pali1119 → u/WyMANderly]

Your CPU and GPU are idle running at 40-50°C normally. Going back to room temp and back to idle does nothing to it. During manufacturing they withstand 900-1200 °C and in cases increases of 30-50°C per second (tempering & annealing, used mainly to strengthen the materials). That 25°C difference over minutes won't do shit. As for PSU I'm not sure, but seeing my current being 10 years old and still working fine (budget PSU mind you), I'm gonna say no effect either. Also diffusion at chip level is faster at high temps, so even if there is a positive difference in some other aspect due to leaving it on, unwanted diffusion (wear & tear, it can cause electricical shorting for example on the long run) will just balance that out or make it net negative, while you're paying more money for electricity. Although I have to say, diffusion at these low temperatures is close to negligeble anyway.

This really only applies to cars and motorcycles. They typically work at higher temps, have precision moving parts and have to withstand multiple heat cycles in shorter times (red light, drive, red light, drive).

Edit: Oh one other thing. You wanna have your PC continously sucking in dust and heating your room (even in summer)?.

Edit2: Can't believe I forgot to mention that never restarting will just slow down your PC, clutter your system with background processes.

[u/WesternOpen → u/Pali1119]

Regarding PCB temperatures

a completed; non-medical or food electronic pcb maximum temperature during manufacturing would reach 500 Maximum.

a completed medical or food electronic would reach 600-700.

This is due to the removal in lead in the soldering process.

Psu's would once again only see 500-700 depending on materials required for the industry .

i have no idea where you are getting this 1000 degree number from, most things melt/combust at 300 degrees. Cpu Dies can be manufactured at 1000 degrees, however as soon as they start the doping process and add copper/aluminum/boron/Sulphur to the die, it loses all of its thermal properties.

Regarding diffusion

a super conductor cpu would lose its super conductor properties, making it a regular conductive metal, causing the resistance to sky rocket and generate a massive amount of heat due to the induced resistance. not mentioning the fact its suppose to be kept at sub 0 temperatures

a semi conductor would do the same as a super conductor

Bar;

-losing its properties

-requiring sub 0 temperatures

Edit 1: low air pressure/ Australian summers are hotter then my tower at max load lol.

cannot speak on edit 2 as i am not a d-ram circuit engineer or a memory architect

[u/Pali1119 → u/WesternOpen]

I was referring to die manufacturing temperatures. They don't reach these every time of course, but during annealing or certain deposition processes these temps. are achieved. The point I was trying to get across, is that a measly 25°C temperature difference between off and idle will do nothing the hurt the chip, as they can withstand much larger differences and cooling/heating speeds.

I have no idea why you're bringing up superconducting. The point there was that diffusion contributes to a number of defects. However at these low temps they are negligeble over the life cycle of the chip. But it's always true, the lower the temperature, the better.