in my opinion, keeping a computer on all the time is fine. as long as the room it's in doesn't turn into an oven or microwave (like mine, and that's why i don't host servers at home). And someone earlier in this thread said that keeping electronics on and warmed up is better. That's true except for memory, your ram slowly uses up more and more of it as processes continue their work, so eventually, your computer will run down to a slug. restart it atleast once a week or better, every 3-4 days. This about it this way, if servers can be left on 24/7...so can your computer (your computer generates probably less heat than a server does)

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There should not be a problem with leaving your computer on for long periods of time. I sometimes have both my computers on for a period of half a month at a time and they work just as good at the end as it did at the beginning. My computers have P4 processors and run on windows xp which is really stable in my experience. When I tried leaving my P3 computer on a few years back with windows 2000 it would freeze overnight. I did take precautions before leaving my computer on for so long, I purchased some stronger fans just so that it would remain at a constant low temperature to prevent anything from overheating.

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Lol! I do that sometimes: I leave the PC on for a few days and then someone (or something) suddenly turn it Off... that makes me mad.... hehehe, I pay for the electricity bill and I don't think it uses lots of energy, I guess the monitor (screen) is the one which spends more energy at all, so I always turn it off when i leave the CPU on...

Anyways, PCs are way cool-.-..-.--.-..--.

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Most of the time I leave mine on for weeks at a time until Microsoft Update restarts it for no reason what so ever. When that happens I get really mad because that means my server was down for awhile and people get mad when that happens.

If you don't want your computer to get sluggish, you should install a RAM freeing program like FreeRamXP Pro. It's free, boosts performance like crazy, and has no spyware.

Another way to make your computer more stable when you leave it on for extended periods of time is to get rid of your integrated graphics (Intel graphics, s3 Prosavage DDR, Ati x200 express...) and get ANY cheap video card to replace it such as the Nvidia Geforce MX4000. I got mine from eVGA for $20 and my systems performance jumped 200% when I left it on (gaming also got better too).

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Um...it doesnt harm your computer in any way as i used to do that many times...it may get hot certain times but that cant be an issue u need to keep it in an open space so that the hot air can be regulated out of the PC
however i strongly prefer one or more restarts during the day ....over all it isnt bad to keep it on 24/7 but its not prefered 2 ..

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If you leave your computer on, eventually it will shut itself down. Basically depending on your setting for "power". You can change these setting by right-clicking whilst view your desktop > and click properties > Screen Saver > and Power. From here you can tune you power limits. (Walkthrough for Windows XP. If i'm not mistaken its not much different from any other version of Windows.)

But leaving your computer on 24/7 wouldn't be so wise. I'm mean..its your home computer right? And if so, NO. That would do nothing but kill your computer's battery when it goes into hibernation, or stand by. (It does it automatically when left idle for the time indicated in the "Power" section.) And if the computer's battery dies, you can't go into hibernation at an later date. So be wise and turn your computer off if you know it won't be used for long periods of time.

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I'm pretty sure leaving your computer on slows it down after some time because of the slowness of hardware--

I think possibly the rpm of the Hard Drive and maybe even the Cpu could be affected.

Plus, it get's really warm. But I think that current day computer would turn themselves off if the computer/laptop got too warm inside? I'm just saying that based of what happens if you spill something over your laptop... It just turns itself down to protect you and furtur harm while everything is running--I think...

I always turn if off before I goto bed Even if I'm gone for a few hours...So when I start it up again I have a fast computer running (less processes and so forth)

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I normally have my computer on all the time I am awake. Considering I have a laptop though if I leave it on for too long and it is on like a rug it burns up and kills the motherboard. It happened to my brother. If I go somewhere I normally just fold down the screen to put it in sleep mode. I only have it shut down when I go to school or if I'm sleeping. There is really no point for me to have it on all day. it only takes 2 minutes for it to start up and log on. I'll leave it on if I want to keep something open though, like if I am working on something.

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I keep a book under my laptop so that it breaths better.

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Laptops esspeshally require time to cool down unless on a flat suface were the fan can curculate and a computer is more better to leave on thecause it has mare room and a bigger fan *aswell as some people a water cooling like me

you see im i COMPTER ADDICT!!!!!

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