Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house Stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: where smart Happens. Hi Marshall Brain with today's question. Is
Speaker 1: it better to turn your computer off when you're not
Speaker 1: using it or to leave it on all the time.
Speaker 1: This is one of those questions where there is no
Speaker 1: single right answer. In other words, it depends on how
Speaker 1: you use your computer. But there are at least three
Speaker 1: situations that force you to leave your computer on twenty
Speaker 1: four hours a day. First, if you have some kind
Speaker 1: of backup solution that runs late at night, you'll need
Speaker 1: to leave your machine on for the backup to occur. Second,
Speaker 1: if you're using your machine is some sort of server,
Speaker 1: you'll need to leave it on. For example, if your
Speaker 1: machine acts as a file server, a print server, a
Speaker 1: web server, or whatever on a land or on the Internet,
Speaker 1: then you need to leave it on all the time. Third,
Speaker 1: if you're running something like sitting at home and you
Speaker 1: want to produce as many results sets as possible, you
Speaker 1: need to leave your machine on all the time. If
Speaker 1: you do not fall into any of those categories, then
Speaker 1: you have a choice about whether or not to leave
Speaker 1: your machine on. One reason you might want to turn
Speaker 1: it off is economic. A typical desktop PC consumes something
Speaker 1: like three hundred watts. Let's assume that you use your
Speaker 1: PC for four hours every day, so the other twenty
Speaker 1: hours it is on would be wasted energy. If electricity
Speaker 1: costs ten cents per kilowatt hour in your area, then
Speaker 1: that twenty hours represents sixty cents a day, and sixty
Speaker 1: cents a day adds up to two d nineteen dollars
Speaker 1: per year, which is a lot of money. It's possible
Speaker 1: to use the energy saving features built into modern machines
Speaker 1: and cut that figure in half. For example, you can
Speaker 1: have the monitor and hard disk power down automatically when
Speaker 1: not in use. You'll still be wasting a hundred dollars
Speaker 1: per year. The argument for leaving your computer on all
Speaker 1: the time is that turning it on and off some
Speaker 1: how stresses the computer's components. For example, when the CPU
Speaker 1: chip is running, you can get quite hot, and when
Speaker 1: you turn the machine off, it cools back down. The
Speaker 1: expansion and contraction from the heat probably has some effect
Speaker 1: on the solder joints holding the chip in place and
Speaker 1: on the microfining details on the chip itself. But here
Speaker 1: are three ways to look at that. First, if it
Speaker 1: were a significant problem, the machines would be failing all
Speaker 1: the time. In fact, hardware is very reliable. Second, I
Speaker 1: don't know a single person who leaves the TV on
Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day. TVs now contain many of
Speaker 1: the same components that computers do. TVs certainly have no
Speaker 1: problems being cycled on and off for years at a time. Third,
Speaker 1: most vendors will sell you a three year full replacement
Speaker 1: warranty for about a hundred and fifty dollars. If you're
Speaker 1: worried about it. Spends some of the money you save
Speaker 1: by turning off the machine and buy a service contract.
Speaker 1: Over three years, you'll come out way ahead. Be sure
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